Page 194 - The Book of Rumi

Poet in Aleppo

n bygone days, the people of Aleppo were mainly Shiite Moslems, and dur-
Iing the mourning month of Muharram, they held many heart-wrenching,
tear-jerking, back- and chest-beating ceremonies. Men and women alike gath-
ered every year at the city’s Antioch Gate to mourn the brutal massacre of
Hossein, the prophet’s brave grandson, and his men by the cruel caliph Yazid.
The eerie sound of the mourners’ wailing could be heard well into the night,
reaching far into the desert and rising to the skies in heaven.
One year, a poet had traveled to Aleppo on the night of the ceremony,
the Ashura. When he heard the screams and mourning of the crowd, having
no clue what was going on, he followed the sound to Antioch Gate to see for
himself. When he saw the enormity of the gathering, he realized that the event
must be for an exceptional fi gure.
“Who’s this person whom you revere so much?” he inquired. “Tell me
about him, for I’m a poet, and I’d like to write a poem in his honor!”
“Are you mad? You’re obviously not a Shiite!” snapped one of the mourn-
ers with animosity. “How can you not know that today is the anniversary of
the death of Hossein, one of the most cherished fi gures in our history? For a
true Moslem, today is even more important than the day of Noah’s storm.”
“I do know about Ashura,” the poet defended himself. “But the age of
Yazid is long gone! How come you’ve only heard about this calamity now?
Everyone else in the world has heard of this disaster, even the blind and the
deaf. Has your lot been asleep all this time that you’ve only begun mourning
for him now?” The poet was genuinely perplexed. The mourners, for their
part, simply stared at the man, speechless.
“You’re truly ignorant!” the poet fi nally blurted, again unable to hold back
his tongue. “You should be crying for yourselves, because this deep slumber
of yours is worse than death itself! Those holy men were the kings of their
faith, and the day that their spirits separated from their bodies should be a day
for rejoicing! Had you any idea of their true nature, you would have known

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