Someone somewhere began to chant the ninety-nine names of Allah, over and over again. With each ninety-nine he grew faster and faster, and we moved and chanted to the rhythm he set. Faster and still faster we went until I saw nothing but a blur of whirling robes that seemed to be the physical embodiment of all the mystical names. I grew numb to the steps that had at first jarred my frame; it seemed as if I was lifted above the stumbling of my feet and I floated.
And then I felt myself truly losing touch with reality. By God, if I kept this up much longer, I should lose my individuality altogether and fade like one drop into the great ocean of creation never to be extracted again. The thought threw me into a panic.
“No,” I murmured, my head whirling. “No!” off the rhythm of the pounding names of Allah.
I broke from the circle and staggered to the edge of the hall. The dance went on without me, and I saw with reeling eyes that the circle had melted back into itself as if I’d never been in it at all. The smell and heat of bodies and the continuous pound of drums and chant were still quite overwhelming and I staggered out of the hall to escape them.
I took one or two breaths of pure air, then threw my head back to the sky. By the stars I could tell that the night was already half gone; we had been dancing for hours. Then, the stars seemed to be not only mechanical tellers of time but also the eyes of an old, old man, twinkling with compassion.
All praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds!
The Compassionate, the Merciful!
Quietly I murmured the words Muhammed is said to have received from the Angel when he was first called to be Prophet. Then suddenly those stars became Husayn’s eyes and my dream from Baba Ahlam repeated itself. The old dervish lost his gray, grew younger, and put on flesh. But the vision had another scene added to it. This time I saw Husayn as I had left him in the market five years ago when the pain and shame of my condition had been new upon me and I had been unable to feel anything beyond that.
Now I saw how my friend had left our meeting with grief and guilt heavy upon him. I felt how much he considered me and loved me as his son, and the duty he felt to protect me in the absence of all my other kin. These thoughts weighed on him for weeks and wore down his native good humor and stoicism until he was certain he would go mad. He found his family—his father-in-law, his wife, his little son, and second child as yet unborn—no consolation at all. Indeed, their affections were only salt on the wounds my fate and my bitterness had caused him. Finally he determined he must take revenge. Denouncing my butchers to the court of the land would not suffice. He had to see that they never operated again, either in Pera or any place on earth. So one night, shielded by darkness and a heavy cloak, anger giving his stodgy figure strength and agility, my friend ambushed the wiry slave merchant Salah ud-Din and stabbed him to the heart.
And when he had removed him from humanity, he removed him from maleness as well. I had helped to wash the body; I had seen.
How I would have gloated over that hated body coiling with pain like a flimsy figure of wire in the forge. Yet Salah ud-Din died with more surprise than pain or lingering remorse. And the vision I received of this death would not even let me linger, staring with the satisfaction of revenge, but carried me on at once to the realization that Husayn was now a man with blood on his hands. No matter how foul that blood, normal society would ever be banned to him.
So he took to the secret brotherhood of dervishes. At first it was only a disguise and an excuse to be wandering without ties or means. In such a state, the hideout of brigands had been the perfect place for him.
But slowly, the true meaning of the rites began to impress him. In my vision I saw and felt the depth of his remorse as he repented of his previous sins, not only that of murder, but also the worship he had earlier paid to lucre and to trade. Completion of the great pilgrimage to Mecca, on foot and with nothing more than his begging bowl, allowed him to change his name to Hajji. One thousand and one days of initiation followed at the end of which time his rags and his bowl were no longer a disguise, but the real essence of Husayn—Hajji—to the end of his days.
Once he had found himself, Husayn had been led by dreams and visions to find me and, having found me, he had sat and read in the mosque every day until I found him. I had, I realized, passed him by on more than one occasion even after my dream at Baba Ahlam, and not noticed him, for my mind had been burdened with the duties I owed the world. But my friend had been content to wait quietly until the world should give me peace.
The compassionate stars had whirled much closer towards dawn—the dawn of Friday, the Muslim Sabbath—before the vision and the dance were over and Husayn came out to stand quietly
