As they carried the body of the tigress into the village, four men working hard, huffing and puffing under its weight as it swung by its tied paws from a stout bamboo bouncing on their shoulders, Bistami understood: God is in all things. And God, may all his ninety nine names prosper and fall into our souls, did not want any killing. From the doorway of his older brother's hut, Bistami shouted through his tears, 'She was my sister, she was my aunt, she saved me from the Hindu rebels, you ought not to have killed her, she was protecting us all!'
But of course no one was listening. No one understands us, not ever.
And it was perhaps just as well, given that this tigress had undoubtedly killed his brother. But he would have given his brother's life ten times over for the sake of that tiger.
Despite himself he followed the procession into the village centre. Everyone was drinking rahkshi, and the drummers were running out of their homes with their drums, pounding happily. 'Kya Kya Kya Kya, leave us alone forevermore!' A tiger holiday was upon them, and the rest of the day and perhaps the next would be devoted to the impromptu festivalizing. They would burn its whiskers to make sure that its soul would not pass into a killer in another world. The whiskers were poisonous: one ground up in tiger meat would kill a man, while a whole one placed inside a tender bamboo shoot would give those who ate it cysts, leading to a slower death. Or so it was said. The hypochondriacal Chinese believed in the efficacious properties of almost everything, including every part of tigers, it seemed. Much of the body of this Kya would be saved and taken north by traders, no doubt. The skin would go to the zamindar.
Bistami sat miserably on the ground at the edge of the village centre. There was no one to explain himself to. He had done everything he could to warn the tigress off, but to no avail. He had addressed her not as Kya but as madam, or Madam Thirty, which was what the villagers called tigers when they were out in the jungle, so as not to offend them. He had given her offerings, and checked to make sure that the markings on her forehead did not form the letter 's', a sign that the beast was a were-tiger, and would change to human form for good at the moment of death. That had not happened, and indeed there had been no 's' on her forehead; the mark was more like a birdwing in flight. He had kept eye contact with ber, as one is supposed to do when coming on tigers unexpectedly; he had stayed calm, and been saved by her from death. Indeed all the stories he had heard of helpful tigers – the one that had led two lost children back to the village, the one who had kissed a sleeping hunter on the cheek – all these stories paled in comparison to his, although they had prepared him as well. She had been his sister, and now he was distraught with grief.
The villagers began to dismember her body. Bistami left the village, unable to watch. His brutal older brother was dead; his other relatives, like his brother, had no sympathy for his sufi interests. 'The high look to the high, and so they can see each other from a great distance off.' But he was so far away from anyone of wisdom, he could see nothing at all. He remembered what his sufi master Tutsami had told him when he left Allahabad: 'Keep the haj in your heart, and make your way to Mecca as Allah wills it. Slow or fast, but always on your tariqat, the path to enlightenment.'
He gathered his few possessions in his shoulder bag. The death of the tiger began to take on the cast of a destiny, a message to Bistami, to accept the gift of God and put it to use in his actions, and regret nothing. So that now it was time to say Thank you God, thank you Kya my sister, and leave his home village for ever.
Bistami walked to Agra, and there he spent the last of his money to buy a sufi wanderer's robe. He asked for shelter in the sufi lodge, a long old building in the southernmost district of the old capital, and he bathed in their pool, purifying himself inside and out.
Then he left the city and walked out to Fatepur Sikri, the new capital of Akbar's empire. He saw that the not yet completed city replicated in stone the vast tent camps of Mughal armies, even down to marble pillars standing free of the walls, like tent poles. The city was dusty, or muddy, its white stone already stained. The trees were all short, the gardens raw and new. The long wall of the Emperor's palace fronted the great avenue that bisected the city north and south, leading to a big marble mosque, and a dargah Bistami had heard about in Agra, the tomb of the sufi saint Shaikh Salim Chishti. At the end of his long life Chishti had instructed the young Akbar, and now his memory was said to be Akbar's strongest link to Islam. And this same Chishti in his youth had travelled in Iran, and studied under Shah Esmail, who had also instructed Bistami's master Tutsami.
