Salam Layla 10

Layla, I saw beautiful palaces. No, I didn’t see them in a dream. I saw them with my own eyes. I saw them on television. On Jordanian TV. These palaces were designed by Arabian minds and built by Arabian hands in the heart of the desert in today Jordan. One would love to have dinner or foutour in the hall of one of those palaces, which were built thirteen centuries ago. In fact, many people –who have the money– do go there to visit not only the desert palaces but other places as well. The problem is that many of those visitors are not Muslim. Therefore there has been talk recently in Jordan of whether to permit the sale of alcohol to such visitors during the holy month of Ramadan. Those who were for said that what counted after all was tourists’ money, which would benefit the country’s economy. Those who were against argued that the country’s moral values were more important than any money that would come from tourism. This is not peculiar to Jordan, though.

Oil-rich states excepted, most of our Arab countries are poor. Yet, we continue to delude ourselves that we are in the process of developing and that one day we will become new “Tigers”. The problem is that when you look at our economy, you find that –for most countries– it depends on agriculture, which in turn depends on pluviometry, which is increasingly anything but reliable. Around agriculture have grown agro-industries that have failed to ensure food self-sufficiency for us. We still import most of our food. But to do so, we need money, we need foreign currency. So we rely on tourism and money transfer by our expatriates.

That money, however, does not come alone. Both tourists and many expatriates bring with them not only the money, but also social values and attitudes that are considered here as alien. With time those social values and attitudes become normal, and so more and more local people here ape the rich visitors. This in turn brings about so-called extremism.

Many so-called extremists believe they can change the situation through politics. So many of them took part in elections here and there in the hope of forming a government that would fix all the problems. The problem is that the problems are too many to be solved by anybody––all the more so since the approach to these problems is very much the same on either side.

Of that I’ll tell you more, insha Allah.

Good night, Layla!

Salam Layla 9

What shall I tell you tonight, Layla? Well, there’s a sad story, I’m sorry. Six years ago a number of Muslim men flew two airliners into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in America. Like most of the people who followed the event live on TV I didn’t see the first plane hit the first tower. But I did see the second as it crashed into the second tower. The fateful encounter looked like a deadly kiss. It was an unearthly kiss that brought death to thousands on that day in America proper and to many more afterwards in other parts of the world. Paradoxically, that deadly kiss also brought life to thousands of souls in America itself and elsewhere.

After that day we heard the American President speak like Pharaoh and we heard Sheïkh Bin Ladin speak like Moses. And there followed two wars, which made the daily headlines. In the evening news, on the Internet, in pubs and bars, people started talking almost daily about those Muslim terrorists and all those other Muslims “who hate us”. It was hard to swallow the fact that those terrorists used the Western technology to fight the West. Even less understandable was the fact that people who were born and raised in the West went to join the terrorists in their fight against the West. Even more maddening was the fact that people in the West began embracing Islam in their thousands after 9/11. America suddenly discovered that one of her children was a full-fledged imam who spoke Arabic better than many Arabs, who knew the Koran and the Hadith by heart–which only some Arabs and Muslims did– , and who was duly authorized to issue fatwas. He was even received by the American President. Other American imams became stars and were invited to speak on American TVs.

It was then discovered that American Muslims showed their fellow brothers and sisters in Islam how to create Islamic websites and how to run Islamic satellite TV channels.

That’s history repeating itself in other ways.

We all in the Muslim world –not only “the terrorists”– use Western things, such as the radio, the telephone, the television, the car, the presser cooker, tab water, electricity, etc, etc. But didn’t the West use our Oriental things when the Ottoman Empire was in much of Europe? Now one of us here would find the same pleasure in using a mobile, or eating pizza as one of those who knew the Ottomans found in using their clothes or drinking their coffee. In fact, a European of that time would feel important if he wore boots with high knees the same way someone of us would feel now when going out in a Western suit and tie. That’s the old rule that the vanquished ape the victors.

But even now some Westerners are happy to wear Oriental clothes, although the West is still considered to be “higher” than the Orient, including the Muslim world. That’s freedom of choice.

