Essay Title - Seminar in Fiction Writing: ‘Amira’
The shadows of night fell cold as darkness swept across the land from west to east. The refugees wept as they marched up the road, leaving their homes and lives behind, escaping with few possessions as the paramilitary soldiers, tanks, and armoured trucks moved in to occupy their villages. Behind them, behind the rows of ragged men, women, and children, plumes of smoke and pillars of fire spiralled into the black sky. The soldiers were looting their homes, mosques, and churches, then burning them to the ground.
Beyond green hills and deep valleys, my truck rumbles up the main road to the capital city of Sarajevo. The winds coldly breathe. What has happened here? What has happened? From east to west, I see the refugee camps, sprawling across the landscape. The tents and makeshift houses are numberless: They continue on and on from horizon to horizon. Displaced from their homes and lands, they possess nothing but the clothes on their backs and the few supplies they managed to carry with them before the armies arrived. I have been to too many camps: It becomes the same story after a time. I see the same empty sorrow in everyone’s eyes—in everyone’s faces. The sorrow of losing loved ones, losing their homes, losing their livelihoods and everything which they have known. They wait to return to their homes. They wait to return to their lives. Far from the dirtied lanes of the refugee camps. Far from the dirtied camps.
A decade ago, the civil war began when the authoritarian President Marîd Ibra-himović died, and power fractured amongst the conficting, competing parties. Wars are not simple affairs: Myriad matters arise. After the death of Ibrahimović, no-one—either politician or party—possessed the power, prestige, and charisma to keep the country united.
With conflicts between secularists, Salafists, Phalangists, Socialists, and number-less other political factions, the state disintegrated, and the country fractured into competing comunnities and warring enclaves. Each faction promulgated its vision of the future: ‘Freedom of Politics, Freedom of Religion’; ‘One Nation, One God’; ‘Workers, Farmers, Everyone, Unite!’
Above the city, darkness recedes into the horizons of the heavens; as the first rays break, atrocities are revealed: Battered corpses lie bloodied beside the long and serpentine road. Waves of corpses roll on and on, shot by soldiers as they ran away, or died from exhaustion, or froze from the nocturnal cold. The pungent stench of decaying flesh floods the air.
A fine autumn mist descends and lies heavy on the cool, wet grass and flowers: Refugees search for their loved ones amongst the corpses; families huddle in tents, their vacant eyes full of fear and sorrow. A frail woman wrapped in a shawl with dark eyes sits and stares into the horizon. In front of her, a fire softly glows. The minarets of mosques and steeples of churches glimmer in the fresh red light of sunrise; gathered around far below, houses are abandoned; mosques and churches are empty, desolate. The walls of each house, mosque, and church have been scarred with bullets and scrawled with graffiti. I can read some of the phrases; others I cannot.
Symbols and slogans of hatred and racism are conflated with national pride. I contemplate the reasons for this massacre in the depths of my soul, arriving at the same conclusion: We are one human family under Heaven. I have been reporting from here for five years. And—despite my long time—I am still not numbed to each new tragedy and atrocity to humanity. As a citizen of this country, I know its people, its culture, its society and customs. That is why I am a journalist, a reporter. My country’s story has to be told. I stop at the main checkpoint and show the officer my identity card. It is a military checkpoint with two booths on either side of the main gate into the city; several soldiers stand round, chatting and chuckling. The guard is a tall, stocky man, square-featued and grim. He seems like a man who absolutely loathes his job and constantly thinks of a thousand other places he would rather be. ‘What your business here, sir?’ he asks, looking at me. ‘I’m a journalist’, I reply. ‘I’m here to be an old, dear friend’. The guard remains staring at me for a moment, studying my body language. He turns away and swipes my card through a machine: It is approved with an electronic beep, and he waves me on into the city.
Amira is sitting at a table outside Baba Salim’s coffee shop in New City in Sarajevo. From inside, air emanates and is perfumed by the scent of apples and oranges from the hookah-smoking patrons. The district is amongst the most peaceful of the city—
although we hear the occasional rumblings of bombs exploding and the crackling of gunfire.
She looks up and smiles as I approach. ‘As-Salaamu Alaykum, Brian’. I nod. ‘Wasalaam Alaykum, Amira’. I sit in the seat opposite her. Amira is five-five, slim, soft olive skin, early twenties. I notice the Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyam setting on the table. ‘How have you been?’ ‘I’ve been all right, alhamdullilah’. She looks down for a moment, thoughtful. ‘How is your father?’ ‘Sick...and sad. He’s an old man’, she sighs. Her slender figures lift her cup of tea; she sips. ‘With the war, he hasn’t been getting the meds he needs to fight the cancer.
So...’ She trails off, trying to force back tears rising in her eyes. ‘So, I have to work at the hospital and take care of him, living at home. Mum isn’t well herself, and she can’t take care of him—’
‘I’m sorry that I brought it up, Amira—’
‘It’s all right’, she assures me. ‘When I was little, my father was always so big and strong, handsome with bright, loving eyes. Now...he’s so frail—the cancer stripping away his vitality, his strength, his passion...’ She shakes her head. Smiling, she asks, ‘Are you ready to take off? It’s almost time for Salah’.
