Masks of the Mind
Part Two
Prologue
Between what we reveal and what we conceal,
the mind rises like a mirror—reflecting, yet never fully showing.
No one is born fully aware of who they are.
We come to know ourselves through loss, through the questions that wound and awaken us.
Confession, then, is the language that strips awareness of its disguises—
returning it to its first, innocent shape:
the wonder of a child gazing at the unseen, believing without needing to ask.
In this part, the question is no longer how do we think?
but rather, how do we believe what we already know?
and how do we forgive ourselves when we finally understand
that helplessness is not a sin, but the quiet law of being human.
What unfolds here is not one man’s story,
but the echo of many souls that passed through us and left their traces behind:
the child who feared his own voice,
the young man who kept silent to survive,
the writer who spoke so his words might outlive him.
They all meet in these pages to lift the final mask from the mind—
to confess, not to guilt, but to the search itself.
This is the journey of writing as it becomes a path toward faith,
and of faith as it learns to read itself again
in the mirror of reason.
Confession
The morning carried a faint chill, that subtle coolness of late summer when August begins to loosen its grip.
The man walked slowly, not far from his home, along a narrow path that cut between a quiet park and a road where the first buses of the day crawled past.
The streets around him were nearly empty—only a few cars drifting by, their engines humming in the pale light.
A short distance ahead, a woman in her late forties was walking her small dog. She spoke to it in fragments, her voice half-lost beneath the music whispering through her tiny earbuds. The dog trotted ahead with bright impatience, nose pressed to the damp grass, pausing now and then to let out a soft bark, more like a murmur of discovery than a sound of warning.
When the man entered the park, he took from his inner pocket a small, padded cloth, spread it neatly across the wooden bench, and sat down in silence.
Almost at once, the little dog approached—tail wagging, eyes curious, releasing a low, friendly hum.
The woman called out gently, trying to lure him back with familiar words. But the dog ignored her, padding closer until he stopped between the man’s feet and sat there without hesitation, as if he had found the exact spot he’d been searching for.
The man smiled, meeting the creature’s gaze without surprise or protest, as though in its quiet presence he’d found something to steady the noise within him.
The dog looked back toward his owner, his small bright eyes saying what words could not:
I’ll rest here for a while.
When the woman came closer to apologize, the man offered her a warm smile and said softly,
“No need to. He’s welcome.”
The dog remained where he was, his head resting gently against the man’s leg, staring into a vague, drifting emptiness—like one who had, at last, found peace.
He heard her voice calling again, gentle but insistent.
The dog twitched his ears, then lowered his head once more, unmoved by her plea.
When he didn’t respond, the woman approached and apologized again, asking if she might pick him up.
The man turned slightly, waving his hand in quiet reassurance, his voice carrying a faint warmth.
“He’s not bothering me,” he said. “Take him whenever you like.”
She bent down, thanking him, lifted the small creature into her arms, and offered a quick, polite smile before heading back down the path toward home.
The dog, cradled against her chest, kept turning his head to look back—two clear eyes lingering on the stranger, as if saying goodbye to something he didn’t understand, only felt.
When they vanished into the distance, the man reached into his bag and pulled out an old notebook and a pen.
He flipped through the worn pages until he found one that was perfectly blank—pure, untouched white.
He steadied his hand and began to write slowly:
“What a gentle little dog he was…”
He stared at the sentence for a while, then added a single, deliberate period—
as if it were not punctuation, but a moment of silence.
And in that silence, another memory stirred—
the black dog.
The one that had appeared days earlier, stepping out from behind the curtain of time, sitting before him like a messenger awaiting a long-delayed confession.
It had carried with it the echo of the past—voices of people who had once stood before him, accusing, naming, defining.
They called him foolish one day, naïve the next, attaching to him labels that seemed to shift in meaning and shape—
masks of the mind, changing color and size, never quite fitting yet never falling away.
And he—
he had watched it all as though it were a stage play where everyone wore disguises,
forgetting, for a moment, that he himself was the axis around which their eyes revolved—
a mirror reflecting what they feared to see in themselves.
He looked around the still park and wondered:
Were the things unfolding now somehow linked to what once was?
Could the presence of two dogs—one small, one large—carry some hidden thread,
a sign of something unfinished?
Or was it all coincidence, the mind’s trick,
illusion playing with time the way time plays with memory?
As he drifted through those questions, a thin thread of old memories returned—
the park itself seemed to hand them back to him:
the laughter of distant childhood,
the voices of those long gone,
faces passing before him like flickers of film,
as though time itself were replaying his private reel.
He saw the whole scene before him as if it were a painting—carefully composed, every detail deliberate:
the two dogs, the park, the hum of distant voices.
Everything had suddenly become part of a larger mosaic where freedom and surveillance, truth and illusion, the coming life and the past—all overlapped, whispering to one another beneath the surface.