So Bistami approached Chishti's great white tomb walking backwards, and reciting from the Quran. 'In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful. Be patient with those who call upon their Lord at morn and even, seeking his face: and let not thine eyes be turned away from them in quest of the pomp of this life; neither obey him whose heart we have made careless of the remembrance of Us, and who followeth his own lusts, and whose ways are unbridled.'
At the entry he prostrated himself towards Mecca and said the morning prayer, then entered the walled in courtyard of the tomb, and made his tribute to Chishti. Others were doing the same, of course, and when he had finished paying his respects he spoke to some of them, describing his journey all the way back to his time in Iran, eliding the stops along the way. Eventually he told this tale to one of the ulama of Akbar's own court, and emphasized his master's relation by teaching to Chishti, and returned to his prayers. He came back to the tomb day after day, establishing a routine of prayer, purification rites, the answering of questions from pilgrims who spoke only Persian, and socializing with all the people visiting the shrine. This finally led to the grandson of Chishti speaking to him, and this man then spoke well of him to Akbar, or so he heard. He ate his one meal a day at the sufi lodge, and persevered, hungry but hopeful.
One morning at the very first light, when he was already in the tomb's courtyard at prayers, the Emperor Akbar himself came in to the shrine, and took up an ordinary broom, and swept the courtyard. It was a cool morning, the night chill still in the air, and yet Bistami was sweating as Akbar finished his devotions, and Chishti's grandson arrived, and asked Bistami to come when he had finished his prayers, to be introduced.
'A great honour,' he replied, and returned to his prayers, murmuring them thoughtlessly as the things he might say raced through his head; and he wondered how long he should delay before approaching the Emperor, to show that prayer came first. The tomb was still relatively empty and cool, the sun just rising. When it cleared the trees entirely, Bistami stood and walked to the Emperor and Chishti's grandson, and bowed deeply. Greeting, obeisances, and then he was obeying a polite request to tell his story to the watchful young man in the imperial finery, whose unblinking gaze never left his face, or indeed his eyes. Study in Iran with Tutsami, pilgrimage to Qom, return home, a year's work as a teacher of the Quran in Gujarat, a journey to visit his family, ambush by Hindu rebels, salvation by tiger: by the end of the story Bistami had been approved, he could see it.
'We welcome you,' Akbar said. The whole city of Fatepur Sikri served to show how devout he was, as well as displaying his ability to create devotion in others. Now he had seen Bistami's devotion, exhibited in all the forms of piety, and as they continued their conversation, and the tomb began to fill with the day's visitors, Bistami managed to lead the discussion to the one hadith he knew that had come by way of Chishti to Iran, so that the isnad, or genealogy of the phrase, made a short link between his education and the Emperor's.
'I had it from Tutsami, who had it from the Shah Esmail, teacher of Shaikh Chishti, who had it from Bahr ibn Kaniz al Saqqa, that Uthman ibn Saj related to him, from Said ibn Jubair, God's mercy on him, who said, "Let him give a general greeting to all the Muslims, including the young boys and the adolescents, and when he has arrived at class, let him restrain whoever was sitting from standing up for him, since neglecting this is one of the banes of the soul. – Akbar frowned, trying to follow it. It occurred to Bistami that it could be interpreted as meaning that he had been the one who had refrained from asking for any kind of obeisance from the other. He began to sweat in the chill morning air.
Akbar turned to one of his retainers, standing unobtrusively against the marble wall of the tomb. 'Bring this man with us on our return to the palace.'
After another hour of prayer for Bistami, and consultations for Akbar, who was relaxed but increasingly terse as the morning wore on and the line of supplicants grew rather than shrank before him, the Emperor bid the line to disperse and come back again later. After that he led Bistami and his retinue through the raw worksites of the city, to his palace.
The city was being built in the shape of a big square, like any other Mughal military encampment – indeed, in the form of the empire itself, Bistami's guard told him, which was a quadrilateral protected by the four cities of Lahore, Agra, Allahabad and Ajimer. These were all big compared to the new capital, and Bistami's guard was particularly fond of Agra, where he had worked in the construction of the Emperor's great fort, now finished. 'Inside it are more than five hundred buildings,' he said as he must always have said when speaking of it. He was of the opinion that Akbar had founded Fatepur Sikri because the fort of Agra was mostly complete, and the Emperor liked beginning great projects. 'He is a builder, that one, he will remake the world itself before he is done, I assure you. Islam has never had such a servant as him.'