Those people did not only choose to dress à l’orientale, but they also, and more importantly, embraced a faith that is “technically” at least in confrontation with the West. Why so? Simply because they found themselves in this faith. It brought them life in some way. It gave a meaning to their lives. It gave them hope. By embracing this faith –and of course I’m talking about Islam– those people only wanted to be devoted to the good of their country and their society. They know that crimes –ranging from drug use to adultery– are against their faith. In fact, many of those Western Muslims aren’t happy with the way Islam is practised in the Muslim world. They see a lot of un-Islamic things going on in the Muslim world.

True, a few of those did join the guys fighting the West, just as many Europeans joined the Greek Resistance in its fight against the (Muslim) Turks to chase them out of (Judaeo Christian) Greece. And many Muslims (such as Sharif al-Hussein) joined the (non-Muslim) British in their fight against the (Muslim) Turks.

Going back to the subject of Western technology, no one argues that aluminium, petrol, electricity and the ball-point pen are four great Western tools that have revolutionized our lives. Thanks for that. But the West too should be grateful to the Arabs for Arabian tools that revolutionized the Western way of life at some point in history. The compass is one of those Arabian things, but not the only one. The West used work by Muslim geographers, historians, travellers, explorers, and so on and so forth, which eventually resulted in their centuries-long occupation of Muslim territories. Besides, who made Bill Gates so rich? Wasn’t it the Arabs who introduced the figure 0 into Europe, and then the 0 became an integral part of computer science. Computer programming language is based on two basic figures: 0 and 1. So Bill Gates, and many others like him, should thankfully remember that they are indebted to the Arabs for half of their fortune!

I’ll tell you more. But that’s all for now.

Good night, Layla!

Salam Layla 8

One of the beautiful things about our Ramadan is that it is celebrated all over the world: from Malmö in the North to Johansberg in the South, from Tokyo in the East to San Fransisco in the West. In Baghdad and Islamabad, in Kabul and Istanbul, in Washington and Wellington, in Nablus and Los Angeles, in Cairo and Ontario, in Warsaw and Arkansas, in Mecca and Dakka, in Izmir and Tangier, in Aukland and Portland, in Berlin and Beijing, everywhere you go you’ll find people –no matter how many they are– fasting from dawn to dusk, asking Allah’s forgiveness. They remind the world that it’s Allah Who is the Lord of the World, not America or NATO. Anyone can fast Ramadan. Even Christians join their Muslim neighbours in the fast of Ramadan in some parts of the world just as Muslims share with them Christmas and any other celebrations. They don’t care of those who kill each other in the name of God, be they in the right or in the wrong. They only care about pleasing God, Who, they know, does not want them to starve themselves for the sake of starving, but to educate them, to make them feel hungry and thirsty so that they realize how much God is bountiful towards man by providing him with all kinds of food and drink, which he tends to take for granted, and therefore they should give thanks to the One Who made them and provided them with all means of subsistence. By feeling hungry and thirsty themselves, those who fast would remember that while they are expecting to eat and drink at iftar at dusk, many people just won’t have anything to eat that day or won’t be able to eat every day, and they would realize that water, which is taken for granted in many countries, is a scarce commodity in many others. By fasting, those who fast remember God for hours and days, Him Who always remembers the faithful. And many, many people come to Allah during Ramadan. At no other time of year are mosques more full and lively than in Ramadan. At no other time of year is the Holy Koran more read than in Ramadan. At no other time of year are the poor, the homeless, the orphans remembered and cared for than in Ramadan. In Ramadan mercy and compassion descend upon the Earth. In Ramadan curiosity arises among those who believe in Scientology or those who believe they descended from a monkey, or those who believe the World was made by chance, or those who believe there’s just no God and no life after death.

