A Scholar's Boyhood: Excerpts From an Autobiography

by TAHA HUSSEIN

1

FOR the first two or three weeks of his stay in Cairo the boy was lost in bewilderment. All he knew was that he had left the country behind him and settled in the capital as a student attending lectures at the Azhar. It was more by imagination than by sense that he distinguished the three phases of his day.

Both the house he lived in and the path that led to it were strange and unfamiliar. When he came back from the Azhar he turned to the right through a gateway which was open during the daytime and shut at night; after evening prayer there was only a narrow opening left in the middle of the door. Once through it, he became aware of a gentle heat playing on his right cheek, and a fine smoke teasing his nostrils; while on the left he heard an odd gurgling sound which at once puzzled and delighted him.

For several days, morning and evening, he listened curiously to this sound, but lacked the courage to inquire what it might be. Then one day he gathered from a chance remark that it came from the bubbling of a narghile water pipe smoked by tradesmen of the district. It was provided for them by the proprietor of the cafe from which the gentle heat and the fine smoke-cloud issued.

He walked straight on for a few steps before crossing a damp, roofed-in space which was very slippery under his feet because of the slops thrown there by the café proprietor. Then he came out into an open passageway; but this was narrow and filthy and full of strange, elusive smells, which were only moderately unpleasant early in the day and at nightfall, but as the day advanced and the heat of the sun grew stronger, became utterly intolerable.

He walked straight on through this narrow passage; but rarely did he find it smooth or easy. More often than not his brother would have to push him either this way or that so as to avoid some obstacle or other. He would hurry along nervously at his companion’s side, breathing the nauseous smells, and half-deafened by the medley of sounds that came from all sides at once.

There was in fact a remarkable variety of sounds. Voices of women raised in dispute, of men shouting in anger or peaceably talking together; the noise of loads being set down or picked up; the song of the water carrier crying his wares; the curse of a carter to his mule; the grating sound of cart wheels; and from time to time this confused whirl of sounds was torn by the braying of a donkey or the whinnying of a horse.

As he passed through this babel, his thoughts were far away, and he was scarcely conscious of himself or of what he was doing; but at a certain point on the road he heard familiar voices in conversation through a half-open door; then he knew that a pace or two further on he must turn to the left up a staircase which would bring him to his lodging.

It was an ordinary sort of staircase, neither wide nor narrow, and its steps were of stone; but since it was much used, and no one troubled to wash or sweep it, the dirt piled up thickly and stuck together in a compact mass on the steps that felt to his feet like mud.

Now whenever he went up or down a staircase the boy was obliged to count the steps. After going up seven steps he had to turn a little to the left before continuing his ascent, leaving on his right an opening through which he never penetrated, though he knew that it led to the first floor of the building in which he lived for so many years.

He went on up to the second floor. There his harassed spirit found rest and relief; lungfuls of fresh air drove away the sense of suffocation which had oppressed him on that filthy staircase.

And then too there was the parrot, whistling on without a break, as if to testify before all the world to the tyranny of her Persian master, who had imprisoned her in an abominable cage, and would sell her tomorrow or the day after to another man who would treat her in exactly the same way. Yet everywhere she went that plaintive cry of hers would delight the hearts of men and women.

When the boy reached the top of the staircase he breathed in the fresh air that blew on his face, and listened to the voice of the parrot calling him towards the right. He obeyed, turning through a narrow corridor, past two rooms in which two Persians lived. One of these was still a young man, while the other was already past middle age. The one was as morose and misanthropic as the other was genial and good-natured.

At last the boy was home. He entered a room like a hall, which provided for most of the practical needs of the house. This led on to another room, large but irregular in shape, which served for social and intellectual needs. It was bedroom and dining room, reading room and study, and a place for conversation by day or by night. Here were books and crockery and food; and here the boy had his own particular corner, as in every room he occupied or visited at all frequently.

This place of his was on the left inside the door. After advancing a pace or two he found a mat spread on the ground, and over part of it an old but quite serviceable carpet. Here he sat in the daytime, and here he slept at night, with a pillow for his head and a rug to cover him. On the opposite side of the room was his elder brother’s place, a good deal better than his own. His brother had a decent carpet over the mat, then a felt mattress, and above that a long, wide piece of bedding stuffed with cotton, and finally, crowning all, a coverlet. Here the young sheikh would sit with his friends. They were not obliged to prop up their backs against the bare wall, as the boy did, having cushions to pile up on the rugs.