'It must be so,' Bistami said, looking around at the construction, white buildings rising out of cocoons of scaffolding, set in seas of black mud. 'Praise be to God.'
The guard, whose name was Husain Ali, looked at Bistami suspi ciously. Pious pilgrims were no doubt a commonplace. He led Bistami after the Emperor and through the gate of the new palace. Inside the outer wall were gardens that looked as if they had been in place for years: big pine trees over jasmines, flower beds in all directions. The palace itself was smaller than the mosque, or the tomb of Chishti, but exquisite in every detail. A white marble tent, broad and low, its interior filled by room after cool room, all surrounding a fountain filled central courtyard and garden. The whole wing at the back of the courtyard consisted of a long gallery walled with paintings: hunting scenes, the skies always turquoise; the dogs and deer and lions rendered to the life; the skirted hunters carrying bow or flintlock. Opposite these scenes were suites of white walled rooms, finished but empty. Bistami was given one of these to stay in.
That night's meal was a feast, set sumptuously in a long hall opening onto the central courtyard. As it proceeded, Bistami understood that it was simply the ordinary evening meal in the palace. He ate roast quail, cucumber yoghurts, shredded pork in curry, and tastes of many dishes he didn't recognize.
That began a dreamlike period for him, in which he felt like Manjushri in the tale, fallen upwards into the land of milk and honey. Food dominated his days and his thoughts. One day he was visited in his rooms by a team of black slaves dressed better than he was, who quickly brought him up to their level of raiment and beyond, outfitting him in a fine white gown that looked well but hung heavily on him. After that he was given another audience with the Emperor.
This meeting, surrounded by sharp eyed counsellors, generals and imperial retainers of all kinds, felt very different from the dawn meeting at the tomb, when two young men out to smell the morning air and see the sunrise, and sing the glory of Allah's world, had spoken to each other chest to chest. And yet in all these trappings, it was the same face looking at him – curious, serious, interested in what he had to say. Focusing on that face allowed Bistami to relax.
The Emperor said, 'We invite you to join us and share your knowledge of the law. In return for your wisdom, and the rendering of judg ments on certain cases and questions that will be brought before you, you will be made zamindar of the late Shah Muzaffar's estates, may Allah honour his name.'
'Praise be to God,' Bistami murmured, looking down. 'I will ask God's help in fulfilling this great task to your satisfaction.'
Even with his gaze steadfast to the ground, or returned to the Emperor's face, Bistami could sense that some of the imperial retinue were less than pleased by this decision. But afterwards, some who had seemed least pleased came up to him and introduced themselves, spoke kindly, led him around the palace, probed in a most gentle way concerning his background and history, and told him more about the estate he was to administer. This, it appeared, would mostly be overseen by local assistants on site, and was mainly his title and source of income. And in return he was to outfit and provide one hundred soldiers to the Emperor's armies, when required, and teach all he knew of the Quran, and judge various civil disputes given to his charge.
'There are disputes that only the ulama are fit to judge,' the Emperor's adviser Raja Todor Mai told him. 'The Emperor has great responsibilities. The empire itself is not yet secure from its enemies. Akbar's grandfather Babur came here from the Punjab, and established a Muslim kingdom only forty years ago, and the infidels still attack us from the south and the east. Every year some campaigns are necessary to drive them back. All the faithful in his empire are under his care, in theory, but the burden of his responsibilities means in practice he simp y oesn't have time.'
'Of course not.'
'Meanwhile, there is no other system of justice for disputes among people. As the law is based on the Quran, the qadis, the ulama and other holy men such as yourself are the logical choice to take on this burden.'
'Of course.'
In the weeks following, Bistami did indeed find himself sitting in judgment in disputes brought before him by some of the Emperor's slave assistants. Two men claimed the same land; Bistami asked where their fathers had lived, and their fathers' fathers, and determined that one's family had lived in the region longer than the other's. In ways like this he made his judgments.