‘I know’.
Amira’s laughter and her smile reveal the fullness of her love for people—her love for the Divine in all beings and the Universe.
‘You didn‘t tell me very much over the phone; why do you want to visit the mosque?‘
‘The Grand Central Mosque is the oldest one bilt in Bosnia, constructed in the 15th Century by the Ottoman Empire. Its history is magnificent—and it’s still standing, despite the wars which have raged round it. In fact, it’s the last place that Muslims living in Sarajevo and the surrounding towns and villages can come to worship, pray, and have social gatherings’.
‘Yes. Alhamdullilah!’
‘Do you think the Imam of the Mosque will have a problem with me coming to see it, take pictures, and interview him, and write a story about for my editor?’
Amira smiles. ‘Oh, no, not at all! I think it would be wonderful! I can get you in, insha’Allah...’
Amira gathers her book and coffee; I take up by camera and notebook. I suddenly feel compelled to ask her a solemn question...
‘Amira...?’
‘Yes?’
‘Pardon me for asking, but—considering the dire situation right now, and ethnic persecution going on—why do you continue to wear hijab? I mean, not to be intolerant, but—’
‘It’s who I am’, she replies, blinking. ‘I am a Muslim, and I am a Member of the Ummah’. She touches her headscarf gently. ‘My hijab is a symbol of my submission to God and humility before Him. My faith defines who I am, what I am’. She pauses. ‘If someone wants to kill me for my faith and my beliefs, then so be it. I can’t live in fear, nor shall I change to appease those who only fill their hearts with hatred’.
We begin walking down the street towards the mosque...
‘Besides’, she says, looking at me, ‘it’s not about religion. Or race. Or politics.
Those are only the surface reasons. It’s about power—who has it, and who doesn’t.
Tell me: Religion, race, and politics didn’t matter for one-thousand years; all of us lived in peace. Why did it change? Ibrahimović died, and power fractured. No-one cared about race and religion before then.
‘I live every day surrounded by violence...anger...hatred’, Amira says, ‘but I can’t stay locked away in my parent’s house, never going out into the world. I have to push the fear away and just live. I have to live without fear. And praise God’.
My best friend approaches a fruit stand in the bazaar with her graceful gait, her dress flowing. Amira selects the perfect pomegranates, examining them like diamonds.
The merchant notices her white headscarf and sneers. Nervously smiling, ebony eyes gleaming, brushing away fringes of thick hair, Amira attempts to purchase some pomegranates, but the merchant snorts that he is closed today.
I ask him why he is tending his stand, but he mutters something angrily. I attempt to purchase the pomegranates, but he repeats that he is closed today. We walk away, not wanting to press the awkward situation further.
Amira asks out loud, almost to herself: ‘Maybe our notes have a smell that he does not like? Maybe he believes I am concealing a sword under my dress or under my headscarf?’
She chuckles sourly.
‘Father had been a minister of state in the government of Lebanon—as well as an analyst on Political and Economic Development. Due to a coup in the homeland, the establishment of a new regime, and political purgings of the old government, we fled o escape persecution’. She sighs. ‘Now...we endure discrimination here, too. And Father works as a manual labourer in a textile factory on the outskirts of Sarajevo.
He can’t get a job in the government or even in a university’.
Amira and I befriended each other in college when she was pursuing a nursing degree and I was attending for journalism. Through Amira’s work in the refugee camps round the country and my frequent reporting on the civil war, we were able to maintain
contact, never losing touch, remaining good friends. Both of us had seen horrors and inhumanity which we should not have seen and wish that we could forget, but this is our country. Our land. We have to help them.
Amira appears nervous.
‘I’ve always enjoyed Omar Khayyam’s poetry’, I say, starting a conversation.
‘I find it intriguing that you’re reading it...considering its subject matter’.
‘Many think Omar was an atheist’, she says, adding as she shakes her head, ’but I don’t think so. Sometimes, atheists can be the best believers—they have no conception of God. To them, He is nothing—and nothing is precisely how He can be described’.
She thinks for a moment. ‘In one quatrain, Omar talks about his body being washed in wine than water upon his death. On the superficial level, it sounds like he is referring to literal, physical wine—wine from the grape. However, I think that he is talking about the wine which is God’s Love. Even the Prophet Jesus, upon whom be peace and blessings, turned water into wine’.
I nod. Amira’s intellect was always keen, clever, and perceptive. ‘When did you first start reading Khayyam?’
‘When I was twelve or thirteen’, she replies. ‘My uncle was a Professor of Literature at the American University of Beirut, and Omar was amongst his favourite poets. When my parents visited, I would wander into his study and look at his books.
Rumi. Gibran. Rihani. Ibn Sina and Ibn al-’Arabi. Yusuf Ali. Books on Qur’anic commentary. Al-Bukhari and other Collections of the Prophet’s Sayings and Practises.
My family has been Sufi for generations. Love is the way to God, not through fear, or hatred of the faith of others—whether they be Jew, Christian, Druze, or Alawite.