2

THIS was all the boy ever learnt about his immediate surroundings. But just outside the house was a shop which played an important part in his life; it belonged to el-Hagg Firûz, who supplied the neighborhood with most of the necessities of life. In the morning he sold boiled beans called fool, prepared in the usual variety of ways. But el-Hagg Firûz used to boast the special virtues of his beans — and raise their prices accordingly. He had plain beans, beans in fat, beans in butter, beans in every kind of oil; he added, if required, all sorts of spices. As for the students, they adored these beans, and often made far too large a meal of them. So by mid-morning they were already dull in the head, and at the noon lecture they slept.

When evening came el-Hagg Firûz sold his customers their supper: cheese, olives, milled sesame, or honey. To the more luxurious he supplied cans of tuna fish or sardines. And to a few of them perhaps, as night approached, he sold things which have no name, and nothing to do with food — things spoken of in a whisper, yet passionately vied for.

The boy used to overhear these whisperings; sometimes he half understood, but as a rule the whole transaction was a mystery to him. As the days passed by and he grew older, he came to see through these subtle hints and ambiguities. What he learned then obliged him to overhaul his standards of judgment, and to revise his valuation both of people and of things.

El-Hagg Firûz held a unique position in the neighborhood and amongst the students especially. It was to him that they went when their money ran out towards the end of the month, or when their remittances were overdue. He it was who gave them food on credit, lent them a piaster or two from time to time, and helped them out in all kinds of emergencies. No wonder his name was as often on their lips as those of the most learned sheikhs of the Azhar.

But this was not all. El-Hagg Firûz was essential to the students in yet another way. It was to him that were addressed all the letters bringing them news of their families, or enclosing flimsy slips which they took to the post office with empty pockets, to return with the jingle of silver falling cheerily on their ears and into their very hearts.

Naturally not a single student missed an opportunity of passing the time of day, morning and evening, at el-Hagg Firûz’ shop, or of casting a quick furtive glance at the spot where letters were waiting to be collected. How often one of them would go home grasping a sealed envelope which was spotted with oil and butter stains; yet despite its greasiness that envelope was more precious in his eyes than any composition or textbook on law, grammar, or theology.

So on leaving the house each morning the boy found himself in front of el-Hagg Firûz’ shop where his brother would inquire if there were any letters. Then they turned down a long narrow street crowded with people — children, students, porters, tradesmen, laborers, and carters shouting warnings or curses at anyone who blocked their paths. On each side of the street were different kinds of shops, in many of which was prepared the meager diet of the poor. The smells that issued from these shops were abominable, but that did not prevent them from delighting most of the passers-by. Some of them stopped and bought a scrap of food to gulp down on the spot, or to take home. But some of them, assailed by this battery of smells, remained unmoved. They were tempted but did not yield. Their eyes saw, their nostrils smelled, their appetite was stirred; but, alas, their pockets were empty. They passed on with yearning in their souls and with bitterness and resentment in their hearts; yet at the same time they accepted their lot with resignation.

In some other shops a quiet, unhurried trade was transacted, almost without any words passing at all. If anything was said, it was under the breath, so as scarcely to be heard. In spite of this — or perhaps for this very reason — the trade in question brought great prosperity to those who practiced it. To all appearances the majority of these shops dealt only in coffee or soap, though some of them also sold sugar and rice.

As he passed through all this a warm interest stirred in the boy. But he would have understood practically nothing had not his brother from time to time volunteered an explanation. At last they came to a spot where they had to turn a little to the left and then plunge into a lane as narrow and crooked and filthy as could be. Its atmosphere was foul with an unspeakable medley of smells, and weak, hollow voices cried out for charity to the footfalls of passers-by, begging at the sound of steps, as if life were only perceptible through the ears. Their misery was answered by other voices: the thin, harsh, strangled cries of bats which love darkness and desolation and ruins. Often, with a flutter of wings, one of them, to his horror, would shave past his ear or his face. Instinctively his hand would fly up for protection, and for some time afterwards his heart would be throbbing with apprehension.

At last, after all these loathsome sounds, his heart would thrill with joy at the fresh air and calm as they reached a more pleasant, peaceful street. On one side of it was the Mosque of Sayyidna elHusein, grandson of the Prophet, and on the other a row of small shops. What good things he sometimes tasted there! Soaked figs and their juice in summertime, and in winter bassbûssa nut cakes which diffused a warm glow of well-being through the body. Some days they would stop at a Syrian shop to choose from a variety of foods, hot or cold, salt or sweet. To the boy their taste gave inexpressible pleasure, yet if they were offered him now he would be afraid they might make him ill, or even poison him.

