A Muslim Suicide

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382 15 When Sitt Umama left, I spent the entire time till the end of Sha‘ban secluded in my residence, performing various rituals and devotions, looking out for early signs of danger, and surrendering to a variety of daydreams and nightmares. Some of the memories were packed full of disturbing images while others were calmer and more comforting. They would emerge from the deep recesses of my memory, gleam brightly for a moment, and then disappear again deep into an abyss. How could I possibly hang on to such memories and even record them when my hand felt almost paralyzed and my entire body was weak and out of sorts? Since I was spending so much time in seclusion and eating very little, Yasir took it upon himself to serve me instead of Ghaylan. Every time he brought me food or information, he would ask me anxiously how I was. I would try to calm him down and eat as much as I could. “Sir,” he told me one evening somewhat diffidently, “I’m stopping your students from coming to see you and telling them that you’re away. I’m doing it because you need to be safe, and I realize that you want to stay in seclusion. That’s particularly the case since I’ve noticed some strangers among them, and I’m not too happy about their being here. I think it would be a good idea for you to move to Al-Shushtari’s room where I can keep my eye on you. There’s a hiding place in it that no one knows about except me. By the right of the One who has life and death in His hands, I’ll never allow you to fall into the hands of any tyrant, even though he may pluck my eyes out or cut off my limbs.” I shook the man’s hand and offered prayers of thanks to him. I agreed to go along with his plan and asked him to offer my apologies to the students. Before leaving, he handed me a letter that he said he had received from a traveler whose name he did not reveal. I opened it, hoping dearly that it might be from either A Muslim Suicide | 383 Abu ‘Ali al-Nasir or Khalid from Tangier and his wife, ‘Abla. However, I discovered that it was from the Sufi poet Najm al-din ibn Isra’il of Damascus. He had prefaced it with a wonderful poem in which he extolled me and my religious position. I did not respond to his letter because I felt exhausted; indeed I found it impossible to write anything at all. God is witness to what I am saying, He being the most merciful of all. So on the third day of Ramadan I moved to my new quarters. Once there, I felt a new sense of security under the protection of that holy man, Al-Shushtari— may God cure him and grant him what he wishes and desires! Quite by chance, I found the small dagger that I had hidden in my trouser belt when I was hiding in the cellar in the orchards by the Solomon’s Spring and once again hid it in my belt in case of unforeseen problems. In this room the hiding place consisted of another cellar, this time smaller than the other one; no one could possibly notice the entrance unless they were shown where it was. Acting on Yasir’s instructions, I had to use it twice during Ramadan: that happened when there was a hue and cry by the door of the residence, and it emerged afterward, so Yasir informed me, that the noise was caused by my own students and followers. I also took to going out to the sacred enclosure at night; I did it three times in all, accompanied and protected by Ghaylan. On the Night of Power, which, as the Qur’an says, is “better than a thousand months,” I made my way alone to the Ka‘ba shrine. I did the circumambulation in disguise and ran between Safa and Marwa. My prayer was that my Lord, even in this final struggle, would enable me to strive toward the best arrangement possible, my primary state, and then He would still think well of me. My other prayer was that my Lord would afford me a gentle entry to the process of eliminating all trace and memory of my existence, through...