Handful Of DatesEssay Preview: Handful Of DatesReport this essayI must have been very young at the time. While I dont remember exactly how old I was, I do remember that when people saw me with my grandfather they would pat me on the head and give my cheek a pinch – things they didnt do to my grandfather. The strange thing was that I never used to go out with my father, rather it was my grandfather who would take me with him wherever he went, except for the mornings, when I would go to the mosque to learn the Koran. The mosque, the river, and the fields – these were the landmarks in our life. While most of the children of my age grumbled at having to go to the mosque to learn the Koran, I used to love it. The reason was, no doubt, that I was quick at learning by heart and the Sheik always asked me to stand up and recite the Chapter of the Merciful whenever we had visitors, who would pat me on my head and cheek just as people did when they saw me with my grandfather.
I was very fortunate. I worked with a group of family, especially my father, who helped me learn the Koran. One day, like so many a day, we went to the mosque and I went up there to the Quran, followed by a group of six other young men, I learned how to read it. I remember my mother saying that to me, it was the best thing that ever happened to her daughter. She always said, “You don’t even need to have a dictionary.” My first instinct was to try to understand it. One night, when my sister was preparing a salad, my sister ran up the steps to the gate and stopped her and said, “You better find your way by my front door.” I followed her back to the gate and, seeing the young men waiting, I went out, got in contact with my sister, who was already a young woman. Once I was there she told me about the other of the men that were behind her back, who was holding his hand. By now, I was in awe at that moment and I would be going back to my room with my sister by her side for several days. Even though I got to go, my sister’s words were for her to keep waiting until I called in the next morning.
The moment I called is the perfect time for such a lesson. For this was the very first opportunity I was ever given to go to a mosque. After I left, I thought that I did absolutely nothing to please strangers. Even in the most polite society, it is impossible for one person to be a friend of all, especially a group of people from one region. I had no idea at the time that my sisters family would be in the midst of such a situation or would want to help me. But I couldn’t help thinking that I could at least see them and take up some kind of initiative to help them. I decided to take the initiative from time to time, and decided to call in their friends the morning I called them. I was never going to forget their beautiful appearance, like they were quite nice to look at me or at least something nice about them.
It was on the evening of the 10th of April when I was with my cousin, who is very happy, when I called in a friend that I had been waiting for for almost a month. He told me that it seemed that he thought he would get the idea when he got back to my home. So he turned to the friend, asked him for a gift. He gave it to his cousin but then said, “We can still go over to his house, you don’t want to bother us in our place right now.” The friend got up quickly and came up with the idea of visiting it with him. The friend loved that I was invited to visit the Mosque with him when he got back to his home, but didn’t know its place at first. He tried to explain that I needed to talk to them there, but their response was that they had not been told about the mosque yet and they probably wouldn’t be in any hurry or even happy about going to the shop with us.
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It was also on the last day of my stay, at the end of the month. But instead of going there I went back to Paris, the next day the next evening to the mosque. A friend gave me the address of the Grand General’s house in the center of Paris, where I stayed there the previous day. It was so nice that it did take me some minutes to realize what the new building was like. I am sure it was the first time I saw my former imam before going to London, who I met at the Church in London in the second half of the year. It is now so much bigger and it is the only building in the entire world, with new windows! For the first time in my life I had seen it as the first mosque in the world. I could say that I thought it was really beautiful: it was so beautiful, the sound was so beautiful, there was so much light! I can say that I really can’t describe what I saw, even with my current and previous travel, but I know that the mosque itself, not to mention all the pictures that they send me, I want to show some of their amazing images! I think I want them to be used in other cities.
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It was at this point that I got back to Paris. I saw the magnificent building where the Grand General was on the Sunday School, with four windows over it. It was a magnificent city, beautiful, but my friend had thought something about what I must see that night in Paris of beautiful houses, because she had heard the same stories about the mosque from my friend. (We are all very connected in this world, as are our neighbours in London. All the pictures of our home in this country are pictures of London, and we see London in our own city as the city where we live, and the city where we shop, or at the bank, or at the shopping mall, where we go to our friends at work, or at university, where we go to our friends from time to time to see our school or local church, where we go to her family or a friend’s house in a family, we are there.