They continued along this street to a place where the voices grew louder and more numerous. “This is a crossroads,”said his brother. “If you go right you reach the Sikka el-Gadida, then the Musky, then Ataba el-khadra. To the left you have Sharia el-Darrâssa. But we must go straight on into Sharia el-Hatwagi, the street of learning and hard work. It is so narrow that if you stretched out your arms left and right you could almost touch both walls. Now you are walking between a number of small bookshops. There are books of every kind in them, new and old, good and bad, in print or manuscript.”

How many a pleasant and rewarding halt did the boy make in that narrow street, which remained fixed in his memory later on, after his life had changed its course.

But this time they must hurry past. They had to be at the Azhar before the lecture began. Here they were, arrived at the Barbers’ Gate. He took off his sandals, laid them one on top of the other, then picked them up in his hand as he followed his companion. A little further on he stepped over a shallow threshold into the quiet courtyard of the Azhar, and felt a cool morning breeze blow refreshingly upon his face. And so he entered the third phase of this new life of his.

3

THIS third phase of his existence was the one he loved best of all. In his own room he endured all the pains of exile. It was like a foreign country to him, and he never became familiar with its contents, except perhaps those nearest to him. He did not live in it in the same sense that he had lived in his country home or in other familiar rooms where nothing was unknown to him. He passed his days there in exile from people and t hings alike, and in such anguish of heart that the oppressive air he breathed there brought him no rest or refreshment, but only heaviness and pain.

But the fresh breeze that blew across the court of the Azhar at the hour of morning prayer met him with a welcome and inspired him with a sense of security and hope. The touch of this breeze on his forehead, damp with sweat from that feverish journey, resembled nothing so much as the kisses his mother used to give him during his early years, when he chanted verses from the Koran to her, or entertained her with a story he had heard at the village school; or when, as a pale, delicate infant, he abandoned the corner in which he had been reciting the litany from the Sura Ya-Sin, the first chapter of the Koran, to go and carry out some household task or other.

As yet he knew little of the Azhar, but it was enough for him to brush with his bare feet the ground of that court, to feel on bis face the caress of its morning breeze, and to realize that around him the Azhar was preparing to awake from its drowsiness, that its inertia would soon give place to activity. He begun to recover consciousness of himself, as life returned to him. His soul blossomed forth, and with every fiber of his being he yearned to discover . . . well, what? Something he was a stranger to, though he loved it and felt irresistibly drawn towards it — knowledge. How many times had he heard this word, and longed to find out its hidden meaning! His father and the learned friends who came to visit him had spoken of knowledge as a boundless ocean, and the child had never taken this expression for a figure of speech or a metaphor, but as the simple truth. He had come to Cairo and to the Azhar with the intention of throwing himself into this ocean and drinking what he could of it, until the day he drowned. What finer end could there be for a man of spirit than to drown himself in knowledge? What a splendid plunge into the beyond!

4

THE boy paced on with his companion until he had crossed the entrance court and mounted the shallow step which is the threshold of the Azhar itself. His heart was all modesty and humility, but his soul was filled with glory and pride. His feet stepped lightly over the worn-out mats that were laid out across the floor, leaving a bare patch here and there, as if on purpose to touch the feet which passed over them with something of the benediction attached to that holy ground. The boy used to love the Azhar at this moment, when worshipers were finishing their early-morning prayer and going away, with the marks of drowsiness still in their eyes. Others would remain to wait for the teacher who was to give a lecture on tradition or exegesis, first principles or theology.

At this moment the Azhar was quiet, and free from the strange intermingled murmurs that filled it from sunrise until evening prayer. You could only hear the whispered conversations of its inmates or the hushed but steady voice of some young man reciting the Koran. Or you might come upon a worshiper who had arrived too late for the common service, or had gone on to perform extra prayers after completing the statutory number. Or maybe you would hear a teacher beginning his lecture in the languid tone of a man who has awakened from sleep and said his prayers but has not yet eaten anything to give him strength and energy. He starts in a quiet, husky voice: “In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate: Praise be to God, father of the worlds. May His peace and blessing be upon our lord Mohammed, the most noble of the prophets, upon his family and his companions. These are the words of the author of the Book, may God rest his soul and grant us the fruits of his learning. Amen!”