More new clothes came from the tailors; a new house and complete retinue of servants and slaves were provided; he was given a trunk of gold and silver coins numbering one hundred thousand. And for all this he merely had to consult the Quran and recall the hadith he had learned (really very few, and even fewer relevant), and render judgments that were usually obvious to all. When they were not obvious, he made them as best he could and retired to the mosque and prayed uneasily, then attended the Emperor and the evening meal. He went on his own at dawn every day to the tomb of Chishti, and so saw the Emperor again in the same informal circumstances as their first meeting, perhaps once or twice a month enough to keep the very busy Emperor aware of his existence. He always had prepared the story he would relate to Akbar that day, when asked what he had been doing; each story was chosen for what it might teach the Emperor, about himself, or Bistami, or the empire or the world. Surely a decent and thoughtful lesson was the least he could do for the incredible bounty that Akbar had bestowed on him.
One morning he told him the story from Sura Eighteen, about the men who lived in a city that had forsaken God, and God took them apart to a cave, and made them to sleep as it were a single night, to them; and when they went out they found that three hundred and nine years had passed. 'Thus with your work, mighty Akbar, you shoot us into the future.'
Another morning he told him the story of El Khadir, the reputed vizier of Dhoulkarnain, who was said to have drunk of the fountain of life, by virtue of which he still lives, and will live till the day of judgment; who appeared, clad in green robes, to Muslims in distress, to help them. 'Thus your work here, great Akbar, will continue deathless through the years to help Muslims in distress.'
The Emperor appeared to appreciate these cool dewy conversations. He invited Bistami to join him in several hunts, and Bistami and his retinue occupied a big white tent, and spent the hot days riding horses as they crashed through the jungle after the howling dogs or beaters; or, more to Bistami's taste, sat on the howdah of an elephant, and watched the great falcons leave Akbar's wrist and soar high above, thence to dive in terrific stoops onto hare or fowl. Akbar fixed his attention on you in just the same way the falcons did.
Akbar loved his falcons, in fact, as kin, and always spent the days of the hunt in excellent spirits. He would call Bistami to his side to speak a blessing over the great birds, who looked off to the horizon, unimpressed. Then they were cast into the air, and flapped hard as they made their way quickly up to their hunting height, splaying wide their big wing feathers. When they were settled in their gyres overhead, a few doves were released. These birds flew as fast as they could for cover in trees or bush, but they were not usually fast enough to escape the attack of the hawks. Their broken bodies were returned by the great raptors to the feet of the Emperor's retainers, and then the falcons flew back to Akbar's wrist, where they were greeted with a stare as fixed as their own, and bits of raw mutton.
It was just such a happy day that was interrupted by bad news from the south. A messenger arrived saying that Adharn Khan's campaign against the Sultan of Malwa, Baz Bahadur, had succeeded, but that the Khan's army had gone on to slaughter all of the captured men, women and children of the town of Malwa, including many Muslim theologians, and even some Sayyids, that is to say direct descendants of the Prophet.
Akbar's fair complexion turned red all over his neck and face, leaving only the mole on the left side of his face untouched, like a white raisin embedded in his skin. 'No more,' he declared to his falcon, and then he began to give orders, the bird thrown to its falconer and the hunt forgotten. 'He thinks I am still under age.'
He rode off hard, leaving all his retinue behind except for Pir Muhammed Khan, his most trusted general. Bistami heard later that Akbar had personally relieved Adharn Khan of his command.
Bistami had the Chishti tomb to himself for a month. Then he found the Emperor there one morning, with a dark look. Adharn Khan had been replaced as vakil, the chief minister, by Zein. 'It will enrage him but it must be done,' Akbar said. 'We will have to put him under house arrest.'
Bistami nodded and continued to sweep the cool dry floor of the inner chamber. The idea of Adharn Khan under permanent guard, usually a prelude to execution, was disturbing to contemplate. He had a lot of friends in Agra. He might be so bold as to try to rebel. As the Emperor must very well know.
Indeed, two days later, when Bistami was standing at the edge of Akbar's afternoon group at the palace, he was frightened but not surprised to see Adharn Khan appear and stamp to the top of the stairs, armed, bloody, shouting that he had killed Zein not an hour before, in the man's own audience chamber, for usurping what was rightfully his.
