The Year of Rice and Salt

'I was speaking with the Sultana about this matter This was another common gambit. Indeed, he consulted with her about almost every question that came up, and without fail in all matters having to do with women or child rearing; concerning family life he always deferred to ber judgment, which he learned to trust more and more as the first years passed. She knew the Quran inside out, and had memorized every sura that aided her case against undue hierarchy, and her protectiveness for the weak of the city grew unabated. Above all she commanded the eye and the heart, wherever she went, and never more so than in the mosque. There was no longer any question of her right to be there, and occasionally even to lead the prayers. It would have seemed unnatural to bar such a being, so full of divine grace, from the place of worship in a city named Baraka. As she herself said, 'Did God make me? Did He give me a mind and a soul as great as any man's? Did men's children come out of a woman? Would you deny your own mother a place in heaven? Can anyone gain heaven who is not admitted to the sight of God on this Earth?'

No one who would answer these questions in the negative stayed long in Baraka. There were other towns being settled upstream and to the north, founded by Armenians and Zott who were less full of Muslim fervour. A fair number of the Sultan's subjects moved away as time passed. Nevertheless, the crowds at the grand mosque grew. They built smaller ones on the expanding outskirts of town, the usual neighbourhood mosques, but always the Friday mosque remained the meeting place of the city, its plaza and the madressa grounds filled by the whole population on holy days, and during the festivals and Ramadan, and on the first day of snow every year, when the bonfire of winter was lit. Baraka was a single family then, and Sultana Katima its mother and sister.

The madressa grew as fast as the town, or faster. Every spring, after the snows on the mountain roads had melted, new caravans arrived, guided by mountain folk. Some in each group had come to study in the madressa, which grew famous for Ibn Ezra's investigations into plants and animals, the Romans, building technique, and the stars. When they came from al Andalus they sometimes brought with them newly recovered books by Ibn Rashd or Maimonides, or new Arabic translations of the ancient Greeks, and they brought also the desire to share what they knew, and learn more. The new convivencia had its heart in Baraka's madressa, and word spread.

Then one bad day, late in the sixth year of the Barakan hegira, Sultan Mawji Darya fell gravely ill. He had grown fat in the previous months, and Ibn Ezra had tried to be his doctor, putting him on a strict diet of grain and milk, which seemed to help his complexion and energy; but then one night he took ill. Ibn Ezra woke Bistami from his bed: 'Come along. The Sultan is so ill he needs the prayers.'

This coming from Ibn Ezra was bad indeed, as he was not much of a one for prayer. Bistami hurried after him, and joined the royal family in their part of the big palace. Sultana Katima was white faced, and Bistami was shocked to see how unhappy his arrival made her. It wasn't anything personal, but she knew why Ibn Ezra had brought him at such an hour, and she bit her lip and looked away, the tears streaming down her cheeks.

Inside their bedroom the Sultan writhed, silent but for heavy, choked breathing. His face was a dark red colour.

'Has he been poisoned?' Bistami asked Ibn Ezra in a whisper.

'No, I don't think so. Their taster is fine,' indicating the big cat sleeping curled in its little bed in the corner. 'Unless someone pricked him with a poisoned needle. But I see no sign of that.'

Bistami sat by the roiling Sultan and took his hot hand. Before a word had escaped him, the Sultan gave a weak groan and arched back. His breathing stopped. Ibn Ezra grabbed his arms and crossed them before his chest and pressed hard, grunting himself. To no avail; the Sultan had died, his body still locked in its last paroxysm. The Sultana burst weeping into the room, tried to revive him herself, calling to him and to God, and begging Ibn Ezra to keep up his efforts. It took both men some time to convince her that it was all in vain; they had failed; the Sultan was dead.

Funerals in Islam harked back to earlier times. Men and women congregated in different areas during the ceremonies, and only mingled in the cemetery afterwards, during the brief interment.