In that prolonged silence, he felt as though this moment—
standing there with his notebook, while the small dog lingered beside him in memory—
was a threshold, a quiet gateway back to self-awareness.
Here, perhaps, the journey would begin again:
to reread the past and understand what had been happening, not only in his country, but inside his own mind.
Then the thought came to him:
“A man must always search for meaning, for a reason to think.
As for me, I’ve long relied on writing to recover my clarity of vision.
Writing… ah, that habit that still pursues me—
the one I escape through, only to dive deeper than others can see.”
He began to write again, paused for a moment, then murmured to himself between the lines:
“What a gentle little dog he was…”
He lifted his eyes from the page and felt a shadow approach from the depths of memory—
the black dog.
The one that had appeared days earlier, sitting opposite him like a silent witness.
It wasn’t merely an animal;
it carried the face of the past—people who had once surrounded him,
throwing at him their words like stones: Fool. Simpleton. Idiot.
Different words, same wounds—masks changing shape, color, and size,
but all concealing the same face.
He asked himself:
“Is what happened today somehow an echo of what came before?
Is there meaning in meeting two dogs—
one small and gentle, the other dark and immense?
Or are these merely passing coincidences,
the mind’s illusions playing with time as time toys with memory?”
He lowered his gaze, then wrote again:
“Writing… only writing restores my clarity of sight.
It is my oldest habit, my refuge—
the way I chase the ghost of time and escape into depths unseen by others.”
But then the questions returned:
“What should I write now?
Why should I write?
And for whom?”
“Do I record my confessions to defend myself?
To justify what I’ve done,
to answer the accusations once thrown at me?”
Those questions—and many more—rose to the surface, demanding from him a new kind of honesty.
It was as if writing itself had drawn him into solitude to hold a private conversation with his own soul.
He began to retrace more than sixty years of consciousness—
a lifetime of repeated events born of the same roots,
others unique in their joy or their pain,
all endured with patience, restraint, and long silence.
But how could he convey all that?
How could he bring those memories to life again?
Could he truly call back time, summon the faces that shaped his memory?
So many had gone.
So many forgotten.
So many now beyond the reach of sight—or speech.
He sat before the blank pages as if words were no longer enough to carry the weight pressing on his chest.
For a long while, one thought kept circling his mind — the same thought that had haunted him ever since he began to question the purpose of writing:
Can the mind truly grasp what lies beyond its reach? Can it hold the unseen it has been told to believe in?
He lowered his head and whispered to himself,
“The mind has no choice but to confess its limits. It stands before the unseen like a child at the edge of the sea—touching the foam, hearing the roar of waves, yet never knowing the depth or the vastness of the ocean.
The unseen is larger than thought, farther than the senses, and greater than what language or imagination can contain.
To believe is not to surrender in weakness, but to accept that truth will always exceed what the eye can see.”
He lifted his pen again and wrote slowly:
“I believe in the unseen—because it shapes my humanity and saves it from arrogance. It opens the door of hope, whispering that beyond this visible world lies another, wider than what we now behold.”
Leaning back in his chair, he felt as if he had taken a small step toward a deeper confession—one that belonged not only to the past, but to the living present and to all that would remain hidden until it was finally revealed.
He continued writing:
“Sometimes I think that writing itself is a kind of faith in the unseen. I place words on paper not knowing where they will lead me. I move the pen, half-blind to the destination waiting at the end of each line. It is proof that I believe in what I cannot yet see—that within the page, a secret is forming, waiting to be uncovered.”
“In prison, the unseen was all I had to lean on. I couldn’t see the end of the road; I didn’t know if I would walk out alive or remain behind those walls. The mind sought logic, explanations, patterns—but only the heart could believe. Faith, then, was a small lamp that pushed back the darkness of fear, reminding me that life still had another face I had yet to meet.”
Every confession, he thought, is a step toward the unseen.
He could never know how his words would be received, how they would be read once they left him.
“What I write now is mine only for a moment,” he wrote, “but once it meets the page, it no longer belongs to me. It will drift into the hands of others—some will see in it foolishness, others truth. I no longer mind. I’ve poured my conviction here as it is, unguarded.”
How many times had he sat at his modest desk, arranging his papers and pen, only to find his thoughts imprisoned—arguing among themselves, pulling at fragments of memory, refusing to settle into order?
The days, with all their faces and shadows, since the first spark of his awareness until this very hour, stood before him like witnesses.
He feared them—feared to admit, before a reader, what he had truly lived.
How many times had he been labeled fanatic by those who mistook devotion for blindness,
and too liberal by others who saw in every act of restraint a failure of freedom?
Between those two mirrors he had lived, never fully seen in either—
forever searching, forever writing.
He sat on his worn-out chair, pen in hand, the page before him utterly still—
waiting for him to write what he could never say out loud.
Then, without warning, the image returned:
the great black dog, emerging days ago from behind the curtain of time,
sitting before him in silence—
as if it had come to deliver a message from the past.