In Ramadan, many “Muslims” don’t fast––not because they are ill, but simply because they believe they are free. They don’t care about God. They don’t care about Heaven and Hell. They believe they are free to do whatever they wish. And yet God will give them a chance. They are “free” to try whatever they like––as long as they are alive. And if they repent in time, they will find God the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate. If they remain obstinate, they will see what happens after death. God is not in need of anybody worshipping Him or fasting for the sake of Him. But God is happy to see people from all races and colours, from all walks of life, wake up before dawn to have their souhour, and then at sunrise they go to their work in Casablanca, in Cairo, in Kwalalumpur, in Paris, in Kanu, in Haidarabad, in New York or in any other part of the world, and they keep fasting during their working hours, and then they come back home and sit with family and wait for the dusk prayer, and then have iftar together, and then go to taraweeh prayers and ask Allah the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate, for forgiveness and for a place in Heaven.

See, Layla, our Ramadan is lovely, too, isn’t it?

Good night, Layla!

Salam Layla 7

Our Ramadan is beautiful, though, Layla. Why shouldn’t it be since our hearts are still alive despite all that’s happened since your time? Yes, it’s true we’re no longer the lords of the world. Yes, it’s true we are scattered into over fifty different countries. But our hearts are one because our God is One.

Unfortunately, we no longer speak the same tongue, the beautiful Arabic in which you spoke with your family and with your lover. We now use that Arabic –that we call Classical Arabic– only at school, at mosque and in the Administration. Even in the media people do not always speak in that beautiful Arabic. In my country, Morocco, there’s at least a magazine fully published in Moroccan Arabic. And you have Algerian Arabic, Libyan Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, Syrian Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, Yemeni Arabic, and everybody has his own Arabic. If only we all knew the original Arabic in which the Koran was revealed! You needn’t wonder at it, since most of us have never been to school, for only at school can one learn the Arabic which you learnt at home as your mother-tongue. Now that Arabic is nobody’s mother-tongue anymore. That’s why most of us simply don’t know the Koran. And most of those of us who do read the Koran don’t understand it the way you and your people did. So the Koran has had little impact on our lives for a long time now. Even now we only know some of it through our centuries-long customs and traditions. And that’s one of the two most salient causes of our decline.

Yet, this tenuous connection with the Koran is far from being the only cause of our decline. The second biggest cause, you know, is the struggle for power. Iraq, and you know what Iraq was like, is now in a mess because people there are still fighting each other for power. It’s the same old greed for authority, the same old love of the throne, the same old craziness for worldly glory. Now we are so many countries because of that craziness. Each country has its own Arabic, its own “caliph”, its own army, its own frontiers.

And yet we are all one because God is One. We all read the same Koran. We go to mosque. We fast and break the fast with the same pleasure. And of that I’ll tell you more, Inshallah.

Good night, Layla!

Salam Layla 6

And here comes Ramadan, Layla. Or rather it’ll start tomorrow. So we are cleaning our homes. I mean we clean what’s inside the house. No problem if the street outside is dirty. The street doesn’t belong to us. The strangers who visit us will judge us only by the inside of our house, and sometimes by the façade. This is what the strangers see. Anyone who doesn’t live with us is a stranger, not only distant family and the neighbours, but even our siblings and offspring who live in other places. So we must care about them all. We must show them that we are clean, that we belong to the world of today, since we have a good television set, a new refrigerator––in sum, all that important, respectable families should have. Those strangers don’t see beyond our appearances. They just see the floors, the walls, the furniture, the crockery, the television etc, etc, etc. They don’t see what’s in our minds and hearts. So we don’t care much about cleansing our hearts and minds. If we smile at our guests, that’s all they expect from us. We hide our problems as best we can until the strangers are gone.

And then, we can shout at one another, we can insult one another, we can invoke all kinds of evil on one another’s head, because we are used to that throughout the year. What’s the difference between Ramadan and the rest of the year? The only difference is that in Ramadan we spend more than usual, because we eat more than usual. But we remain the same people in the house. So someone has to assert his/her authority over the others.

And, in the evening, you know, we “all” gather round the table. We sit at the table while watching TV. And we should be careful while eating, because we laugh a lot. Our TV brings us the best comedians with their latest, and so we have a good laugh. We forget our problems. We feel that we are like the others. Because we see and hear the same thing as the whole country and we laugh at the same thing. And that’s the happiness that Ramadan brings us.

