Purification

Number of pages: 288 Publisher: Dar Zainab More than those who speak about purification, imagine that in purification lies our salvation. But what should we purify and from what should we purify ourselves? It is impurities and flaws, they answer you, and their answer has become a matter of faith. If we cast them away, we become purer than purity itself, and more pious than piety. It is enough to face the Qibla to which we turn our backs, and to extend our hands to the angels of innocence, dwelling deep within us, to purge the evil demons of wickedness from us. Thus spoke the agents of goodness, pointing to the pilgrimage. When the pen delved into the world, east and west, I realized—oh woe—that the universe is a maze, and there is no salvation for those who fall into its trenches and tunnels, after revolutions betrayed us, and the laws of gods and humans disappointed us, and reason and heart betrayed us, or we betrayed them all, and they turned away from us forever. And the terrible confusion, ugliness, and disgust with it all was uttered by Scheherazade’s tongue, the pilot of imagination, a delirious, fiery hallucination. Scheherazade was our last hope, and it was necessary for her to keep speaking until the delirium reached its peak. But I failed—oh woe—to turn away from the tongue of the pilot of imagination the blade of the guillotine. My consolation is that she entrusted me, when the noose of executioners tightened around her, and whispered to me: “Kicking the corpse is forbidden, O Sultan!”