I sat on the thick woollen rugs that covered the planks of the Women’s Section with my legs folded under me. I still felt the pull in the back of my knees from climbing the steep narrow staircase to get there.  I had been behind the big wide backside of my mother as we went up to make sure she didn’t fall down again. She was not used to making the climb up to the narrow balcony with the delicately carved wooden screen which looked out over the main hall of the mosque, because we didn’t attend the Dhikr on a regular basis.

It was still dark because there were several hours before fajr, the pre-dawn prayer, and the night was warm and still for Damascus, where there are people working and roaming the streets throughout the night. Thin wisps of smoke rose up from the intricate oil lamps which hang from the wooden beams in the partial roof which sheltered us.  The courtyard of the mosque is open to the night sky and I gazed at the stars so far away from us we could never reach them by caravan or by climbing the tallest minaret in the world. I love the stars because they go on and on and even though they are subject to God’s laws they are free. Even though I was up high there in the privileged Women’s Section, above the slaves and beggars outside in the streets and lanes, I was as trapped as if I were in the prison of the Emir’s palace.

‘Ya Allah’. My heart was tight and full of dread. ‘Ya Allah, you are the Fashioner and the Maker and the Knower and Shaper of destiny. Please, please help me. Help me to know the right path and guide me to make a wise choice because only you, Allah, have the Wisdom to do what is best.’

My mother certainly didn’t. She was sitting so close to me that her large bulk was pressing against me and pinching my arm because she was using me for support. She was still exasperated from climbing up those steps, but she was obliged to come up here and attend the Majlis because the great Sufi Master, Sheikh Muhyiddin, didn’t have an audience afterwards with anyone unless they attended. I knew what she was planning even though she hadn’t told me. For several months she has been observing me much more closely. She was checking my linens when it was my time. She even gave me a kohl pot and an ivory comb demanding that I oil and comb my hair and put the kohl around my lashes and brows. She has decided that now her youngest daughter must marry, that she should be promoted from the domestic chores of our ‘Bayt’ on the hill to another larger and far more luxurious house where I can perform similar chores under the eagle eye of a mother in law and give birth year after year to babies for my husband.

I felt like the Eid sheep getting fattened for the sacrifice. I was not going to be fooled by the false kindness and small gifts, I vowed to myself.  I had seen the lives of my sisters, visited their houses and heard their screams and shrieks as their babies come in blood and tears.

Downstairs, kneeling in one of the back rows of the prayer lines, was my older brother Rashid. He had been able to attend the ‘dars’ lessons of the Sheikh on a regular basis because he had been able to complete his memorisation of the Quran last year. He was only a couple of juz (sections) ahead of me but when we got to surah (chapter) about the family of Sayyidina Maryam, called the House of Imran, our tutor was dismissed, and my brother went to the madrassa to finish the last surah, 256, Ayat Al Baqarah. I had begged my mother to let me continue with my lessons because it was the most precious thing to me, but money was tight, and it was not a priority. On a couple of occasions, I had been allowed to come up here and listen to the teachings, but I suspect it was only so that some of my brother’s friends might catch a glimpse of me in my long robes and ask about me. I was always required to fit in any studies after the cleaning and before the embroidery.  The women in our family have always embroidered damasks and linens and my mother is very skilled at this, insisting her daughters learn also. She was exacting and very critical and if I did not follow her directions exactly or if I pricked my finger with the needle and get blood on any fabric, she got furious and screamed. One time after she had made me unpick all the stitches, I stayed up all night and did them by candlelight until they were perfect. When I bowed and handed her the finished piece after dawn prayers, she wouldn’t even look at me.

I was almost sure that my mother’s strategy in this audience with the Master Sufi would be to ask permission from the great Sheikh for her daughter to marry in the hope that he will see my potential and suggest one of his senior students. They were still called his students even though they seemed very old to me with large bellies and big whiskers and I was a young girl just entering womanhood. Maybe she has in mind a qadi or a judge, possibly even one who has older wives already and no sons. No thought of me in this, the social and political alliance for my family was the most important thing and he must be rich. My father was rich when my mother married him and was a renowned merchant in the city in the big khans of the Al-Hamidiyah Souk, but he started to study and listen to the Sufis and 10 years ago he set off on a caravan to make the pilgrimage to Mecca and we haven’t had word from him since.

Money! The lack of it and the getting of it is what makes this world of dunniya spin and turn for mankind it seems to me sometimes. It is the perpetual occupation and subject of thought of those around me. Many times, I have reminded my family that prophet Muhammad (Peace and Blessing be Upon Him), died in total poverty, as he had lived, but this is just ignored.

Even my brother confessed to me once that he spends a lot of time thinking about how he can raise a dowry to wed. Sitting there, in the Mosque, reciting the 99 names of God and wondering how he is going to get his hands on some money. His latest plan now was to head to Konya to the big madrassah and get his qadi degree and from then a posting to a city in the empire where he can issue the justice and decrees of the Sultan.  He must also will ask the permission of the great Sheikh to do this and obtain his blessing.

As the dhikr began and the lines of the people faced the qibla direction of Mecca the deep voice of the Senior Imam recited the intentions for the assembly and the prayers addressing the Most High and then the chorus of ‘La illaha ilalaa’ began to echo around the room making the stones in the walls sing the praises of Allah Almighty. I felt a deep sense of peace settle over me and even my mother’s body seemed to soften as her mind became more relaxed and less anxious.

‘La illaha Illala…there is no God but you Allah…Muhammad Rasullah… and Muhammad is the messenger of God, who brought us the Holy Quran and by his acts and examples showed us the correct way to live in this world….’