‘Whenever my uncle found me, he never scolded me, but only smiled. One day, he found me reading the Ruba’iyat; when I returned it to its place on his bookshelf, he told me, "Keep it, little niece"’.
She laughs—a deep, throaty chuckle.
We walk down the cobblestone street, suffering stares aflame with scorn and spite from the strangers we meet: Amira is tense, her eyes perpetually looking down.
She is frightened of walking down the street. Her hands sweating, every step is measured, slow, rigid. She seems to expect someone—or something—to strike her at any moment.
The afternoon air becomes strangely more chill as we walk by the crumbling remnants of museums, movie threatres, elegant restaurants, and shops: Sad and solitary reminders of our country’s vibrant multicultural past and that our myriad communities had once lived in peace. Flags of division and oppression, each with a singular vision, excluding everyone else—flags of factions, sects, and tribes stream across the sky. Each one displays a Cross or Crescent, a Clenched Fist or a Rifle, a Star or a Scythe, revealing the violent means by which every faction, party, and organisation is willing to use to ensure the success of its vision and ideology. A state and country unfounded on freedom and democracy, but upon the blood of innocents and militant aggression.
‘Fear etherises the senses’, she sighs, ‘allowing ignorance to murder the soul’.
The wind rises up, fiercer and colder—even more searing—than before. We hear the muezzin’s call: Faint, soaring, and passionate.
Across the street, three young men taunt Amira and shout punishment of sin and transgression, laughing that she is a person vicious and vile:
‘Yer gonna burn in Hell for yer done!’ one of them shouts. ‘Burn in Hell!’
‘Hey!’ I reply, shouting. ‘What’s your—?’
Amira softly touches my arm and shakes her head slowly. ‘It’s not worth it’, she says softly. The young men continue down the sidewalk and disappear round a corner.
As Amira and I enter the mosque, the imam greets us. ‘Peace be upon you!’ he nods. He kindly invites me to pray; I tell him about my story and that I would I like to speak with him. He smiles at me through his full black beard (streaked with silver streams).
‘Of course!’ he smiles broadly. ‘We shall speak in my office after Salah’.
I also ask if I may take some photographs; he agrees, but on one condition.
‘Please, don’t do so during the prayer; it will disturb and distract our brothers and sisters. You may do so now, yes, or afterward’.
I thank him for his kindness and understanding. ‘All of us submit to God’s Will—all of us love Him. Jew, Christian, Muslim’, the imam states firmly, sincerely.
‘If there’s any way that I can help bring understanding between the three Families of the Prophet Abraham, upon whom be peace and blessings, then I’m ready to help’.
After removing our shoes and washing our faces, hands, and feet, our heads, arms, and ankles, Amira shows me the way.
The Grand Central Mosque is more beautiful than I had imagined—more beautiful than what previous photographs had revealed. Around the ancient hall, flowing calligraphy adorns the walls, etched with a careful, meticulous hand.
Believers, men and women, diverge at the door to the hall of prayer; prayer carpets unfurl and cover the vast stone floor: The believers bow and prostrate in piety and spiritual submission to God, the Lord, Creator, and Sustainer of the Universe.
’I’ll see you later’, Amira smiles, crossing over to the other side of the hall, hidden by a screen.
A semi-circle niche in the eastern wall of the hall of prayer indicates Makkah, where the Prophets Abraham and Ishmael built the Ka’ba, the first House built to worship the One God; a moving verse from the Noble Qur’an is engraved above the
niche, detailing the Archangel Gabriel’s Annunciation.
The Archangel Gabriel had visited the Blessed Virgin Mary, revealing the gift of a boy pure and holy: The Word of God made flesh, a Second Adam in His sight—Jesus the Messiah, a Messenger to the House of Israel, a Sign of Mercy (along with the Blessed
Virgin, his mother) for the whole of Mankind. The assembled believers proudly declare:
Allah is Most Great! Allah is Most Great!
In the Name of Allah,
The Compassionate, the Merciful…
All praise to Allah, Lord of the Creation,
The Compassionate, the Merciful,
Master of the Judgement Day!
You alone do we worship,
And to You alone we pray for confidence.
Guide us on the Straight Way,
The Path of those whom You have favoured,
Not of those who have earned Your anger,
Nor of those who have gone astray.
In the silence of my meditation, in the silence of my being, as I look round and observe everyone worship the One God who created the Heavens and the Earth, I realise that whichever Holy Book we read, in whichever mosque, church, or synagogue we worship and pray, or whatever beliefs we hold within our own hearts, wherever Mankind may roam, wherever Mankind has trod, Truth is God [*].
ENDNOTE
[*] A phrase spoken by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (AD 1869-1948): ‘Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it. But no one has the right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth’. (Harijan [24 November 1933], p. 6.)
Furthermore: ‘...In their passion for discovering truth, the atheists have not hesitated to deny the very existence of God—from their own point of view, rightly. And it was because of this reasoning that I saw that, rather than say that God is Truth, I should say that Truth is God’. (Young India [31 December 1931], pp. 427-28.)
