It was late at night and stars filled the sky's canopy. Little Cristo had come to hear a story from his papa. I laughed and told him I had a tale just for him, for right now, for the times in which we exist.
THE WELL OF MADNESS
A Fable
"'Anā 'azunn innahu majnūn."
--"I think he is mad."
Many worlds ago, in a desert kingdom far across the sands, an old sultan sat silently in the shadows of his throne room. He was a virtuous and wise man and though he now was old and his beard white as lamb's wool, in his younger days, he had slain many foes and brought countless caliphs to his feet. Back then, when his beard was dark, he rode a glorious red steed into battle, his golden armor and silver sword gleaming in the sun and the banner of his kingdom waving behind him in the wind. He built an empire. No man could challenge him and no land could withstand his will.
Yet mercy and wisdom were the qualities in him that his people loved most. His mosques were righteous, his schools renowned, and his courts of law were just.
Painters and poets flourished under his reign. The great Hakim Ibn Ferhat wrote lyrics of love that every maiden knew by heart. Fahim Al-Adib painted patterns so rich and colorful that upon seeing them a man's dreams would be changed and shaped forever. The finest music for a thousand kingdoms was heard day and night in the city’s streets. Bands plucked at strings, beat drums and played flutes in rhythms so hypnotic and lush that women and men were inspired to love and be loved.
In the sultan’s palace, astrologers charted the heavens, looking skyward for divination and explanation, doctors healed the sick with the latest cures and mathematicians unlocked riddles of calculations with their theorems.
Those were the golden days.
Now the empire had faded and his conquests were only memories and the old sultan sat pensively in the cool shade of his darkened chamber and looked over the city he had ruled so long. As the sharp waves of the desert light rolled across his kingdom, he could see its towers and minarets reflected as they rose above the ivory walls that guarded them, their majesty twisting and angling towards the sky in even rows like trees, their tops encrusted in ruby, sapphire and pearl. Beneath them the city's streets wound in an endless labyrinth of shops and taverns, galleries and homes.
His kingdom was sick now. The citizens had been afflicted by a form of madness that seemed without cure.
It had started with the siege.
Djall, the Evil One, had encircled the city in the white robes of his armies. He knew that the old sultan was vulnerable now, that the time had arrived when he could to take the sultan’s empire out from under him as a rug from a sleeping peasant. Djall, silver-tongued and seductive, had assembled his vast armies around the city's walls. Charismatic Djall, who had been so close to the old sultan when he served as his trusted general, waited now outside the gates for the old man to be felled from within.
The gates of the city were locked and the army assembled at its walls. The sultan’s masterful archers stood sentinel atop them his cavalry rode near the gates. His knights polished their swords. The sultan would not give in.
At first the siege was well withstood. The people were content and confident and the sultan was secure. Then the young began to drink from the "Well of Awareness." Before he had left in dispute, Djall had gifted the city with a well the he called "a symbol of his peaceful intentions." He had made an impassioned plea for those to sip from it should ever there be conflict between him and his former brethren of the city.
As the siege began, the young, filled with daring that only the young can feel, and a desire for change that only innocence can inspire, tasted of the well. At first, they felt as always and their desire for experiences new seemed lost. Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, they felt it. They began to laugh, softly, slowly, like a giggle, than the laughter became louder, more raucous, like a guffaw. They began to dance, whirling and spinning. Some began to speak in strange tongues, chanting and screaming while they danced and laughed. Then the demands came forth from them. "Open the gates! Let in Djall!" they yelled. They chanted his name and gave testimony to his brilliance. They called on the old sultan to lay down his arms and his old ways. "It's a new age! Believe! Believe!" they cried.
They rushed madly towards the entrance of the city, but the soldiers stopped them. They threatened violence, but the soldiers were restrained. They attacked the warriors, screaming and clawing and throwing blows. The soldiers raised their swords to frighten them, but the young laughed and mocked them. They ran off shouting, "The sultan will not open the gates! He has lost his mind! 'Anā 'azunn innahu majnūn!"
The sight of them startled all. Artists, poets and musicians took note. "What manner of passion has seized our young?" they asked. Someone told them of the well and the strange reactions the young had had to it. Like all artists, they became curious and wanted to taste the experience. A new way of seeing the world was perhaps to be had.
So they drank of it.
Their reaction differed from the young. They felt the changes immediately, perhaps because the sensibilities of the artist are more keen, more open. The colors of the world around them became brighter, sounds clearer. Then colors changed and sounds transformed. They began to "see" the color of notes and "hear" the melody of color. They'd felt nothing like it before.
"Truly Djall is wondrous!" they shouted, "His thoughts are inside us!" Now they too began to clamor to let him inside the gates. "Let him in, Old Sultan!" they laughed, "Of what are you afraid?" They began to dance and the young came out to join them.
"'Anā 'azunn innahu majnūn," they chanted, "The king is mad! The king is mad! He cannot see the truth!"