A voice rose inside him:
Was it just a dog? Or the shape of everyone who once called me stupid, naïve, a coward—names that changed, yet never really did?
Then came the voice of his childhood self, fragile and small:
Remember, little one, how afraid you used to be? How you believed everything your eyes saw?
And from a deeper distance, another voice—Hassan, his school friend—echoed faintly:
Where were you when they mocked you? Do you think you’ve changed? Or are you still searching for the courage to admit how powerless you felt?
His mother’s voice, soft and sorrowful, rose between the lines:
You always searched for yourself, my son—in books, in words, in faces… even in the eyes of small creatures. Tell me now, did you ever find what you were looking for?
He whispered to himself:
Writing… only writing can clear the fog. But what do I write now? And for whom?
Then, another memory broke the silence—an old friend from work, long gone:
Don’t look for reasons. Write to know yourself. Write to confront every version of you—those who stayed, and those who drifted away.
But suddenly, the harsh voice of the interrogator thundered inside his head—imagined, yet painfully real:
How many times did you try to defend yourself? To prove you weren’t the man we said you were? Didn’t you lie? Evade? Wasn’t that fear, not courage? Or were you simply too afraid to tell us the truth—to reveal what you were hiding?
From the depths of memory, his own shadow appeared—
a reflection of himself both young and old, rising from the damp cellars of the past,
speaking in a calm, measured tone that trembled between vision and recollection:
Every confession stands at the edge of the unknown.
Every word you write—truth or invention, born from within or borrowed from the air—ceases to belong to you once it’s set free.
It flies, reshaped by every reader’s mind,
until the truth you once owned becomes a thousand fragments of what others choose to see.
And then Hassan’s voice again, quieter now—like an echo of an ancient thought:
Don’t chase final answers. Write to understand.
In every line you’ll meet our faces—the ones who left, the ones who remained.
Each word will hold the echo of old footsteps,
a soul still walking beside you,
reminding you that writing isn’t merely ink on paper—
it’s a mirror held up to memory,
and a way to labor toward your own awakening.
He reached for his pen again, not to explain—
but to begin.
The great black dog appeared once again — but this time, not as a threat.
He stood silent, calm, a shadow watching over and guiding him.
“The unseen,” he thought, “is greater than the mind can grasp.
Faith in it isn’t weakness — it’s knowing that truth extends beyond what the eyes can hold.”
He closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair, whispering — to himself, and to existence itself:
“I believe in the unseen… because it saves my humanity from arrogance.
What I write is only a trust I place inside the vault of the unknown — to be opened when time decides, when the keys of meaning are found.”
Then came the small dog — gentle, friendly, a ghost from the days of play in the garden,
as if reminding him of the sweetness of simple joy.
“Even simplicity leaves its mark…
Do you still remember happiness, my friend?”
And in his mind, faces began to appear — his parents, his siblings, his childhood friends, his colleagues, even his superiors — all standing around him in a quiet circle,
echoes of what had been and what still was.
“Each of them,” the voice within said, “was part of you.
Every word, every confession, every sound still lives in your awareness — shaping you, even when you didn’t know it.”
He breathed deeply.
“All these voices, all these faces… they are the garden I live in — past, present, and the unseen.
Writing is my way of speaking with them all at once — of living with them, understanding myself, and facing the mystery.”
He wrote for hours, letting the pen flow.
The page caught every whisper, every image, every echo from that inner garden — where all spoke to him in silence: childhood, friends, family, soldiers, and dogs alike.
They formed the quiet map of his life — drawn with patience and wisdom — reminding him of every joy, every sorrow.
Writing was his small boat through time, returning him always
to where the dialogue with himself — and with the world — begins again.
Yes, some saw him as complicated, others as free.
To some he seemed fragile; to others, strong.
At times backward, at others, wise.
Defeated here, victorious there.
He carried all of it at once — not to please himself, but to stay safe from deceit, cruelty, and judgment.
How many times had he worn the mask of the fool —
pretending not to care, appearing weak, clumsy, or naïve —
just to stay out of reach of other people’s daggers and expectations,
to protect his soul, to remain unseen yet whole.
And through it all, his father understood — the only one who truly did.
He never scolded, never forbade, never forced.
He kept every door open,
as if defying time itself — creating a space where his son could move, explore, and breathe freely.
Freedom was the silent gift he gave him —
a hidden current strengthening his spirit, forming his depth.
Every step the son took became his own —
a bridge of awareness stretched between chaos and peace.
The space he had been granted within himself changed him.
He began to think — not aloud, but in a voice only he could hear —
questioning the past, revisiting moments when he had feared accountability and judgment.
This freedom, so serene, gave him courage.
Courage to face his hardships, to uncover his mistakes and flaws,
to reconcile with the child within him who still lingered,
quiet but persistent.
Through experimentation and self-testing, he learned that errors and differences
were not wounds to shrink from,
but keys to understanding himself and others,
paths to deeper awareness.