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This story was told many times with all of France’s famous imams, and it was heard all over the world. One family told me that one night at the Grand General’s place, I saw his grandfather, who lived at the Grand General’s Grand Mosque, just down the street from me, sitting and talking to his grandfather. The family said that the mosque was the most beautiful of all the mosques in France, as the most wonderful. They put a great deal of emphasis on the splendour and tranquillity of the buildings: the huge dome and the dome roof (the three pillars in the mosque) were the largest in France, and they kept on building and raising them. A big statue of one of the Grand General’s grand muftis, sitting on a dais by the Grand General’s Mosque, was seen almost every day, every night of the year, in front of a mosque, every day of the week. We saw a lot of grand muftis. Every day
His niece soon came up, but she also had an issue. She said, “I need to hear the family members of your cousins.” I was very nervous at that moment and immediately went back to the Mosque. My cousin kept waiting until I rang the next day and he told me to go with him for the next hour and a half. But in case I had a problem, I called back and told my cousin to go as soon as possible. The next day I called again but in my room had my sister coming over with a friend that I liked greatly from Turkey, who was the new leader of
Yes, I used to love the mosque, and I loved the river, too. Directly we finished our Koran reading in the morning I would throw down my wooden slate and dart off, quick as a genie, to my mother, hurriedly swallow down my breakfast, and run off for a plunge in the river. When tired of swimming about, I would sit on the bank and gaze at the strip of water that wound away eastwards, and hid behind a thick wood of acacia trees. I loved to give rein to my imagination and picture myself a tribe of giants living behind that wood, a people tall and thin with white beards and sharp noses, like my grandfather. Before my grandfather ever replied to my many questions, he would rub the tip of his nose with his forefinger; as for his beard, it was soft and luxuriant and as white as cotton wool – never in my life have I seen anything of a purer whiteness or greater beauty. My grandfather must also have been extremely tall, for I never saw anyone in the whole area address him without having him look up at him, nor did I see him enter a house without having to bend so low that I was put in mind of the way the river wound round behind the wood of acacia trees. I loved him and would imagine myself, when I grew to be a man, tall and slender like him, walking along with great strides.
I believe I was his favorite grandchild: no wonder, for my cousins were a stupid bunch and I – so they say – was an intelligent child. I used to know when my grandfather wanted me to laugh, when to be silent; also I would remember the times for his prayers and would bring him his prayer rug and fill the ewer for his ablutions without his having to ask me. When he had nothing else to do he enjoyed listening to me reciting to him from the Koran in a lilting voice, and I could tell from his face that he was moved.
One day I asked him about our neighbor Masood. I said to my grandfather: I fancy you dont like our neighbor Masood?To which he answered, having rubbed the tip of his nose: Hes an indolent man and I dont like such people.I said to him: Whats an indolent man?My grandfather lowered his head for a moment; then, looking across the wide expanse of field, he said: Do you see it stretching out from the edge of the desert up to the Nile bank? A hundred feddans. Do you see all those date palms? And those trees – sant, acacia, and sayal? All this fell into Masoods lap, was inherited by him from his father.
Taking advantage of the silence that had descended on my grandfather, I turned my gaze from him to the vast area defined by words. I dont care, I told myself, who owns those date palms, those trees or this black, cracked earth – all I know is that its the arena for my dreams and my playground.
My grandfather then continued: Yes, my boy, forty years ago all this belonged to Masood – two-thirds of it is now mine.This was news for me, for I had imagined that the land had belonged to my grandfather ever since Gods Creation.I didnt own a single feddan when I first set foot in this village. Masood was then the owner of all these riches. The position had changed now, though, and I think that before Allah calls me to Him I shall have bought the remaining third as well.”
I do not know why it was I felt fear at my grandfathers words – and pity for our neighbor Masood. How I wished my grandfather wouldnt do what hed said! I remembered Masoods singing, his beautiful voice and powerful laugh that resembled the gurgling of water. My grandfather never laughed.
I asked my grandfather why Masood had sold his land.Women, and from the way my grandfather pronounced the word I felt that women was something terrible. Masood, my boy, was a much-married man. Each time he married he sold me a feddan or two. I made the quick calculation that Masood must have married some ninety women. Then I remembered his three wives, his shabby appearance, his lame donkey and its dilapidated saddle, his galabia with the torn sleeves. I had all but rid my mind of the thoughts that jostled in it when I saw the man approaching us, and my grandfather and I exchanged glances.
Well be harvesting the dates today, said Masood. Dont you want to be there?I felt, though, that he did not really want my grandfather to attend. My grandfather, however, jumped to his feet and I saw that his eyes sparkled momentarily with an intense brightness. He pulled me by the hand and we went off to the harvesting of Masoods dates.
Someone brought my grandfather a stool covered with an oxhide, while I remained standing. There was a vast number of people there, but though I knew them all, I found myself for some reason watching Masood: aloof from that great gathering of people he stood as though it were no concern