The students listened to the lecture with the same quiet languor in which it was given. There was a striking contrast between the different tones the sheikhs used at the early-morning and midday lectures. At dawn their voices were calm and gentle, with traces of drowsiness in them. At noon they were strong and harsh, but fraught too with a certain sluggishness induced by the lunch they had just eaten, the baked beans and pickles which made up the usual fare of an Azharite at this time. At dawn the voices seemed to beg humbly for favor from the great authorities of the past, while by noon they were attacking them almost as if they were adversaries. This contrast always astonished and delighted the boy.

On he went with his brother up the two steps leading into the liwân, the colonnade surrounding the central court of the mosque. There beside one of those sacred pillars, to which a chair was attached by a great chain, he was deposited and left with these words: “Wait here and you will hear a lecture on tradition; when mine is over I will return and fetch you.

His brother’s lecture, he knew, was on the first principles of Islamic law, given by Sheikh Râdy, God rest his soul. The textbook was the Tahrîr, or “Correct Reformulation" of el-Kemal Ibn elHumam. When the boy heard this sentence, every word filled him at once with awe and curiosity. First principles of law? What science was this? Sheikh Râdy? Who could he be? What was the meaning of “Correct Reformulation?" El-Kemal Ibn el-Humam! Could there be a more wonderful pair of names? How true it was that knowledge is a boundless ocean, full of unimaginable benefit for any thoughtful being who is ready to plunge into it. The boy’s admiration for this particular course grew deeper every day as he listened to his brother and his brother’s friends studying their lesson beforehand. What they read sounded very strange, but there was no doubt of its fascination.

As he listened to them talk the boy used to burn with longing to grow six or seven years older, so that he might be able to understand the subject, to solve its riddles and ambiguities, to be at home in the law as those distinguished young men were, and to dispute with the teachers about it as they did. But for the present he was compelled to listen without understanding. Time and again he would turn over some sentence or other in his mind on the chance of finding some sense in it. But he achieved nothing by all this, except perhaps a greater respect for knowledge and a deeper reverence for his teachers, together with modesty as to his own powers and a determination to work harder.

There was one remarkable sentence in particular he often heard repeated which intrigued him. How many sleepless nights it cost him! How many days of his life it overcast! Sometimes it tempted him to miss an elementary lecture — for he had understood his own first lessons without difficulty — and so led him on to playing truant from the sheikh’s lecture on tradition, in order to speculate on what he had heard from the lips of those older students.

This was the sentence: “Right is the negation of negation,” What could these words mean? How could negation be negated? What might such negation be? And how could the negation of negation be right? The idea kept whirling round in his head like the ravings of delirium in a sick man’s brain, until one day it was driven out of his mind by one of the grammarian el-Kafrawy’s Problems. This problem he understood at once and was able to argue about. Thus he came at last to feel that he had begun to taste the water of the boundless ocean of knowledge.

The boy sat beside the pillar, toying with the chain on the chair and listening to the sheikh on tradition. He understood him perfectly, and found nothing to criticize in his lesson except the cascade of names which was poured forth in giving the source and authorities for each tradition. It was always “so-and-so tells us” or “according to soand-so.” The boy could not see the point of these endless series of names, or this tedious tracing of sources. He longed for the sheikh to have done with all this and come down to the tradition itself. As soon as he did so the boy listened with all his heart. He memorized the tradition and understood it, but was bored by the sheikh’s analysis, which reminded him too well of the explanations given by the imam of the mosque in his country village who had given him his first schooling.

While the sheikh proceeded with his lecture the Azhar began gradually to wake up, as if stirred out of its torpor by the voices of the teachers holding forth, and by the discussions which arose between them and the students, amounting sometimes almost to quarrels. The talk rose in volume, the echoes intermingled and the sheikhs raised their voices again, so that the students might be able to hear them, ever higher and higher, up to the final climax of the words “God is all-wise.” Then his brother would return, take him by the hand without a word and drag him off all urgently to another place, where he dumped him like a piece of luggage and abandoned him again.

The boy realized that he had been transferred to the law class. He would listen to this lecture until it came to an end and both sheikhs and students went off. Then he would stay rooted to the spot until his brother came back from Sayyidna elHusein, where he had been attending a lecture on law given by Sheikh Bakhît, God rest his soul.

Now Sheikh Bakhît was prolix in the extreme, and his students used to harass him with objections. So he never finished the lesson until the middle of the morning. Then his brother would return, take him by the hand without a word, and lead him out of the Azhar. And they would retrace their steps to the lodging house, where he was left alone in his place in the corner on the old carpet stretched out over a rotten worn-out mat.

Translated by Hilary Wayment