Now the scribes, the town criers who spread the news of the city, gathered around in wonder. “Have they lost all reason,” they thought, “What has become of them?” They asked questions of the artists and the young and heard stories of a new way to see the world. All was beautiful and different now and all thanks to Djall and his well, they were told. The more they asked, the more curious they became.
So they too drank of the well.
And then the scribes were affected. They felt passion and outrage and empathy. They saw what the young and the artists had seen and they fumed that the old sultan could not see it as well. "You are a tyrant, Old Sultan!" they yelled. "Throw open the gates! You enslave us!"
And they wrote on parchment and shouted through the city, "'Anā 'azunn innahu majnūn!"
And so it continued. Next the scientists, then counselors and advisors, then the soldiers.
Only the wise old sultan had not drunk from the well.
The old sultan watched as the madness engulfed his once glittering city. Within him still was the young man whose brave heart had struck fear into the bones of his rivals. He stood up on frail legs and grabbed his sword and shield, both faded with time, and he walked down the many stairs in his palace, down into the fabled city he had built through the sheer force of his will, and faced his own people at this delicate hour.
Outside his palace a crowd awaited him. They were dancing and yelling in a wild frenzy and their blood was heated for something to be done by the old sultan.
He waded into them and spoke.
"Blessed be Allah, the compassionate, the merciful!" he began, "All greetings, blessings and good acts are from You, my Lord. Greetings to you, O Prophet, and the mercy and blessings of Allah. Peace be unto us, and unto the righteous servants of Allah. I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah. And I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and messenger."
The crowd grumbled. This was not what they wanted to hear. "Throw open the gates, you old fool!" someone in the crowd shouted. The hundreds that had gathered began to laugh roundly.
The wise old sultan was not fazed. He walked toward the offending man and struck him. Even in old age his hand was powerful and the man fell to the floor. The crowd became enraged and pushed towards him, but the old sultan lifted his sword and they scattered back. His cool eyes focused, he turned towards the well. The crowd parted for him as he walked to it.
When he reached the well, he grabbed the metal cup which sat atop it, bent over and dipped the cup in the well. His head disappeared below the walls of the well and when it could be seen again, the old sultan was smiling. He began to sing an old melody, and lifting his old legs, he began to dance, slowly at first, then wildly. He sputtered and chanted and cried out with glee, "The colors! The colors! How glorious the new colors of my kingdom!"
The crowd roared with approval.
Then the king said, "Wondrous is this well of Djall! How magnificent the taste of its water! It is time. Let the gates be opened."
The crowd screamed with joy, "Our sultan has returned! He has come to his senses! Blessed are we! Blessed is Djall!"
And so the soldiers removed the barriers and locks from the large emerald and gold doors by which one entered the city. The delicate geometric patterns and shapes the artisans had etched into it flittered in the light. The doors swung wide with a mighty groan and a bright light from the desert outside flooded the city.
Through the light, appearing like a specter, came Djall. His enormous grey steed, 22 hands high, snorted through its nostrils and its glowing red eyes smoldered. Djall, his face covered almost entirely in his white robes, smiled.
Djall spoke mellifluously in his booming voice, "Old Sultan, thou hast been wise in thy choice. The time for change hath come. Let not the old and the doubtful be a barrier unto it. Let not thy doubts halt what must be, for as each eye canst see, thy people hath felt the stirrings inside with which I hath filled them. Showeth unto them what thou hast within you now. Kneel unto me and be my footstool, that I may come down from my steed and unto this land and walk toward thy palace from whence the change of Djall will completeth itself.
And so the old sultan walked towards him and knelt before Djall's horse. "We welcome you, O Djall, back into our kingdom, which verily now, shall be yours" said the sultan, "Let you have that which is owed to you."
Djall stepped out of his saddle and onto the sultan's back, using him as a step, but as his foot touched the ground, the old sultan raised his sword and thrust it through Djall's belly.
The crowd screamed in horror.
Djall fell to the ground clutching his stomach. He let forth a growl of animal terror. The citizens, drunk with lunacy, became furious at the old sultan and grabbed. They tore at his robes and beat upon him, knocking him to the ground.
Then time froze and the world was still. The Eternal shifted the scales of fate.
With each moment bold Djall moved towards death, with each breath he lost, the madness of the crowd began to diminish. Their madness seemed to wither till, finally, as Djall groaned his last, the crowd awakened from their wildness as if from slumber.
Outside the walls, Djall’s rows of soldiers lay dead in their saddles, their horses wandered aimlessly across the. Inside, the citizen looked at each other with groggy wonder.
"What have we done?" they asked themselves. A few looked down and saw their great and battered sultan beaten on the ground, the life gone from his proud face, his sword and shield still in hand. Then they knew. Like visions from a hazy dream they remembered sins and what had driven them. They wailed and gnashed their teeth, "Allah, forgive us our wickedness!"
They lifted their sultan gently as if he were a newborn child, and they carried him to his palace. Then they prepared him for his final rest. The young sang songs to him, the artists celebrated him, the scribes shouted of his deeds.
This tale would be preserved for all time that all may know and learn.
And so endeth the tale.
Allah be praised.
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