“But we’re all willing to put up with it,” a fourth added. “We’ll either emerge with our lives or else be resurrected as martyrs.”
Just then a voice arose — I could not see who it was — chanting these Qur’anic verses: “You who believe, seek help through patience and prayer; verily God is with the patient. Do not say to those killed in God’s path: ‘They are dead’; rather they are living, but you do not realize it. We will test you with a taste of fear, hunger, and a lack of property, lives, and fruits. Give the good news to the patient, who, when afflicted by misfortune, say: ‘Surely we belong to God, and to Him is the return.’” [Surat al-Baqara 2, The Cow, vv. 153–56]. Other voices responded, my own among them, with further verses. Just then, there was a hail of small bags and plastic bottles, and all of a sudden silence fell. I gathered up my share — bread, dates, and drinking water. The silence continued as everyone ate. Once that was over, a powerful voice was heard:
“Servants of God,” it said, “the tyrants have prevented us doing ablutions and praying, so let’s respond by performing chants and intercessions. That way we can at least remain pure and keep ourselves strong. Our noble Prophet — may God bless and preserve him! — said: ‘God has ninety-nine names, and he who recites them will enter heaven.’ He also said that any servant of God who encounters a problem or who feels sorrowful and then prays to God will have that problem or sorrow removed and replaced by joy and happiness. Servants of God, recite God’s beautiful names with me. He is God, the only God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, the King, the Holy, the Peace, the Believing, the Protector, the Mighty, the Powerful. .”
Everyone in the room, whether Arabs or non-Arabs, joined the speaker in his recitation. The very sight of so many necks straining forward, so many throats reciting, was enough to send shivers down the spine and warm the heart.
Once the recitation, in which I participated as best I could, was over, silence fell again — that is, until the next phase:
“Servants of God, the Lord of Mankind has said: ‘He who praises God thirty-three times at the conclusion of each prayer, extols God thirty-three times, and pronounces the takbir thirty-three times, then recites the hundredfold “There is no god but God, He is One alone with no partner; to Him belongs dominion and praise; and He is all-powerful,” that person will have his sins forgiven, even though they be as plentiful as the foaming waves in the sea.’”
No sooner had this voice, that clearly belonged to a remarkable and effective imam, finished its exhortation than voices vied with each other to ask forgiveness, with exultations, shouts of praise, declarations of God’s unity, all in the numbers designated by the imam. Once that was completed, the crowd started chanting texts eulogizing the Prophet, sections from the burda poem of al-Busiri* and extracts from the Dala’il al-Khayrat by the renowned Sufi imam, al-Juzuli.* Some of them went on to recite other Sufi chants and to perform the devotional dance. The whole atmosphere was fraught with an amazing sense of spiritual presence.
The various episodes in this profound and ever accelerating ceremony followed one another in inexorable progression. I joined in with both mind and spirit, although my body was exhausted by the need to lean heavily on the two crutches that by now had become an integral part of me. I was afraid that the officer would come back and not find me where he had left me, so I had to stay put near the door. I could not move away, even though my need to keep moving and my urgent desire to relieve myself were both becoming ever more insistent.
The group closest to me started reciting the famous poem in which the Prophet’s companions welcomed him and his company to the city of Medina the brilliant:
The new moon has risen over us
from the folds of farewell.
We are obliged to give thanks.
Greetings to you, O best of summoners.
The sheer enthusiasm of their chanting spread to other groups, and then to the assembly as a whole.
The event that finally managed to calm their vibrant performance was when cold water started pouring out of gutters in the roof, all accompanied by a detached voice through the loudspeakers that kept repeating this slogan: “Cleanliness is part of faith. Clean yourselves without charge.” No one managed to avoid getting soaked, even if it was only intermittent, and here and there some people started sneezing, coughing, and having runny noses. For my part, I started shivering uncontrollably; my teeth were chattering, and I started hacking so badly that I could not use my asthma spray.
Once the water stopped cascading down, everyone went back to the chants and incantations they were singing before. At this point even more people started dancing, and I presumed that they were trying to get some warmth back into their cold, soaked bodies. All of a sudden, loud techno music started blaring through the loudspeakers, so the chanters and dancers shouted as loudly as they could in order to drown out the music. However, they gradually became more and more exhausted, and little by little a powerful enforced silence began to take over.
Most of the people present now sat in clusters in the floor. The techno music stopped, and voices were raised to announce that there were some dead. I noticed an old man just by my feet; after checking his neck vein and closing his eyelids, I was able to confirm that he was one of that number. Accompanied by the people close to me, I said the fourfold takbir. I then noticed the door opening and a group of armed guards wading their way through the clusters of people and starting to remove the dead on rubber stretchers. When two of them came over to get the dead man close to me and put him on the trolley, I collapsed on top of him, holding my breath. They were forced to take me with the dead man, the assumption being that I myself was also in the Angel of Death’s clutches. They transported me to the graveyard, while my ears resounded to the sound of gunfire, as the imam yelled out: “Remain steadfast, servants of God, remain steadfast!”
By now it was dawn. The guards made do with lining up the corpses alongside a wide, deep ditch in the graveyard. They went off to do something else or to use what was left of the night to get some sleep. Like a wounded crocodile, I slithered my way from this ditch that had obviously been dug for an indiscriminate corporate burial. Eventually I reached a grassy strip where I was able to breathe freely and rest for a bit. Holding my hand over my mouth to stop coughing, I was able to empty my bladder, something I had had to control while I was on top of the dead old man.
The sun rising in the sky shows no mercy on people trying to hide in this bare open desert, however much they try to scrunch up and make themselves invisible. Actually, the sun uncovers and exposes them, making them completely obvious to any wandering guard or person in a watchtower. As I lay there on the ground, I noticed a soldier’s boot close to my eyes. Raising my head to look at him, I heard him threaten me and tell me to stand up. It soon became obvious to him that I could not do that. He asked me if I was trying to escape, and I told him I was not. He then asked me for my prisoner’s number, and I spelled it out, quickly the first time, then more slowly. He was happy to carry me on his shoulders, as though I were hunting spoils.
“They’ve been searching for you all over the place,” he shouted. “This morning you’re my prize. Pray to God that, when it comes to salaries, you’ll be the reason for my increase!”
I now told my rescuer the story of my getting misplaced in the lunatics’ block, then in the hall for those practicing for the Day of Judgment. However, his mind was elsewhere, repeating the same thing over and over again and asking me to pray for him. Before he put me back in my cell and locked the door, he spoke about me to a number of soldiers and guards on the way — far more than required, and made them witnesses to the fact that he was the one who had discovered my hiding place and arrested me.