During one of Mohammad Amin’s visits to his brother General Saleem Bey in Istanbul, (the capital city of Turkey), the two men were strolling together along a street when a woman passed them and said, ‘Hey! Shame on you Arabs! You don’t keep your word.’ General Saleem was shocked at her words. He turned towards his brother, the honest, upright officer, and said, ‘Isn’t she Djemal Pasha’s sister? Is she talking to us? But…what for?’
Just then Mohammad Amin smiled weakly and answered his brother saying, ‘Yes, brother, she means me.’
‘You? Why?’
‘Ok Saleem, listen to me, I’ll tell you why she said it.’ And he began to recount what had happened when the prefect of the Sham [53] countries, Djemal Pasha (known as ‘the Assassin’ for his terrible deeds), had entrusted him with a high-level assignment…
This particular sister of Djemal Pasha came one day with her daughter from Istanbul, where they lived, to visit her brother, the ruler, who was living in Damascus. Then at the end of the visit, the mother and her daughter prepared to return to Istanbul by train, a lengthy journey.
So, Djemal Pasha gave his orders to prepare the entourage necessary for ladies of their position when travelling: cooks, servants, guards… etc. Finally every last thing was ready except for him to choose a suitable trustworthy officer to oversee the journey.
From among all his officers, the ruler, Djemal Pasha, selected the honest Arab officer, M. A. Sheikho. He charged him with the important task and signed the document to formalize the undertaking. Thus he was officially assigned to the task and there was no way to refuse it for he had been chosen by the prefect himself, a man who was known to be most decisive and never went back on his word. To kill a crowd of people for negligible reasons was, for this harsh ruler, the same as killing flies!
On the day of departure, our officer went to the headquarters to receive his orders. At the train station, the entire entourage, complete with all its baggage and trappings, was ready to leave, so our officer, the leader of the journey, went to the station and boarded the train. Then, the engine whistled three times to warn of its departure and slowly its wheels began to turn, becoming faster and faster until the train disappeared from view.
The scene inside the train:
Officer M. A. Sheikho, the officer chosen for his excellent level of competence to oversee the journey is watching over every single detail, however great or small. He neglects nothing, and according to his perfect standards, he has given instructions to all the members of staff. He even manages the running of the kitchen: for example, he supervises the general cleanliness and that of food hygiene in particular; he keeps his eye on the cooks and the servants for he wants everything to be perfect.
He is a leader who knows full well the heavy responsibility he bears and what punishment may be inflicted if he fails to satisfy both the mother and daughter. For their satisfaction will guarantee the satisfaction of Djemal Pasha!
He is in full command of the situation and ensuring that everything is progressing as planned: not only because Djemal Pasha is quick to punish for the least bit of negligence, but because our officer, by his very nature, does not accept any slackness or dereliction of duty in himself or others.
Thus, everything progressed smoothly inside the train and our officer was performing his duties perfectly as always. As for the two women, he does not sit with them, nor does he talk to them at all. He does not even enter their compartment out of his nobility and moral purity. He has maintained the appropriate distance from them but, nevertheless, he is able to accomplish his function as a journey-leader to an excellent standard. Time passed while the train was covering the long distances, travelling through beautiful scenic landscape, from one country to another, with pleasant weather until it passed through an area that was as verdant and beautiful as the most luxuriant garden. The flowers were of every colour of the rainbow and gave off their fragrant perfumes; pretty little songbirds perched on the branches of the broad shady trees filling the air with their sweet sound.
The natural beauty of the place had great appeal for both the daughter and her mother, so they decided to stop for a while to have a break in the tedious train journey.
The train came to a halt as they wished and the travellers got down. Then the servants set about pitching the tents: those for the two ladies, one for our officer, Mohammad Amin, and others for the gendarmes and the servants.
Everything was running smoothly! As for our officer, he kept himself away from the women, carrying out his job and avoiding any unnecessary contact with them.
However this happy state of affairs was about to come to an end!
He was informed that the mother was angry with him!… which came as quite a shock!
But he had to attend to the matter at once for if she was still angry on their arrival in Istanbul her journey report would not be favourable. This report would include details of all that had passed during the journey: the positive and negative aspects, as well as their estimation of the journey-leader, and whether he had accomplished his duties or not, whether he cared for their comfort or not… and other, similar matters.
This report, which the mother would send to her brother, would determine the fate of Mohammad Amin and accordingly he would be subjected to Djemal Pasha’s satisfaction or his wrath. In the case of the latter the penalty would surely be most severe: the death sentence, imposed on him by the Assassin (the manslayer).
These thoughts were not far from the mind of the astute officer. So, to manage the situation as well as possible he went to meet them immediately to discuss the reason for the mother’s anger. It transpired that it was because not only had he avoided sitting with them, but he had not even spoken to them or looked at them!
From a distance the daughter had become infatuated with our officer, with his green eyes and handsome profile. Quite clearly she adored him! She could find no way to attract him to her other than to complain to her mother until the woman felt she had to do something about it.
Our wise officer soon took stock of this developing situation so he resorted to the following scheme, and addressed the mother saying, ‘Oh, Madam! One of our habits, we Arabs, is that when one of us proposes to marry a girl he should not see his fiancée till the night of the marriage. She must be veiled from him all during the engagement till the night of the wedding according to the saying, ‘Forbidden fruit is sweet.’ Thereby, desire between the couple will increase and the journey of marriage will be established on a strong basis of love at the first sexual encounter.’
When the daughter and her mother heard this justification for his behaviour they believed that his intentions were to become engaged to the young woman and then marry her. Their anger soon subsided and they were overwhelmed with pleasure and happiness. Thus, their dissatisfaction turned into satisfaction, the unfriendliness into friendliness, the distance into closeness. They became extremely pleased with the new fiancé, the handsome officer, the highly principled leader, Mohammad Amin.