And after dinner, you know, our girls and boys will go downtown to enjoy themselves until midnight. Yes, our girls, too. What’s wrong with it? Everybody’s doing that. Why should a brother ask his sister where she’s going? Why should even her father ask her where she’s going or where she has been? We don’t live in the past. We should behave just like the other people in the world of today.

See, Layla, how times have changed?

Many, many years ago, you know, a friend told me this story:

“I met a European couple, who said to me, ‘When we wanted to come to Morocco as tourists we gave our bathing costume and trunks to our friends back there, because we assumed that we wouldn’t need them once we got into Morocco, which is a Muslim state. But as we arrived in Tangiers we were floored. We saw Moroccans in their bathing trunks at Tangiers beach!’”

Also in Tangiers, when I was a student there, I once got into my school library and found an American woman in her early thirties dressed in a Moroccan jellaba and head-scarf. She was sitting at a table and reading the Holy Koran. Around her were Moroccan female students in t-shirts and tight jeans!

Good night, Layla!

Salam Layla 5

You know, Layla, in the Capital of my country many people have attempted suicide, some by burning themselves, others by taking poison. These people were not political prisoners. They were simply unemployed people asking the State to find them jobs. Some of those are still there, in the Capital, waiting for the new government to employ them. Some have been there for years now. Some will stay there for years to come. Why? Because, as students, they had only one thing in mind: to finish school and then get a job.

As a non-government teacher, I have taught in various schools, including two government schools, and outside school. The majority, if not all, of the students I’ve had had one thing in mind: to finish school and then get a job. It all looks as if they all were programmed in the same way. Education (at school) is meaningless, pointless, useless, tasteless if it doesn’t lead to a job after graduation.

When they meet after graduation, graduates don’t have anything to talk about other than asking one another if they had found a job. In the family, in the neighbourhood, an unemployed person is worth nothing until he finds a job. A sweeper who has a laughable income becomes more important than a person with a PhD who has failed to find a job.

Yesterday, I met a government English teacher who has been teaching in High School for more than a decade now, and who could not write a single line in Word Format. And that’s just one example. I know university English professors who know nothing about blogs or discussion forums. And yet, in society, they are important, because they have a steady income, some have a car, and a house. They are married and have children. (For those are the signs of success.) Their job? Well, as I said, they teach. They sell English as a grocer would sell vegetables. What about culture? Well, does culture earn you money? If it does, it’s great. Otherwise, why kill yourself by inches?

When these people –I mean these teachers and others like them– have a problem, what do they do? Well, they ask their mothers, who have never been to school. A woman university professor would go to the same marabout her illetrate mother has been used to consulting.

So who’s to blame? I won’t blame anybody. I just dream of a school in which people would be “more” creative. I dream of a school in which both the teacher and the student will have enough time for reading and discussing things. In the schools I know students spend most of the day in the classroom. Their teachers give them an ever-increasing number of books and handouts to read, that they simply –for most of them– won’t read. They just don’t have enough time for reading. They can’t read at home, because they have to eat, to watch TV, to play with friends and to sleep. On the day of the exam, those who haven’t read their books and handouts will copy from those few who have done their homework. The result: graduates who know hardly anything about the World. All they know is that there’s a STATE that MUST find them jobs.

Now, what if there were some more time for reading at school, not at home, I wonder? Why should students spend all their time inside crowded classrooms? What if they were allowed to spend half of the time taking lessons in the classroom and the other half either reading in the library, or even in the courtyard, or discussing among themselves what they read? What if the teachers themselves were allowed – if not forced– to spend some of their time at school reading and learning skills, such as typing a text in Word Format? As simple as that. That’s the school I dream of. A school in which a student could learn much about the World, about life, about problems and about ways of solving one’s problems creatively without relying on the State to do everything for them? I know I’m just dreaming. But unlike many colleagues and ex-classmates, I don’t rely on my government to do everything for me. See, Layla, what I mean? That’s my dream school.