Life, with every encounter and every fragment of memory,
became a fan, spinning within him,
gathering him with himself and the faces of the world he had inhabited.
He returned swiftly to his desk, allowing the pen to flow freely.
Thoughts spilled onto the paper like a calm, deep stream:
“By 1973, I had read extensively — Arab authors, Russians, and writers from around the world:
Goethe, Thomas Mann, Kafka, Bertolt Brecht, Remarque;
Shakespeare, George Orwell, Dickens, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, William Blake, Tolkien, Agatha Christie.
Each name glimmered in my memory like a star,
a light for a young reader searching for a point of illumination
in a darkened world,
revealing corners of existence and time hidden from sight.
Yet it was Orwell’s 1984 that left the deepest mark.
I paused over his words, which read like a narrative equation for every institutionalized falsehood:
War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
What truly startled me was the repeated warning beneath the watchful face:
Big Brother is Watching You.
Big Brother is Watching You.
Big Brother is Watching You.
At the time, I barely grasped the hidden layers in Orwell’s words.
I read him as one might observe a distant imagination, far from life’s weight and pain.
Yet, each time I surrendered to his sentences,
I felt, years later, that their meaning was alive, fluid, and far deeper than what appears at first glance.
After leaving the prison of the mind in 1974,
I understood what it meant to be watched —
not as a literary metaphor, but as a reality lodged inside me,
lurking in the corner of my eyes.
In that closed world, Big Brother was not a face or a poster,
but a voice inside,
measuring fear, prescribing silence.
How well I knew it:
I could never live fully, not as a human ought.
I dared not awaken the pulse of life within me;
I postponed existence as one postpones light,
and quieted my dreams as one harbors a lump in the chest —
neither growing nor dying.
Yet writing — delicate, probing, guided by questions —
brought me to a silent confrontation
with the contradictions of politics in my country.
I wrote to understand, then paused to endure.
The pen drew me toward the forbidden,
words forming me before I could form them.
Whenever I tried to escape,
I returned unconsciously to the first point of pain,
the point where writing and fate converge,
where confession becomes as necessary as breathing.
During the few years I spent outside what was called “my homeland,”
I began to trace the true meaning of political backwardness:
When you are forced in your country to take pride in what the civilized world sees as regression,
to convince yourself of what you are taught,
until that illusion becomes your only badge,
worn on your chest not as shame to hide, but as a supposed treasure to display.
That backwardness was never proclaimed openly;
it was implanted in minds as pride and false dignity,
until illusion became reality,
and the unspoken became the homeland itself.
We learned to chant sacred slogans,
burn ourselves with them at the moment itself,
to describe emptiness of the soul as fidelity to principle,
to bind fear as loyalty,
until we could no longer tell where the truth of existence ends,
and where the illusion of backwardness begins.
Do we carry it, or does it carry us?
As in the books I had read,
I saw in this dimension how a homeland was shaped to the measure of speeches and tongues,
and how faith was measured by one’s ability to hide pain and remain silent.
I realized that the greatest defeats were not in wars or conflicts,
but in the meanings we were forced to believe,
in the chains that constrained our inner light,
and silenced our dreams so their echoes could never be heard.”
In the silence of these truths, I realized that fear and humiliation are not imposed only by walls and tyranny.
They dwell inside the human soul, where hope hides and the spirit weakens.
Every step toward truth meets both overt and hidden authority.
Every word I write is a movement in a space woven with silence, shadow, and the pulse of memory.
I understood that the homeland, in its deepest sense, is not mere borders or lines on a map.
It is a presence that governs every breath and every waiting,
woven into our hearts with delicate threads we uncover daily through the smallest details of life.
I know now that if I had abandoned my writing, my dreams would have remained imprisoned within me.
My soul would have drowned in an unseen refuge,
and every echo of hope would have become a vanished voice in the dark.
So now I move my pen freely, releasing onto paper all that silence fears to speak,
all that deserves to be seen.
My writing becomes a mirror of the self,
an echo of the unseen,
a step toward my own freedom.
Yes, some saw me as complex, others as liberated.
Amid these conflicting gazes, I fragmented,
a body carrying many faces,
each observer shaping their own version of me.
In one eye I appeared weak, in another stronger than the strong.
Here a fool, there a learner;
here defeated, there triumphant.
All these images collided within me,
crashing, falling, until I could no longer tell which was my “true” self.
For a long life, I lived not to satisfy myself,
but to remain safe from the harm of others,
balancing my steps between cunning, deceit, and injustice creeping from every side,
learning to hide my weakness,
to display what I did not feel.
I witnessed what befell more than a few of my friends and classmates after 1974.
Those who had courage and integrity,
who, despite their innocence, faced accusations capable of ending their lives
and altering their families’ destinies forever.
None of them returned home;
none of their families knew the fate of that innocent child.
They had been my classmates, my companions through adolescence,
witnesses to the joys and burdens of youth.
