I don’t like to play with those boys. Their games don’t interest me. Their company doesn’t please me that much either. Their games are silly. I don’t see any challenge in them. I don’t find any purpose in kicking the ball farther than the next boy. Of course, those boys don’t understand why I don’t like to participate in their games. How could they? I always come up with different excuses for not playing with them. Oh, I have a stomach pain. My foot hurts. I have a fever. These are the usual excuses I give them. By the distance I consciously keep between myself and the other kids, I don’t care if you characterize me as an aloof.
How long can I go on and control and hide the turbulence I often feel? I really don’t know. I’ve never made a conscious decision to be different from other kids – never. And this small, lean, fragile body of mine doesn’t house a soul that can easily compromise. See, I’m not a grocer. I can’t haggle with my beliefs like a grocer does with the price of a loaf of bread. That’s why everybody says, “This is the typical uncompromising character of a Turk – a jackass – a man from Tabriz, Azerbaijan.” I often wonder how people can be so reckless by generalizing the character of a group of people this way. It’s beyond me.
Normal or abnormal, I’m who I am – a twelve-year-old boy, born in an extremely fundamentalist religious family in the year of 1184 in the city of Tabriz. Why my parents named me Shams, meaning khorshid [sun], I shall never know.
In my earlier years, before attending a formal class, I spent my time in a daze, amazed, and delighted in the beauty and wonders of the world around me. The majesty of the mountains and the sky, the spectacular colors of the flowers and birds, dazzled me. And when I learned to read the written words on a page, the human stories in the holy book of Ghorân, it took my breath away. Now I attend the classes taught by a great teacher, Shaykh Abu Bakr Sallebâf of Tabriz, a precious saint, who lives in the Charandab district of Tabriz, to the west of the shrine of Imam Hafade. I go there from early morning to sundown every day, at first, because my father forced me. But later, I noticed how knowledgeable, how vast the sea of my teacher’s wisdom was, and most important, how kind he was and I now attend his classes willingly. His knowledge and wisdom give me a powerful sense of imagination, like wings, so that I can fly, soar, and go to exotic places and meet interesting people that otherwise I couldn’t even imagine. The words that come out of his mouth are the whispers of compassion.
I can hardly wait to get to my class in the morning and come the late afternoon I’m sad to leave.
I sit quietly on the carpeted floor across from my teacher. Around me are a pack of noisy boys. Like me, they all dream of becoming men someday. The room could definitely be cleaner and less smelly than it is. But then, I don’t attend the class to enjoy the amenities of the classroom.
I’m certain that the other students are all there because of their fathers’ wishes for them to learn the religious laws, so they can become religious jurists or doorkeepers of some mosque and make a comfortable living in the future. Religion – what a crazy thing it has become! See, how religion, those precious words of that beautiful man of Makeh, the Prophet Mohammad, has become a means to feed fat bodies. Yes, their bodies get fat and their souls starve to death.
Don’t be surprised that a young boy like me can be so opinionated about a complex subject like religion. I’m different from other boys my age. I don’t take pleasure in being different either. In fact, I often wish I could be like the rest – normal, having my head inside my own manger, chewing on my own share of hay.
My teacher opens my blind eyes to see things that otherwise would be hidden from me. I wish he wouldn’t feed me small morsels of knowledge but, instead, let me drink from the flowing river of his wisdom all at once, for I have no patience. I don’t know why I feel this way. Maybe it’s because I haven’t come to this world to waste my time.
Yes, I’m very much preoccupied with this uncontrollable urge to know, “Who am I? What is my essence? To what end have I come to this earth? Where am I headed? What are my roots? And what is my destiny?” It’s because of asking these kinds of questions that people think I’m intoxicated with these unnatural ideas.
My face is thin and pale, surrounded by long curly black hair that doesn’t see water for days. I wear a simple long white-cotton shirt, baggy pants, and worn sandals. I don’t care how I look.
I hear the screech of the door to our house as it opens, and see the shadow of my father’s figure as he comes out. With a growing sense of unease, instinctively I turn and look at him, curious about what he wants. My father is in his early forties – tall and lean, and at times mean. His grey hair matches his long salt-and-pepper beard. He always wears a mask of anger on his square face, even on happy occasions. Wearing a white turban and a dark blue shirt over grey cotton pants, he just stands there, staring at me stonily, then at the playing boys, as if he is weighing something in his mind. I don’t know why he shakes his head as he sits on the other platform across from me. Oh, yes, I know. He is annoyed and, like a grand judge, he’s now going to sit there and be judgmental about everything.
My father is an angry man. He is a devoutly religious man. I don’t believe he has much faith in people, particularly in me. He is fierce and often I’m afraid of his fierceness, yet unable to stop loving him. I hope when I grow up, I won’t inherit his anger. He constantly objects to the way I look, dress and behave. But his objections always go in one ear and out the other.
“Why aren’t you playing with your friends? Must you be always alone?” he asks in a Persian that is heavily accented with a Turkish dialect. But I’m glad that his question is free of malice and anger.
I look up and stare at him earnestly. I don’t see the charming smile that normally eases over his lips when he’s in one of his rare good moods. I’d like to leave his questions with no answer, but I can’t. Because he won’t leave me alone until he gets a satisfactory reply. May be because, he’s a Turk.
“I don’t feel like playing,” I answer him quietly, trying not to be argumentative, and go back to my reading. From the corner of my eye I see my teacher, Shaykh Abu Akbar, a tall frail man in his late sixties. With a cane in his hand, dressed similarly to my father, the poor old man walks slowly towards our house. Father doesn’t notice him. I’m at first perplexed seeing my teacher coming to our house unexpectedly, but then I’m pleased to see him approaching us.
“Why are you behaving like this?” I’m targeted by my father’s sharp words, his special style of inquisition. “For you to grow up doesn’t mean we must suffer so much humiliation. ...You’re not insane, are you?” He pauses for a moment, and I’m glad that this might be his last question. But I’m wrong. He goes on and asks me another one by pointing at the closed book on my lap “What’s that you’re reading?”
“The thoughts of a great wise man, a Sufi,” I respond, maintaining a tone of respect in my voice.
“Don’t you think that you’re too young for that sort of subject?” he asks.
“I didn’t know one must be a certain age to read what one might like,” I respond with no deliberate intention of being sarcastic.
In the absence of my father’s attention, my teacher arrives at the house with a notable grace. He leans his frail body on his cane and remains motionless, tentatively listening to the unpleasant exchanges of words between Father and me.
“Why are you so full of anguish? Why do you torment yourself?” father nags at me.
I really don’t have an answer that would satisfy him. His questions brew a sense of frustration in me that if unchecked could turn into feelings of resentment that in turn could easily ferment into full-blown anger.
“Must your clothes be made of silver for you to be happy?” he asks deridingly.
I swallow my anger, look up at my father with all the affection I can muster and respond, “Dear father, I wish someone would take these simple clothes I wear and give them to someone who’s naked. I honestly