Good night, Layla.

École de rêve

Salam Layla 4

Last time I told you about our television. Now, Layla, there’s not only our television that’s so bad. There are so many bad televisions around the world. What’s bad about television, if you ask me, is that spending too much time watching it will kill in the viewer all power of dreaming.

By watching television everyday one might get the feeling that “successful” people are already there––filling the TV screen with their glamour and beatific smiles, and there’s just nothing left for a poor televiewer to dream of.

A poor girl might feel that she’d never become like her (famous, glamorous) idolized actress (who has millions of fans all over the world). What would she do then? I don’t know, but perhaps –and I’m sorry to say it– she might probably turn to cheap sex. Some girls, you know, sell their body to Internet sex websites “businessmen”. Others would display their bodily treasures on a personal blog or a skyblog. Another group would post their best (and less impudent) pics and intimate personal information on “professional” sites specialized in finding people mates and pen-pals. What about males?

Well, they too join in the chorus. They too join in the sex game, since it’s easier than obtaining a university degree. That’s why we have more porn stars than people like Bill Gates or J.K Rawlings. And there’s no sex –or almost– without drugs. Cocaine, Marijuana and the like are easy ways to make one feel that he/she has “fulfilled” all his/her dreams. Otherwise, how could one have even the opportunity to dream? Not by watching television, anyway.

In your time, Layla, there was no television. But there were schools. People went to school to learn, but also to dream. When you are alone reading a book of history or a book of poetry or a novel, or any kind of book, you find yourself thinking of something as you read. Television won’t leave you that privilege. Only at school one can still hope to find the opportunity to dream at leisure. But when I say school, I don’t mean the schools I know. I’ll tell you more next time.

Good night, Layla.

Salam Layla 3

Layla, you know, I don't dream of a world without problems. I don't dream of a world without poverty. I don't dream of a world without tears. I only dream of a world without disorder.

Where does one begin to end disorder? Certainly not by simply closing down the welder's shop in our neighbourhood or by chasing the unwanted animals out of the two cities. Disorder can only be rooted out by upbringing.

In the past, upbringing started in the family. Today upbringing starts on television. In the past, kids would look at their parents and listen as they spoke. Today, everybody looks at the television set and all silence one another if a handsome actor is speaking or a ravishing songstress is singing. Today the Koran is television. The Bible is television. The Truth is television. Happiness is television. And if you don't look like the people you like on television, then you don't belong to the world of today. That's perhaps why the Taleban banned television.

But television could be wonderful. It could help put the disordered world into order. It could make our world a better world. It could do all that and more if it weren't like the one I know. The television I know could only put the already disordered world into a little more disorder.

How could there be order when a girl could win in just half an hour by citing the maximum of names of songs and singers on television more than a distinguished engineer could earn in sixty days or more? How could there be order when a schoolboy sees with his own eyes and hears with his own ears on television that it would be much better for him to be a long-distance runner than a doctor in his own private hospital in the country's biggest city? How could there be order when illiterate women cooks and amateur teenage singers become TV stars while the country's finest minds are "remembered" only when their death is announced to the press?

See, Layla? No need for the Taleban to ban television in my country. I won't watch it, anyway, until I hear that someone like you, all spruced up in the so-much-missed Arabian fashion, would be there to read the news or to present my country's finest writers, thinkers, engineers and uncorrupted politicians.

Meanwhile, I'll keep thinking of you. I'll keep writing to you. I'll keep dreaming of a better world, of which I'll tell you more later.

Good night, Layla.

Salam Layla 2

Ours is a tiny neighbourhood on the outskirts of a small town. Just a few houses away, there’s a welder’s shop. Despite the terrible noise that comes out of this shop all day and part of the night, no one can speak to the welder. Why? Simply because he gave a bribe to someone who gave him “permission” to open up shop in a neighbourhood that until years ago had been envied for its peace and quiet. This is what we call disorder: the wrong thing in the wrong place.