Hearing this Akbar went red faced again, and struck the Khan hard on the side of the head with his drinking cup. He grabbed the man by the front of his jacket, and pulled him across the room. The slightest resistance from Adharn would have been instant death from the Emperor's guards, who stood at each side of them, swords at the ready; and so he allowed himself to be dragged out to the balcony, where Akbar flung him over the railing into space. Then Akbar, redder than ever, raced down the stairs, ran to the half conscious Khan, seized him by the hair and dragged him bodily up the stairs, armoured though he was, over the carpet and out to the balcony, where he heaved him over the rail again. Adhere Khan hit the patio below with a loose heavy thud.
Indeed he had been killed. The Emperor retired into his private quarters in the palace.
The next morning Bistami swept the shrine of Chishti with a tightness all through his body.
Akbar appeared, and Bistami's heart hammered in his chest. Akbar seemed calm, though distracted. The tomb was a place to give himself some serenity. But the vigorous brushing he gave the floor that Bistami had already cleaned belied the calm of his speech. He's the Emperor, Bistami thought suddenly, he can do what he wants.
But then again, as a Muslim emperor, he was subservient to God, and the sharia. All powerful and yet all submissive, all at once. No wonder he seemed thoughtful to the point of distraction, sweeping the shrine in the early morning. It was hard to imagine him mad with anger, like a bull elephant in must, throwing a man bodily to his death. There was within him a deep well of rage.
Rebellion of ostensibly Muslim subjects struck deepest into this well. A new rebellion in the Punjab was reported, an army sent to put it down. The innocents of the region were spared, and even those who had fought for the rebellion. But its leaders, some forty of them, were brought to Agra and placed in a circle of war elephants that had long blades like giant swords attached to their tusks. The elephants were unleashed on the traitors, who screamed as they were mowed down and trampled underfoot, their bodies then tossed high in the air by the blood maddened elephants. Bistami had not realized that elephants could be driven to such blood lust. Akbar stood high on a throne howdah perched on the biggest elephant of all, an elephant that stood still before the spectacle, the two of them observing the carnage.
Some days later, when the Emperor came to the tomb at dawn, it felt strange to sweep the shadowed courtyard of the tomb with him. Bistami swept assiduously, trying not to meet Akbar's gaze.
Finally he had to acknowledge the sovereign's presence. Akbar was already staring at him.
'You seem troubled,' Akbar said.
'No, mighty Akbar – not at all.'
'You don't approve of the execution of traitors to Islam?'
'Not at all, yes, of course I do.'
Akbar stared at him in the same way one of his falcons would have.
'But didn't Ibn Khaldun say that the caliph has to submit to Allah in the same way as the humblest slave? Didn't he say that the caliph has a duty to obey Muslim law? And doesn't Muslim law forbid torture of prisoners? Isn't that Khaldun's point?'
'Khaldun was just a historian,' Bistami said.
Akbar laughed. 'And what about the hadith, that has it from Abu Taiba by way of Murra Ibn Harridan by way of Sufyan al Thawri, who had it related to him by Ali Ibn Abi Talaib, that the Messenger of God, may God bless his name for ever, said, "You shall not torture slaves?" What about the lines of the Quran that command the ruler to imitate Allah and to show compassion and mercy to prisoners? Did I not break the spirit of these commandments, 0 wise sufi pilgrim?'
Bistami studied the flagstones of the courtyard. 'Perhaps so, great Akbar. Only you know.'
Akbar regarded him. 'Leave the tomb of Chishti,' he said.
Bistami hurried out of the gate.
The next time Bistami saw Akbar was at the palace, where he had been commanded to appear; as it turned out, to explain why, as the Emperor put it icily, 'your friends in Gujarat are rebelling against me'?
Bistami said uneasily, 'I left Ahmadabad precisely because there was so much strife. The mirzas were always having trouble. The King Muzaffar Shah the Third was no longer in control. You know all this. This is why you took Gujarat under your protection.'
Akbar nodded, seeming to remember that campaign. 'But now Husain Mirza has come back out of the Deccan, and many of the nobles of Gujarat have joined him in rebellion. If word spreads that I can be defied so easily, who knows what will follow?'
'Surely Gujarat must be retaken,' Bistami said uncertainly; perhaps, as last time, this was exactly what Akbar did not want to hear. What was expected of Bistami was not clear to him; he was an official of the court, a qadi, but his advice before had all been religious, or legal. Now, with a previous residence of his in revolt, he was apparently on the spot; not where one wanted to be when Akbar was angry.