As we waited outside the chambers of the Sheikh to be given permission to enter, I watched the sky in layers of gold and azure and lapis reaching up above the minarets of the city below us. Venus, al Tariq, was above the horizon and small birds were wheeling and turning in the sky to catch the small flies they fed on. The city began to stir and the smell of the bread in the clay ovens made me feel my hunger.

I entered the chamber behind my mother and saw there were several men in there, but it was immediately clear that is was the Sheikh who was sitting on a sheepskin on the floor with a copy of a text on a stand in front of him. My mother groaned as she started to get down on the floor rug as she was used to a chair and I reached to hold her arm to help her. We both knelt with our heads down, as was the courtesy, until the Sheikh gave Salaams and acknowledged us.

‘As salaam Alaikum’

I looked up and saw that he was smiling, and kind hearted and not at all fierce and strict in the way of the other Scholars I had encountered. He had a grey beard a fist length and a smallish turban on his head. His clothes were made of light course material and devoid of any embroidery or embellishment. I must bring that to my mother’s attention, I thought mischievously and almost as if he knew what I was thinking, he nodded and looked at me directly.

‘Welcome’ he said.

I was swept up into a cloud of Light that came from all around the room.

It filled me with a previously unknown joy and happiness. ‘What is this?’ I asked myself. ‘It is the light of God’s Message’ came the reply. Then I knew that all these words and preoccupations and worries are like a film of dust that cover this reality and that this world where we live is like a shroud that blocks this Light from our knowledge. And the moment stretched as if time stood still and although this ecstasy was completely new to me, it was as if I had always known it and I saw that this Sheikh in front of me was my guide and my friend and the messenger of this Light which had been given to him.

My mother started speaking and her words and her worries just dropped into the well of this love and peace as she unburdened herself and the Sheikh nodded and let the Light do its work. My mother poured out her heart and for the first time I saw that her pain and her fear was the place that she lived in and she ended by pleading and sobbing that the Sheikh make duah for her and all her family and that the Sheikh find her beloved daughter a man who could provide for her and protect her.

I gazed at the Sheikh and, although I knew he was an old man and had many children already, I thought to myself that I really wouldn’t mind at all if this sheikh would become my protector so that I could learn more wisdom and not just produce babies.

My Sheikh looked at me sternly and said,

‘I am your wakeel.’ And then he stood up. One of the students gestured that we should also stand and helped my mother to get up.

The sheikh approached us holding his prayer beads and until he was right in front of me. Over his shoulder I saw two of his students exchange looks of bewilderment.

On his nodded invitation I grasped the bottom of the prayer beads with my right hand.  The Sheikh raised his face, his eyes closed and began to recite a prayer in a deep sonorous voice. When he had finished, he looked at me again directly and asked me if I accepted.  I did not understand the real meaning of what he was asking but- as I knew in my heart I could trust him completely- I murmured the words of agreement.

As I did so I felt a tingling sensation run down my body from the top of my head as if a stream of warm water had been slowly poured over me and into the Earth.

We were then ushered out. At the doorway I turned around my head to get one last glimpse of this great and holy person.  He was once again crouched on the sheepskin murmuring to his Lord his hands raised up in supplication. The humility and holiness of his person touched me very deeply.

‘Well,’ exclaimed my mother, ‘that went very well!’

She looked so much younger and happier now.  Her eyes were shining, and she was smiling.

‘Sheikh Muhyiddin is the wakeel of my daughter! Imagine such an honor! Praise be to God! It must surely mean that he has someone in mind for you!’

She did not realise the significance of what had taken place. She thought of Wakeel in the usual sense of the word as a negotiator on behalf of the bride on her wedding contract. However, the Sheikh had honored me, a young girl, with an initiation into an ancient Sufi lineage, a golden chain of wisdom and Sufi Lore stretching back to Hazrat Ali, R.A. the Son in Law of Our Prophet. The Sheikh would be my Guide and Support on this Path as a Wakeel is the support and negotiator of the Bride at her wedding. My mother was not the only one who did not know. I did not fully realise this either at the time.

We sat on a stone bench by the mosque doorway waiting for my brother to come out from his audience with the Sheikh. I tried to explain to myself what had just taken place. As I watched the men and children passing by donkeys and the occasional mule and the street vendors selling bread and herbs and nuts it was as if I saw right into their hearts full of sadness and saw the veils they carried which stopped them from knowing the love and beauty all around them. It was as if they were deaf and blind to the true nature of reality. I was relieved when my mother bought some toasted melon seeds from an old village woman for us to snack on, as I could see how happy she was to get a few coins and that she had been able to sell something. My heart was full of their pain and their suffering, it was almost too much for me and tears started to stream down my face.

This was interrupted by the return of Rasheed.

When my brother came out, his usual cool manner had been replaced by a look of uncertainty, I could say there was even confusion on his face. My mother grabbed him and hugged him and kissed him on both cheeks as if he was still her little boy.

‘My beloved Son! My scholar! My guide before the Almighty on the Last Day…!

The last bit was definitely too much but my mother was still excited.

‘Are you going to Konya? Did the Sheikh agree to let go of one of his most promising students?’

I would like to clarify at this point that this had never been stated by anyone and was a complete distortion of the truth on the part of my mother.

‘Yes, yes mother.’ He nodded. ‘He gave me permission to go. There were only two conditions.’

‘Oh yes?’ said my mother slightly more hesitant. Her old fear was returning that perhaps this might involve money. Knowing what my mother was thinking my brother quickly added.

‘There will be a trade caravan going. We can take our embroidery and fabrics and sell them to support ourselves. That was the first condition, that we do not beg.’

‘And the second…?’

My brother looked over to where I was standing, and our eyes met. The reason for his bewilderment was revealed, like a basket of fruit rolling over and spilling the contents.

‘He said I could go only on the most important condition that I accompany my sister. You, Kinana! Sheikh Muhyiddin wants you to go to Konya!’