On that day, when the shadow of night fell and all was calm and quiet everybody gave themselves up to sleep except the Turkish girl. She headed stealthily for Amin’s tent, tip-toeing quietly between the tents afraid that somebody might wake up and see her. And it would be easy to distinguish her, even in the dark of the night as the Turks are known to be pale-skinned due to the weak sun in their cold countries; besides which, the girl was extremely beautiful and clothed in a style denoting her wealth and high rank.
She was advancing surely but quietly, her secretive movements preceded by her fragrant aristocratic perfume carried on the gentle breeze, until she entered the officer’s tent. But our officer, alert even in sleep, sensed some movement at the entrance to his tent just as he caught a whiff of expensive perfume wafting in on the night air. In a flash he realised what was happening and turned to face the entrance; by then she was approaching his bed where she threw herself on to him. Our honest and pure officer soon threw himself off his bed from the opposite side, and then leaping up from the ground, he raced her to the door.
Still the girl did not give up! She jumped from the empty bed and ran after him out of his tent. But our man realised he could escape her amorous attack by hurrying towards the gendarmes’ tents.
He walked quickly between the tents until he reached the one pitched furthest away. He entered and, rousing the soldier from his sleep, he gave his name and ordered him to go to sleep elsewhere.
The gendarme awakened astounded. He had no idea what was going on or what had happened. He knew only that his commander had woken him in the middle of the night!
As soon as the soldier left his bed, the officer buried himself completely under the bed covers! Oh! How foul it smelled… a mix of disgusting body odour and stale tobacco! It was the worst and most repugnant smell he had ever experienced. He was about to vomit, and could hardly breathe in the foul air, but he controlled himself and thought, ‘Never mind, I prefer this foul smell and dirty bed to anything that this girl wants from me.’
So that is where he spent the night!
The next morning, the daughter was furious, and since the daughter was so angry, the mother became so too. Quick thinking yet again, Mohammad Amin found a different way to allay the anger of the two women, and so he joined them to play a game of cards. Thus, by his sitting with them and their wish to respect the Arabic tradition, they became happy with him and he had a place in their hearts as the prospective husband and son-in-law.
After this he often played cards with them. But prudently, he never once cast his eyes on the beauty of his fiancée. His modest behaviour made her even more enamoured of him and filled her heart with passion for him. Whenever she looked at him, she found him more bashful and handsome than ever, so she was looking forward eagerly to the day of her forthcoming wedding. As for the mother, she was so happy with her daughter’s fiancé, the officer whom she saw as unlike any other officer, even superior to all of them. He was handsome and gentle, and a man of peerless modesty and discretion.
The journey continued in this fashion until they reached Istanbul where the mother, who was extremely pleased with her daughter’s suitor, set about writing the journey report and filled it with statements of great praise and gratitude to her son-in-law, the leader of the trip, the dignified, high- born officer, Mohammad Amin. Then she signed it and handed it in to our officer.
As for Mohammad Amin, when he received the report, he soon took himself off to visit his brother, General Saleem, who was living in Istanbul, and had put the matter out of his mind.
‘So, my brother…’ our officer continued talking to his brother, ‘did you understand now why that woman who passed us said, “Shame on you Arabs! You do not keep your word?” It’s simply because she was angry that I didn’t marry her daughter, the niece of the murderer Djemal Pasha, after I took her praiseworthy report and escaped from her trap. So Brother, I left them and thanked God wholeheartedly for He got me out of an awful predicament in a perfect way.’
Totally bewildered and full of wonder General Saleem Bey said to his brother, ‘Djemal Pasha’s niece offered herself to you and you refused her advances! Oh, Brother… Oh! How could you do such a thing? How could you refuse to marry her? Why? Don’t you know that Djemal Pasha is the Prefect? Don’t you know that he is now trying to separate his prefecture from the Porte?[54]Do you know what that means? It means that he will be the king of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Hijaz and Yemen! How could you regard his authority with such disdain? How could you turn down the chance to establish a relationship with Djemal Pasha? How could you refuse to marry the girl whom everybody wishes to marry?
Wouldn’t you like to have power and control over these countries?
Are you telling me that you would hate to be a person of great acclaim and a famous notable? Otherwise, why have you done it? Isn’t she one of the most beautiful girls in Istanbul?’
With a full sense of honour, the virtuous officer replied, ‘Listen Brother! Neither beauty, nor position nor glory means anything to me. You may have or you may not, so let me tell you that that girl unveiled her face in front of the servants and, in fact, before the entire entourage employed to be in her service. Thus, men saw her and that is completely unacceptable to me.
I do not want her nor do I seek any kind of power, distinction or dominion that I may acquire by marrying her. I care only for honour and chasteness.’
Faced with such a direct reply, Amin’s brother, General Saleem, could not utter another word. He was stunned at his brother’s high sense of honour, a man who refused to take a wife unless she were a pure, virtuous and honourable woman whom no man of marriageable age had ever seen or touched. To him the high rank of the Pasha’s niece was of no consequence, because her morals did not match her rank!
General Saleem praised highly the pure and noble aim of his brother who was an image of chastity in its highest meaning when he dispensed with the youth and beauty of the young woman, and sacrificed instant glory and worldly power and wealth to maintain his perfect moral standards. He rejected the major desires of this life, seeking only God’s Satisfaction.
General Saleem said, ‘This is the story of the Prophet Joseph [55] (pth) [56]which took place during his time and is happening once again in this age. History does indeed repeat itself!’