'It may already be too late,' Akbar said. 'The coast is two months away.'
'Must it be?' Bistami asked. 'I have made the trip by myself in ten days. Perhaps if you took only your best hundreds, on female camels, you could surprise the rebels.'
Akbar favoured him with his hawk look. He called for Raja Todor Mal, and soon it was arranged as Bistami had suggested. A cavalry of three thousand soldiers, led by Akbar, with Bistami ordered along, covered the distance between Agra and Ahmadabad in eleven dusty long days, and this cavalry, made strong and bold by the swift march, shattered a ragtag horde of many thousands of rebels, fifteen thousand by one general's count, most of them killed in the battle.
Bistami spent that day on camelback, following the main charges of the front, trying to stay within sight of Akbar, and when that failed, helping wounded men into the shade. Even without Akbar's great siege guns, the noise of the battle was shocking – most of it created by the screaming of men and camels. Dust blanketing the hot air smelled of blood.
Late in the afternoon, desperately thirsty, Bistami made his way down to the river. Scores of wounded and dying were already there, staining the river red. Even at the upstream edge of the crowd it was impossible to drink a mouthful that did not taste of blood.
Then Raja Todor Mal and a gang of soldiers arrived among them, executing with swords the mirzas and Afghans who had led the rebellion. One of the mirzas caught sight of Bistami and cried out 'Bistami, save me! Save me!'
The next moment he was headless, his body pouring its blood onto the bankside from the open neck. Bistami turned away, Raja Todor Mal staring after him.
Clearly Akbar heard of this later, for all during the leisurely march back to Fatepur Sikri, despite the triumphant nature of the procession, and Akbar's evident high spirits, he did not call Bistami into his presence. This despite the fact that the lightning assault on the rebels had been Bistami's idea. Or perhaps this also was part of it. Raja Todor Mal and his cronies could not be pleased by that.
It looked bad, and nothing in the great victory festival on their return to Fatepur Sikri, only forty three days after their departure, made Bistami feel any better. On the contrary, he felt more and more apprehensive, as the days passed and Akbar did not come to the tomb of Chishti.
Instead, one morning, three guards appeared there. They had been assigned to guard Bistami at the tomb, also back at his own compound. They informed him that he was not allowed to go anywhere else but these two places. He was under house arrest.
This was the usual prelude to the interrogation and execution of traitors. Bistami could see in his guards' eyes that this time was no exception, and that they considered him a dead man. It was hard for him to believe that Akbar had turned on him; he struggled to understand it. Fear grew daily in him. The image of the mirza's headless body, gushing blood, kept recurring to him, and each time it did the blood in his own body would pound through him as if testing the means of escape, eager for release in a bursting red fountain.
He went to the Chishti tomb on one of these frightful mornings, and decided not to leave it. He sent orders for one of his retainers to bring him food every day at sundown, and after eating outside the gate of the tomb, he slept on a mat in the corner of the courtyard. He fasted through the days as if it were Ramadan, and alternated days reciting from the Quran and from Rumi's 'Mathnawi', and other Persian sufi texts. Some part of him hoped and expected that one of the guards would speak Persian, so that the words of the Mowlana, Rumi the great poet and voice of the sufis, would be understood as they came pouring out of him.
'Here are the miracle signs you want,' he would say in a loud voice, that you cry through the night and get up at dawn, asking that in the absence of what you ask for, your day gets dark, your neck thin as a spindle, that what you give away is all you own, that you sacrifice belongings, sleep, health, your head, that you often sit down in a fire like aloes wood, and often go out to meet a blade like a battered helmet. When acts of helplessness become habitual, those are the signs. You run back and forth listening for unusual events, peering into the faces of travellers. Why are you looking at me like a madman? I have lost a Friend. Please forgive me. Searching like that does not fail. There will come a rider who holds you close. You faint and gibber. The uninitiated say, he's faking. How could they know? Water washes over a beached fish.