This isn’t the problem of our neighbourhood alone, though. There’s disorder everywhere: in our neighbourhoods, in our towns, in our bigger cities, in our families, in our schools, in our countries and in the whole world.

Recently a newspaper quoted people from a chic district in Marrakesh as saying that they had been fed up with the mules that roamed about the place, entered the splendid villas and filled the streets with their filth. People from Benslimane, a small town near ours, told the same newspaper quite the same thing about animals behaving like “gangs” in their streets. Why? Maybe because it’s very normal, since that happens everywhere –not only in Marrakesh and Benslimane. You’d find that in Cairo, in Manilla, in Islamabad and Haidarabad.

What’s bad is to find a stray mule roaming about a rich man’s palace or in a five-star hotel or in Al Akhawayne University. No problem if a dirty mule entered a mosque, a government school, a football stadium or even a wedding party.

See, Layla, why I’m thinking of you? I’m choking. I want to breathe fresh air. I want to read poetry. I want to dream of a better world.

No, Layla, when I say a better world, I don’t mean America. Everybody knows what happened during and after Katrina, and how thousands found themselves in a jail in which no one could tell who was there for parking a car in the wrong place and who was there for killing nine souls. Nor do I mean Great Britain. Everybody knows what happens there at Christmas time, when most divorce cases are declared. Nor do I mean China, of course. Everybody knows that if you happen to be a Chinese of thirty years of age today and you haven’t made a lot of money, you’d curse yourself and burn your nerves and tell people lies. Also I’m choking with the air in my own small town, what if I were in Beijing? No, Layla, when I say a better world, I mean something else. That’s what I’ll tell you later.

Good night, Layla.

Salam Layla 1

In his book, “Tawq al-Hamama”, Ibn Hazam says that he was astounded to hear from the mouth of someone he knew well that he had fallen in love with a woman he had only seen in a dream one night! What would Ibn Hazam say if he knew that I am now thinking of you, a woman I only read about in books and papers? Maybe he would assail me with a string of questions, to which he’d get no answers. But I didn’t fall in love with you, to be honest. I only like you. I only feel jealous when I read about you. I only sigh when I compare you with the women I know. I only wish you were alive today so that I could see you with my own eyes and hear you with my own ears.

I would love to see you teaching me Arabic grammar at school or reading the evening news on Aljazeera TV or speaking to a reporter on Alarabiya from an al-Anbar hamlet. But –alas– I can only see you in my daydreams. You have made me a strange voyeur.

I don’t know how many men were hooked on you when you were alive. But I know one of them. It’s this poet who went crazy about you.

I wouldn’t have heard of you hadn’t you been the woman who drove this poet crazy. I wouldn’t have heard of this “crazy” poet hadn’t his poetry been so beautiful. I know that poets are more often than not more in love with their poetry than with the people they love. But by going mad this man who wrote such beautiful poems about you gave you and us all the proof that he did love you.

I too would go mad if I fell in love with a woman like you who’d refuse to marry me. But I wish there were such a woman that I could see and meet and write poems about. No, there isn’t any. That’s why I’m thinking of you.

But how many other men would you haunt the way you’ve been haunting me? Not so many, I suppose. Today you’d have to be Haifa Wehbe, Nancy Ajram or Ruby to have a place in a man’s heart. Even married men would forget all about their wives and rush to see you as you turn the males’ heads and hearts with your tight jeans and shining breasts. Even bearded men who have just come back from mosque or are at prayer would hasten to take a furtive glance at you. You would be a star wherever you go. And everybody –not only a poet or two– would love you.

Otherwise, you’d have to work as a waitress in a café. Then men, single and married alike, would rush to your café, not to have any kind of drink, but just to have a look at your beautiful body. They would be happy if you smiled or joked with them, and if they are lucky and have money, they would borrow you for a night.

I am sorry I am writing to you in English. Yes, I feel ashamed. I am ashamed because I can afford to say tawmun instead of thawmun, but I can’t afford to say toot instead of tooth. And yet I will keep writing to you in English, for I have a lot more to say to you.

Good night, Layla.