One, in the conviction of his innocence,
went voluntarily to the security authorities who had come seeking his parents,
believing truth alone could save him,
unaware of the fangs of power,
its mercilessness toward the pure-hearted.
I pretended calm, hiding between my ribs the screams of fear
and echoes of vigilance that never sleep.
Each night appeared as a shroud of darkness,
wrapping me in silence and solitude,
carrying stubborn dreams and faces I concealed from the world,
as if all this darkness waited to devour my joy and silence.
Every breath contained a secret, every sense observed the heartbeat of fear in my chest.
I knew that the composure I displayed was a fragile chain of deceptions,
that every smile, every word smuggled into the outside world,
hid behind it a storm of worry and dread.
Every night, darkness painted the echo of my silence with the hues of fear and vigilance.
Upon my ribs, I carried a history of dread,
and I made of my dreams a refuge for my heart,
heard by no one but me and the shadows.
And amidst all this, I knew that life was not merely a place for visions.
It was a path that unfolded only with patience and cunning,
to avoid harm, to seek a hidden light lurking deep within me.
So many friends and classmates,
whose families were forced to remove them—not only from their homes but from the homeland itself—
as if the wind had carried them away from the place they loved,
without planning, in starless nights where only a cautious heart could navigate.
Each one carried a faint cry of innocence unprotected,
a tear unheard,
dreams lost and wandering between walls of a homeland that had become too narrow to hold them.
In the silence of those nights,
when shadows crept to watch every step,
I felt a deep pain in my chest.
How empty was the homeland of mercy when it tore us apart!
How powerless was innocence before sudden disappearance,
and decisions about which no one was ever asked.
Each became part of the homeland’s torn memory,
a mark on the fear that surrounds pure hearts,
on the shadow cast by absence over any attempt at a natural life.
Yet their images remained alive in my mind—
their laughter, their small dreams,
their movements on classroom benches,
how every moment of joy and freedom was compressed into a fleeting instant before it was stolen from them,
as if time itself wished to test their endurance before they vanished from sight,
hidden behind the doors of forced exile.
It was as though life, in the end, invited me to a vast stage,
flooded with lights and shadows,
where every mask rotates like the shifting sheets of wind over the sea.
Each mask carried a different face, a hidden voice, a secret history
I had to handle with care and wisdom.
For each person, I wore a different face,
and each mask discreetly concealed the side of me that feared to be seen,
protecting myself and my family from prying eyes, malicious words, and the cruelty of time.
Yet each mask, while hiding and protecting, pushed me farther from my true self.
My soul cracked in silence,
seeking its faint light in the shadows,
trying to build a bridge back to the honest, upright self
that feared to rely on itself in solitude.
Behind every mask lay a silent world,
and every face hidden in shadow reminded me
that my life was not mine,
but a mirror for all who observed me,
that every step I took before others was not just a choice,
but a story weaving together my fear and my hope.
I once believed I was the only one wearing a mask amid the crowds,
in study groups or work circles.
The mask was my silent armor in a world that spared no truth.
But as soon as someone trusted me,
some of their masks revealed faces like mine—
breathing fear, pretending calm.
Not all masks fell; some concealed noble fear,
others sought proximity to destroy.
Masks that smiled at you, with fangs behind their eyes,
others cried with you, holding daggers in their chest.
We all walked together on that vast stage,
displaying faces that might save us,
concealing those that might betray us,
until honesty itself became the most dangerous mask.
With every step, I felt the mask I wore to hide my true face
slowly strangle me with steady pressure.
My masks no longer only protected me—they pierced my chest,
reminding me that my true self was a stranger
among my friends, my family, and my world.
Every day I learned that my masks did more than hide my fear—they revealed it, in a language only silence could speak. I was a stranger even to my own face, lost between my shadow and my skin. My soul longed to break free, yet my true self remained shackled, trapped behind every mask I wore.
Days became stages. Nights became paths of silence. Every laugh, every word others saw was a mask—hiding my face, exposing my sorrow. And in all of it, I discovered a need to write—alone—to confess to myself, to fight the silence, to hear my own heartbeat when no one else could.
Between mask and mask, I felt a watchful eye, strange and tireless. Every word I spoke, every movement I made, seemed measured, recorded in a ledger whose keeper I could not name. Sometimes I heard the voice of my elder brother, creeping past walls and masks, setting limits, monitoring my steps, reminding me that no journey is ever taken alone.
Yet, in all of this, I realized that observation, masks, and the silent cries I hid did not rob me of resistance. Writing became my refuge, my altar, part of my very blood and breath. In it, I built a secret room to resist oppression, to hear my own echo, to see the faces of friends and family—those who had left, and those who stayed.
Through writing, I spoke to the world, understood myself, confronted the unseen. Truth was never in what others watched; it lived in the silent spaces inside me, where I made my light, my dreams, and listened to my real voice.