'Blessed is that intelligence into whose heart's ear from heaven the sound of "come hither" is coming. The defiled ear hears not that sound – only the deserving gets his desserts. Defile not your eye with human cheek and mole, for that emperor of eternal life is coming; and if it has become defiled, wash it with tears, for the cure comes from those tears. A caravan of sugar has arrived from Egypt; the sound of a footfall and bell is coming. Ha, be silent, for to complete the ode our speaking King is coming.'
After many days of that, Bistami began to repeat the Quran sura by sura, returning often to the first sura, the Opening of the Book, the Fatiha, the Healer, which the guards would never fail to recognize: 'Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds! The compassionate, the merciful! King on the day of reckoning! Thee only do we worship, and to Thee do we cry for help. Guide Thou us on the straight path, the path of those to whom Thou has been gracious; – and with whom Thou are not angry, and who go not astray.'
This great opening prayer, so appropriate to his situation, Bistami repeated hundreds of times per day. Sometimes he repeated only the prayer 'Sufficient for us is God and excellent the Protector'; once he said it thirty three thousand times in a row. Then he switched to 'Allah is merciful, submit to Allah, Allah is merciful, submit to Allah', which he repeated until his mouth was parched, his voice hoarse, and the muscles of his face cramped with exhaustion.
All the while he swept the courtyard clear, and then all the rooms of the shrine, one by one, and he filled the lamps and trimmed the wicks, and swept some more, looking at the skies as they changed through the days, and he said the same things over and over, feeling the wind push through him, watching the leaves of the trees surrounding the shrine pulse, each in its own transparent light. Arabic is learning, but Persian is sugar. He tasted his food at sundown as he had never tasted food before. Nevertheless it became easy to fast, perhaps because it was winter and the days were a bit shorter. Fear still stabbed him frequently, causing his blood to surge in him at enormous pressure, and he prayed aloud in every waking moment, no doubt driving his guards mad with the droning of it.
Eventually the whole world contracted to the tomb, and he began to forget the things that had happened before to him, or the things that presumably were still happening in the world outside the shrine grounds. He forgot them. His mind was becoming clarified, indeed everything in the world seemed to be becoming slightly transparent. He could see into leaves, and sometimes through them, as if they were made of glass; and it was the same with the white marble and alabaster of the tomb, which glowed as if alive in the dusks; and with his own flesh. 'All save the face of God doth perish. To Him shall we return.' These were the words from the Quran embedded in the Mowlana's beautiful poem of reincarnation,
'I died as mineral and became a plant, I died as plant and rose as animal, I died as animal and I was Man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying? Yet once more I shall die as Man, to soar With angels blessed; but even from angelhood I must pass on: "All save the face of God doth perish." When I have sacrificed my angelic soul, I shall become what no mind has ever conceived, Oh, let me not exist! for non existence Proclaims in organ tones: "To Him shall we return".'
He repeated this poem a thousand times, always whispering the last part, for fear the guards would report to Akbar that he was preparing himself for death.
Days passed; weeks passed. He grew hungrier, and hypersensitive to all tastes and smells, then to the air and the light. He could feel the nights that stayed hot and steamy as if they were blankets swaddling him, and in the brief cool of dawn he walked around sweeping and praying, looking at the sky over the leafy trees growing lighter and lighter; and then one morning as dawn grew, everything began to turn into light. '0 he, 0 he who is He, 0 he who is naught but He!' Over and over he cried these words out into the world of light, and even the words were shards of light bursting out of his mouth. The tomb became a thing of pure white light, glowing in the cool green light of the trees, the trees of green light, and the fountain poured its water of light up into the lit air, and the walls of the courtyard were bricks of light, and everything was light, pulsing lightly. He could see through the Earth, and back through time, over a Khyber Pass made of slabs of yellow light, back to the time of his birth, in the tenth day of Moharram, the day when the Imam Hosain, the only living grandson of Mohammed, had died defending the faith, and he saw that whether or not Akbar had him killed he would live on, for he had lived before many times, and was not going to be done when this life ended. 'Why should I be afraid?
When did I ever lose by dying?' He was a creature of light as everything else was, and had once been a village girl, another time a horseman on the steppes, another time the servant of the Twelfth Imam, so that he knew how and why the Imam had disappeared, and when he would return to save the world. Knowing that, there was no reason to fear anything. 'Why should I be afraid? 0 he, 0 he who is He, sufficient is God and excellent the Protector, Allah the merciful, the beneficent!' Allah who had sent Mohammed on his isra, his journey into light, just as Bistami was being sent now, towards the ascension of miraj, when all would become a light utterly transparent and invisible.
