Before his final hour, Izzat Al-Ghazzawi appears in his novel ‘Al-Hallaj Comes at Night’, and Al-Hallaj with his rich meanings, he is the Sufi poet whose limbs were cut off, his head was cut off and hung on the gate of Baghdad on charges of heresy.

History immortalized the character of Al-Hallaj and threw his killers into the lowest depths. I read about him at length in history and literature and his spiritual poetry possessed me, as he chants:

I wrote, and I did not write to you, but I wrote to my soul without a book,

and that is because the soul does not differentiate between it and its lovers by a separation of speech,

and every book issued by you reaches you without a response, my response.

In the poetic play “The Tragedy of Al-Hallaj” by Salah Abdel Sabour, he focused on two chapters, “The Word” and the second chapter “Death”, which is one of the most wonderful things I have read and has political dimensions and the relationship between the authority allied with the clergy who are trying to exploit
poverty and kill love and mercy through excommunication. I

have the novel by Izzat Al-Ghazawi in my hands, and as they say, there is no age or history for the novel, which lives as a result of its creative uniqueness and continues to survive and raises more dazzling questions, as no one cares about the history of the novel “Season of Migration to the North” by Tayeb Salih, and for the sake of pedantry, his nationality may be mentioned, but his true homeland is the world of creativity as an expression of alienation, and I do not care at all about the history of the novel “Al-Harafish” by the great novelist Naguib Mahfouz.

Accordingly, Izzat Al-Ghazawi may not have received much attention for his novel, because his sudden departure came in an era of literary drought accompanied by the decline in the Oslo era.

Knowing that I am interested in the world of novels and missed reading Izzat Al-Ghazzawi, but today I gained reading a great text that is consistent with our refuge in a time of regression and the decli
ne of ideologies and the effects of the Oslo era and the decline of thought, philosophy and great dreams.

My entry into Al-Ghazzawi’s narrative was through the title that attracted me, so I entered its world, which is lived by the Palestinian ‘Ayyub’ with all its symbolism and reality as a scholarship student studying English literature in America and returning with his American wife, Catherine, to the shed of his father, Sheikh Abdul-Muti, in the village of Umm al-Rumman.

He searches through his father’s legacy, Sheikh Abdul-Muti, to find a manuscript written in his father’s handwriting entitled ‘Al-Hallaj Comes at Night.’

The writer begins to present the childhood of Hussein Al-Mansur Al-Hallaj, his mother dedicated him to the Sufi Imam “Ibn Al-Junayd”, his mother accompanied him from his village “Tustar” on foot to Baghdad, and reveals between the lines the author’s journey with us towards the tolerant faith manifested in Sufism, he presents a comparison made by Ayoub, professor of comparative literatur
e, about three forms of religiosity: –

First: – People’s relationship with religion is a relationship of attraction and repulsion, and they see that forgiveness is broader than punishment.

Second: – People resort to fanaticism and see the rulings literally.

The third form: – God is the light of the heart, and you see people going to the light.

The narrator focuses on the fact that Al-Hallaj is what his father, Sheikh Abdul-Mutti, depicts as the third option. Ayoub establishes this method that took Al-Hallaj out of the injustice that befell him and led him towards “solutions” and saw Al-Hallaj intertwined with his depths.

In a sarcastic reference, “Even if Al-Hallaj in our time would not even receive a trial, even if it were not unfair.”

The narrator lists Ayoub’s third reading of his father’s manuscript about Al-Hallaj, avoiding mentioning Al-Hallaj’s life, wife and children, but rather making him closer to Christ. The writer admits, through Ayoub, that ten years of study in creative writing did not giv
e him the ability to put forth the philosophical ideas raised in this summary.

Ayoub’s journey to learn English and his answer to the question: What do the poems of Shelley, Frost and Dickinson have in common?

Ayoub’s answer was: “The final destination.” Here is the connection between his study and Al-Hallaj in “The final destination, solutions and intermingling with its depths.” These are the questions that inhabit the narrative with authority.

The novelist’s ability to diversify the text and include the chapter of Catherine as she writes her memoirs in the form of notes.

The most important of which is the death of “Old Amon” at the age of one hundred and three, keeping a key and a treasury, and the blatant contradiction was that she brought the old women of the settlement to have sex with the young men of Deir al-Ruman in exchange for money, stripping the old woman of her purity.

Catherine advises him to leave the publication of Al-Hallaj’s novel to someone else because he loves, hates and contradicts
the manuscript, although he has read it more than ten times, an admission from the writer about the difficulty of understanding Al-Hallaj’s Sufism and philosophy.

In the next chapter, entitled “Al-Hallaj Comes at Night”, written by Hajj Abdul-Muti bin Ramadan Al-Rawi, he aims to show that the author is a sheikh in his nature and instinct, who can understand the depth of Sufism, which requires an awareness of its language, concepts and invocations that only those who know the language of Sufis possess, and avoid falling into the traps of the Salafis who declared Al-Hallaj an infidel.

The writer tries to address the principle of incarnation, which he read as “God is the light of the heavens and the earth” and stops at “The parable of His light is like a niche within which is a lamp”.

It goes back to the beginning of the journey of the child Al-Hallaj from his village of Tustar with his mother, and their destination is Baghdad, the city of myth, crystal lights, mosques, and goods. The Baghdad Gate is a place
where those coming and going meet, and gifts are exchanged between slaves, eunuchs, female singers, slave girls, money, musical instruments, and others. This is an insight into the immersion in the world of life. He describes the goods of Sudanese sandalwood, the smells of Bukhara, crystals, powder to tighten the vagina, and the honey of a boy’s eunuchs.

He narrates the memories of the boy Al-Hallaj and his failure to learn the trade of tanning and sweets, and others.

They arrive in the city of Baghdad, and the coup against the Caliph, and his eyes are blinded and a new Caliph is appointed, which is a reference to the prevailing political situation.

They arrive at Sheikh Junaid Mosque, which she leaves because it is dedicated to serving a mosque.

The novel touches on the story of hunger, the boy who steals a loaf of bread, and the boy Al-Hallaj buys bread and distributes it in the corner to the poor.

The Sheikh warns him because after forty years of service the people of the market ‘think he is crazy’ an
d his phrases are meaningful and revealing ‘Do not let your eyes go blind when the light of the heavens emanates from the lofty sky: ‘No one can imprison knowledge when it boils in its volcano’.

‘There is one source we walk to in our hearts’

and phrases come from him until someone asks him: Are you a Qarmatian?

The writer goes to the Sufi revelation on pages 115 and 116

of the novel ‘The cities we see but they do not see us’ etc.

And finally the trial and the end of Al-Hallaj by cutting off his limbs and neck and burning his body,

and I have an opinion about killing Al-Hallaj and his heresy that stems from my readings, analysis and passion, that he was a political opponent and a preacher of reform in the shadow of the corruption of the government, and that the scholars of the palace slandered him.

A novel worth reading, it raises many questions and encourages searching for answers, especially his journey to India in search of nirvana, and questions of existence, life, politics, mysticism, tolerance and
humanity based on love.

Source: Maan News Agency