Days carried the weight of surveillance on my shoulders, and masks fell—or were forced upon me. Time pressed on, bringing friends and colleagues, some to stay, some to leave. Each left its mark: a laugh, a face, a memory of childhood, of pain and joy, or a spirit lost in the exile of our homeland.
Every confrontation with authority, or anyone claiming rights over my boundaries, was like facing a silent corpse—everything returned at me, and I was reminded that truth is measured not by face or voice, but by what you carry inside, what you insist on preserving, even behind masks.
Every friend or colleague who saw my face—or thought they did—returned memories of small days, joys, and sorrows, or a soul adrift in a stranger’s land. Every slight, every deceptive smile, every honest word cemented in me that life is not measured by surveillance or masks, but by the silence you argue with, and the voice you revisit in your heart.
In this way, writing became my mirror, my body, my spirit—a stage where I spoke to friends, family, homeland, and masks alike. I embraced what remained unsaid and gave voice to dreams abandoned on the thresholds of memory.
Even in exile, I felt I had not left my homeland alone. Rather, the homeland itself had left the human within it—its political, social, and intellectual decay was no accident, but a hidden system feeding itself, until faces became alike, voices a single echo, minds planted to yield only what they were meant to yield.
In this silence, I realized that writing was not mere escape, but a way to dismantle the hidden systems within, to show that freedom—even in exile—is realized only when you make your voice your own, and confront the chains that weigh down faces and silence minds.
He knew that when he wrote, he was creating a small fissure—tiny gaps between imposed truths and the ones he held inside. Through these cracks, his soul could slip free, breathe, begin to understand what had once been impossible to grasp in that homeland.
Every night, he would sit with paper and pen before him, as if they were a small window opening onto the face of the world, letting thoughts leak, memories breathe, freedom disappear and return all at once. Every word reminded him that he was writing not for time, but for himself—for the echo inside, to remind himself that he was human, still capable of understanding, of awareness, of confrontation.
In this quiet space between exile and memory, he realized that homeland is not just geography or politics. It is the pulse of every individual, kept alive only when one remains honest with oneself, carrying freedom in one’s words.
And as voices spread through the silence of exile, he felt he did not carry it alone. The spirits of friends and colleagues, remnants of what his homeland had left imprinted on his mind, hidden ambitions, and the imagination of freedom—all moved with him, forming a wide circle that swung between past, present, and future.
In this swirl, his pen traced the delicate borders of truth, silencing cries that no one heard, crafting in every sentence a small distance between the unseen and reality. After long stillness, it always led him to one realization: he was alive. Freedom lived in every word he wrote, every time his silence bloomed into speech, every time he rediscovered the faces of exile and homeland within himself.
It was then that he understood the harshest kind of exile: not leaving your country, but realizing your country has left you. You speak a language that is not yours, see through eyes planted in you, until you feel like a stranger in your own skin before even leaving your land.
Where could one escape, from a homeland that hurts when loved, strangles when claimed, and accuses your heart of betrayal when you try to save it?
He saw his country turn against every thought that tried to make sense of life, silently becoming a tool that crushed anything unfamiliar, anything that diverged from the scripts written by those who controlled its fate. Slowly, love and belonging became wounds that would not heal, punishing the very ones who dared to be honest.
And quietly, he told himself:
“Perhaps our greatest delusion is insisting on loving our homeland as we imagine it, not as it is, forgetting that sometimes it wants us to save it from itself before we can save ourselves from it.”
In a shadowed corner of his memory, the echo of his old friend Hassan emerged, mocking as ever, his voice cutting through the silence of thought like a shadow:
“You know, the real danger isn’t in the novels you’ve read, but in who’s watching you from behind the curtain.”
The sarcasm dissolved the moment his mother appeared in his mind, smiling as she had when he was a child stumbling through the early days of life, her warm voice carrying the promise of a new dawn:
“Yes, my son… after leaving the ‘prison of the mind’ in 1974, you understood what it means to live under surveillance—not as a story, but as a constant awareness that sinks into your core until it becomes part of your pulse.”
He answered himself softly, as though echoing words that retreated into his own depths:
“I never managed to live as a man should… never dared awaken the human pulse inside me.”
And yet, writing had been his path, the unavoidable confrontation—with the contradictions of politics in his homeland, with twisted values, with false claims that masked ugliness with counterfeit patriotism and hollow slogans.
Then came the shadow of an old colleague from abroad, sarcastic yet real, emerging from memory to face him with bitter truth:
“Have you discovered the secret of political backwardness?
To force a man to take pride in what the civilized world calls regression,
To teach him that this is the only badge he can wear,
To make him carry it like a wound, lest he be accused of betrayal or thinking too freely.”
He smiled to himself and murmured, low, as if speaking to everyone who had shared that experience:
“Yes… that is the challenge: to live among those who demand your silence, yet continue to see behind the masks, behind the words, behind the false traditions.”
Time paused in his study. Every voice—childhood, friends, family, colleagues, officers, even the small and large dogs—spoke to him in silence.
