I Beheld a Carpet of Surpassing Whiteness

... And a glance of mine chances upon the window, and I see that the snow has buried it to the half, and I see the wind still sowing the earth with a strange white seed, having effaced its features and strangled all its voices and imprisoned all its breaths — the mountains are mountains no more, nor the valleys valleys, and there is no trace of man or small creature or insect; and between earth and sky lies a felt of dust-gray cloud through which the eye cannot pierce more than a few steps' distance. And my state continues thus with the storm for three days running, at whose end the bellows of the wind are stopped up, the thunder runs out within them, and the quiver of the lightning is emptied — just as my scant provision of fuel and of food and drink is emptied, and the last drop of oil burns away in my lamp, so that nothing remains in my hand but a single match, no more and no less. And hunger and thirst and darkness and cold creep upon me from every side, and the snow leaves not even my eyes an outlet to the world outside save a small window high in the wall; so I climb a ladder and send my gaze out to the horizons near and far, and there I behold what no eye has beheld and hear what no ear has heard. And what do I behold and hear, O God?

I behold a carpet of surpassing whiteness, without beginning and without end, and I behold You in the midst of that carpet, and around You a host of the sons of man and of all Your creatures, all of them locked together in a bloody, violent struggle; and I hear You giving the commands and steering the helm of the fray. Then I behold —

and oh, the horror of what I behold — I behold rivulets of crimson blood gliding over that white carpet, and the red rivulets gathering into red lakes, and the lakes meeting in a raging red sea; and You in the midst of that deep, its red waves circling around You and rising higher, engulfing You higher and higher, up to Your shoulders — yet they do not budge You. So I call to You, and call to You, and call to You, then fall back — thwarted, drained, terror-stricken — from the top of the ladder to the bottom; and I know not how long I was absent from myself and absent from You. At last I come to, trembling from the violence of hunger and thirst and cold, pitch darkness in my eyes; and I mourn for myself, and my heart surrenders to the specter of extinction.

And then a voice calls out to me, and I remember April and what it gave me, and July and what it gave me, and September and what it gave me; so I gather what strength remains to me and crawl in my darkness to where the cup and the heart and the two eyes are, with a screaming despair inside me.

Is this all my harvest from my spring and my summer and my autumn, O God!

And I fall upon my cup and drain it, leaving in it no last drop, and its drops run like magic through my body, and I feel them in my veins as blood, generous and strong. And I seize the beating heart and devour it greedily, and at once I feel a vigor the like of which I have never felt before, so that I see myself able to ride the backs of the storms. And I fall upon the two closed eyes and set them alight with the match that remains to me, and in a flash my eyes shine with a light whose like they have never known. Then the roof of my house comes down from above my head, and its walls shrink away, then dissolve into a space overflowing with light, fragrant with perfume. And behold, the white carpet is a broad plain; and behold, the seas of blood are meadows billowing with green and with yellow and with red and with all the colors of earth and sky; and behold, Your creatures, locked but a moment ago in the struggle of death and life, embracing one another with the embrace of eternal brotherhood in the bosom of Your everlasting fatherhood — and among them my white cat, surrounded by a trusting company of mice and rats. And behold You, O God, in the midst of all, around all, above all, bathing them in a smile of Your smiles and whispering into every one of their ears: He who is not quenched by his tears shall never be quenched. He who is not nourished by his heart shall never be filled. And he who does not burn his eyes shall never see. And those who have not heard and have not understood today shall surely hear tomorrow, and understand.

How majestic You are,
and how just You are,
and how perfect You are,
O God.

("In the Storm") — al-Bayadir