And a certain person told me a tale of suspicion about you. You deserted the house of God, he said, and neglected the duties of your religion, ever since there sprang from your childhood a youth of blazing intelligence, burning with ardor, whom they named an "atheist."
But the white marble on the terrace of this house denied that tale. She said that she had often felt, at every dusk of sundown, as the gray darkness crept its slow creeping into the valley — how often the great white marble felt your feet treading her gently, and listened to you chanting, in humble devotion, your whispered prayer to your Lord, your face turned toward Sannine:
"O Possessor of eternal majesty, wrap me in something of Your majesty.
O Possessor of everlasting light, supply me with a brand of Your light.
O Possessor of infinite power, breathe of it into my powers.
You are life in its entirety, first and last, and by You I live.
Help me, O God, to gather my spiritual and mental powers in the cause of truth and love and wisdom."
•
And the talk of the old women along the bends of these paths is not to be forgotten. How often did Ameen return from his walk with but some of his clothes upon his body, having given most of them, with a discreet love, to some needy soul. And how many a wretched, stricken man sought him out, and Ameen rescued him with
all that was in his pocket, murmuring his excuse...
And the white marble asks me still —
Can he be an atheist, undeserving of mercy, who understands his religion as conduct, not worship — as a direct spiritual communion,
By Riyad Maalouf
On the occasion of the fourteenth anniversary of the philosopher of Freike, and the opening of his museum on September 4, 1954
Do you recall for me that eventide, the day we were in your valley,
The sun spreading over it its colors, hue upon hue,
And the rock casting them back upon the valleys in radiance and beauty...
As though it were an anthem played, melody upon melody...
O stricken nightingale of the valley — you, the most enchanting that ever sang —
We feared for the feathers of the wing, lest they be scattered, and how we trembled,
Until you were struck down, you who were borne aloft among the branches...
O desolation of the valley for you! Companionship has lost its meaning;
Even the doves above it are black upon the knolls with grief,
And the books behind the glass, bewildered, wait —
•
For those fingers, O Ameen, and what they scattered in prose and strung in verse;
Time perishes, but the marvels they wrote shall never perish:
Masterworks splendid as palaces, their walls adorned, enchanting;
We draw near them in admiration of their making, in meaning and in build.
Had the blind man of Ma'arra grasped what you handed down, his eye would have found solace.
•
Passages dearer to the blind man than eyes, could he but wish:
You told us the lives of kings, and rose in stature above them;
And you, the describer of the desert in wondrous description, as we have read,
The day you set out, bound for the land of al-Rashid, and visited our Aden;
From Hussein to the Sauds, each gave gifts and gave praise.
Those Arab blades among swords — for him to whom the Arab has meaning —
Were drawn on the day of the cause, in defense with us and of us.
The banner of dignity, O Ameen — but for your arm we had not raised it;
But for you, with a few companions, among foreign peoples we had not been remembered.
Lebanon is proud that you should be its brother, and be its son...
When the world's geniuses are counted, you are counted one of us...