Every person, every experience, every political awareness he had faced had now become part of his inner garden, where writing was the only way to converse, to understand, and to preserve his humanity amid the storms of history, life, and politics.
Alone in his study, surrounded by old books stacked on worn shelves and scattered papers filled with sprawling lines and interwoven words, he remembered his journey through Arab history—from the Age of Ignorance to the modern era—each page a gateway to countless crossroads.
He whispered to himself:
“How did they manage to present themselves as peaceful conquerors while filling history’s pages with innocent blood?”
The shadow of the caliph appeared in his mind, raising the banner of religion:
“Everything we did was in defense of the faith… not for power or personal gain, only to protect the system.”
The voice of an ancient officer rose from the pages of history, firm and guarded, as if whispering into the ear of the present:
“Freedom? That is a burden on the ruler, chains upon ambition, a barrier to political aspiration… We, the officers, we shape history—not the caliphs, not the governors. History is never born from the freedom of all.”
The words resonated in the narrator’s mind like echoes from a distant age. The first to embody this principle in history had been al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf al-Thaqafi—the sword of the Umayyad state, the shadow of fear that always preceded every ruler.
To the people, he was a tyrant governor. To himself, he was the protector of the state, its guarantor of survival. He believed that severity was the fortress of nations, and freedom was the dawn of sedition and the path to rebellion.
When he first climbed the pulpit in Kufa, hearts trembled beneath his fiery voice:
“I see heads ripe for harvest—and I am their owner!”
Those words announced a new era: politics governed by terror, not counsel, by blood, not reason. Al-Hajjaj saw free thought as a threat to his authority, chasing opponents, ascetics, and scholars brave enough to challenge the Umayyads, deeming them dangers to the system, not reformers.
In a voice that never wavered, he declared:
“By God, I will discipline you in ways you cannot imagine, and I will set you on the right path—even with the sword!”
In his logic, dialogue was weakness, persuasion a luxury; coercion was the only path to obedience and order. At times, he spoke as if fate itself had taken form in him:
“I am but God’s sword and whip on earth, sent upon whomever I choose.”
He saw in himself not a ruler, but a tool of punishment, wielded by authority in God’s name, striking without mercy. When warned, “Fear God,” he replied with unwavering severity:
“Whoever tells me to fear God, I will strike his neck!”
Thus he codified his doctrine: advice is a crime; obedience is unquestionable. When addressing the people of Iraq, he began with a roar that echoed through history:
“O people of Iraq, land of discord, hypocrisy, and moral decay!”
He entered their hearts not through reason, but through intimidation. While reorganizing the bureaucracy and army, he planted fear in every soul, until people spoke of his bitter pride:
“Iraq knew peace only when I terrorized it with the sword, not when I reasoned with it.”
This was al-Hajjaj: a ruler who saw freedom as a threat to stability, and severity as salvation from chaos. He embodied the words of that ancient officer whispering from the shadows of history:
“Freedom? That is a burden on the ruler, chains upon ambition, a barrier to history.”
And history’s pages bore witness to his deeds, written in ink of fear and dread. He crushed Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr’s revolt in Mecca, bombarding the Kaaba with mangonels, indifferent to the sanctity of the place, because in his eyes, authority was holier than the temple, and power higher than any human or divine value.
He would say—his voice cold enough to freeze the soul—:
“Political freedom is more dangerous than armed rebellion. It tempts people with dreams of equality, and it threatens the ruler’s authority.”
He hunted down scholars and ascetics who dared to criticize the Umayyads, among them Sa‘id ibn Jubayr, executed after a famous debate. To him, such voices were a greater danger to the state than any overt insurrection. Speaking of them, he sounded as if purging the earth of a disease:
“The rebel’s head must fall before he speaks, or order will never prevail.”
He restructured Iraq’s administration and military with ruthless precision, enforcing absolute obedience. Dialogue, in his eyes, was weakness; mouths were to be sealed, not heard. Proudly, he would recount his achievements to his inner circle:
“Iraq knew peace only after I terrorized it with the sword, not when I argued with reason.”
Thus, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf became a man who saw salvation in obedience, order in fear, and freedom as the first step toward chaos.
In an age when words were crushed beneath horse hooves and the sword ruled as law, the Mamluk state was born from iron and fire. Power was not granted by consent; it was seized at the edge of a blade. A ruler held his throne only as long as his commanders’ loyalty endured. Falter, and the swords that lifted him yesterday would strike him down today.
They believed states were built through strength, not affection, and that stability was preserved through fear, not liberty. The Mamluks knew nothing of hereditary rule or popular choice; thrones were taken, not inherited. New rulers were imposed by a strict military elite, shaping history from behind curtains, as if a ghostly voice whispered from the palace shadows:
“We make kings, and we rule from behind the throne.”