Understanding this, Bistami looked through the transparent walls and trees and earth to Akbar, across the city in his clear palace, robed in light like an angel, a man surely more than half angel already, an angel spirit that he had known in previous lives, and that he would know again in future lives, until they all came to one place and Allah rang down the universe.
Except this Akbar of light turned his head, and looked through the lit space between them, and Bistami saw then that his eyes were black balls in his head, black as onyx; and he said to Bistami, We have never met before; I am not the one you seek; the one you seek is elsewhere.
Bistami reeled, fell back in the corner made by the two walls.
When he came to himself, still in a colourful glassine world, Akbar in the flesh stood there before him, sweeping the courtyard with Bistami's broom.
'Master,' Bistami said, and began to weep. 'Mowlana.'
Akbar stopped over him, stared down at him.
Finally he put a hand to Bistami's head. 'You are a servant of God,' he said.
'Yes, Mowlana.'
'"Now hath God been gracious to us",' Akbar recited in Arabic. For whoso feareth God and endureth, God verily will not suffer the reward of the righteous to perish. -
This was from Sura Twelve, the story of Joseph and his brothers. Bistami, encouraged, still seeing through the edges of things, including Akbar and his luminous hand and face, a creature of light pulsing through lives like days, recited verses from the end of the next sura, 'Thunder': Those who lived before them made plots; but all plotting is controlled by God: He knoweth the works of every one. -
Akbar nodded, looking to Chishti's tomb and thinking his own thoughts.
No blame be on you this day",' he muttered, speaking the words Joseph spoke as he forgave his brothers. God will forgive you, for He is the most merciful of those who show mercy."'
'Yes, mowlana. God gives us all things, God the merciful and compassionate, he who is He. 0 he who is He, 0 he who is He, 0 he who is He…' With difficulty he stopped himself.
'Yes.' Akbar looked back down at him again. 'Now, whatever may have happened in Gujarat, I don't wish to hear any more of it. I don't believe you had anything to do with the rebellion. Stop weeping. But Abul Fazl and Shaikh Abdul Nabi do believe this, and they are among my chief advisers. In most matters I trust them. I am loyal to them, as they are to me. So I can ignore them in this, and instruct them to leave you alone, but even if I do that, your life here will not be as comfortable as it was before. You understand.'
'Yes, master.'
'So I am going to send you away 'No, master!'
'Be silent. I am going to send you on the haj.'
Bistami's mouth fell open. After all these days of endless talking, his jaw hung from his face like a broken gate. White light filled everything, and for a moment he swooned.
Then colours returned, and he began to hear again: ' you will ride to Surat and sail on my pilgrim ship, llahi, across the Arabian Sea to Jiddah. The waqf has generated a good donation to Mecca and Medina, and I have appointed Wazir as the mir haj, and the party will include my aunt, Bulbadan Begam, and my wife Salima. I would like to go myself, but Abul FazI insists that I am needed here.'
Bistami nodded. 'You are indispensable, master.'
Akbar contemplated him. 'Unlike you.'
He removed his hand from Bistami's head. 'But the mir haj can always use another cladi. And I wish to establish a permanent Timurid school in Mecca. You can help with that.'
'But – and not come back?'
'Not if you value this existence.'
Bistami stared down at the ground, feeling a chill.
' Come now,' the Emperor said. 'For such a devout scholar as you, a life in Mecca should be pure joy.'
'Yes, master. Of course.' But his voice choked on the words.
Akbar laughed. 'It's better than beheading, you must admit! And who knows. Life is long. Perhaps you will come back one day.'
They both knew it was not likely. Life was not long.
'Whatever God wills,' Bistami murmured, looking around. This courtyard, this tomb, these trees, which he knew stone by stone, branch by branch, leaf by leaf this life, which had filled a hundred years in the last month – it was over. All that he knew so well would pass from him, including this beloved awesome young man. Strange to think that each true life was only a few years long that one passed through several in each bodily span. He said, 'God is great. We will never meet again.'