Whenever cities flared with unrest or the people’s voices rose in calls for justice, the Mamluks’ answer was always the same: iron and fire. Freedom, in their logic, was not a virtue to honor but a chaos to suppress. Countless popular movements were crushed in the name of “security,” countless honest voices silenced in the name of “authority.”
They built a rigid social hierarchy, placing themselves above all society; no commoner could rise into their ranks or partake in governance. Political freedom was, to them, a luxury that weakened discipline, not a right to cherish.
The Mamluks left no speeches to echo like al-Hajjaj’s, but their collective behavior was a constant sermon of silent power, with an unspoken creed:
“We protect the ruler… and we make kings.”
A phrase that captured their philosophy: power is the source of legitimacy, and the sword speaks truer than words. Some of their leaders, like al-Zahir Baybars, said bluntly:
“The world holds together by fear, and soldiers obey by discipline alone.”
This was the Mamluk state in its prime: a military order that created stability, and a reign of fear that guaranteed survival. They embodied that ancient truth whispered between the lines of history:
“Freedom? A burden on the ruler, a chain on ambition, and a barrier to history itself.”
Muhammad Ali Pasha (1769–1849) forged a state of iron dressed as a renaissance. He believed nations were not built on dreams, but on force—and that the people, at their core, were children incapable of knowing what was best for them.
Once, he summed up his authoritarian philosophy in a single sentence:
“The people are children who do not understand what will fix them. The ruler is their father, and order is his law.”
In this strict, paternal worldview, political freedom was not a right but a threat—something to be guided and disciplined with a firm hand. Addressing his European advisers, he said bluntly:
“Egypt will never rise unless it is trained with a strong hand.”
He saw rigor as the path to progress, and participation as a weakness that could paralyze the state. When urged to create a broader consultative council, he laughed derisively:
“Do you want me to surrender myself to those who do not know what they want?”
For Muhammad Ali, words did not share history-making power with the sword—they bowed to it. He built a tightly centralized state, transforming Egypt from a fragmented Mamluk society into a modern apparatus of government. But the price was steep: he stripped scholars and local elites of independence, making everyone a tool in his grand project.
He crushed opposition relentlessly, subordinated Al-Azhar to his authority, and exiled figures like Omar Makram, once his partner in governance. Political freedom, in his logic, was merely an obstacle to ambition, a debate that threatened the machinery of reform.
He monopolized the economy, agriculture, and trade, ensuring the state controlled every resource. Economic freedom, he believed, weakened discipline and opened the door to chaos that could jeopardize his vision.
When building a modern army, he imposed harsh conscription on peasants, marching them to the barracks in chains. In his mind, history was made not through discussion, but through the sword and obedience.
In the end, Muhammad Ali’s Egypt was a renaissance forged on steel: a state that dreamed of progress but feared freedom, that believed order came before dignity, and that obedience paved the road to civilization.
In him, the old maxim found a new face:
“Freedom? A burden on the ruler, a chain on ambition, and a barrier to history.”
It was said of Abd al-Rahman, the Immigrant, that in one of his councils he declared bluntly:
“People never unite around opinion. Only the sword and awe bind them.”
His inner voice seemed to echo what al-Hajjaj had proclaimed centuries before: “I see heads ripe for the harvest…” Power, he believed, could not tolerate dissent. It demanded silence to survive.
When he set foot in Al-Andalus, he found a land torn between Arabs and Berbers, Yamani and Mudari factions. He chose unity through the sword, not consultation; through fear, not freedom. The chaos that had toppled the Umayyads of the East confirmed his belief that liberty invited ruin.
He forged a strong centralized state, abolished the autonomy of local leaders, and directed all loyalty to himself alone. In his logic, a state could not thrive on divided allegiances—it required unified obedience. He crushed internal revolts without hesitation, convinced that security and order took precedence over freedom, and that tolerance for insubordination led only to collapse.
He relied on troops and mercenaries personally loyal to him, not on scholars, nobles, or elites. The army was the guarantor of his rule; power was the language history understood.
Abd al-Rahman, at his core, embodied the timeless maxim:
“Freedom? A burden on the ruler, a chain on ambition, a barrier to history.”
Through him, Al-Andalus was united—but he also laid the foundation for an iron state that would endure for centuries, governed in the name of order and wary of freedom.
Abu al-Abbas al-Saffah (722–754), founder of the Abbasid dynasty, embodied the violence of birthright. His epithet, “al-Saffah,” alone marks an era forged in blood. He shed lives not for vengeance, but to erect a new state on the ruins of the Umayyads in the name of “divine justice.”
He believed cruelty was necessary for creation, and freedom a threat to the newborn state. When he mounted the pulpit after claiming the caliphate, he proclaimed:
“God has sent us to establish truth and suppress falsehood. None shall prosper who opposes us.”
For al-Saffah, authority was inseparable from divine right, and opposition was a form of political heresy. He tolerated no dissent or hesitation, eliminating rivals near and far, abolishing tribal leaderships to centralize power. In his era, freedom was not a moral ideal but an existential danger; multiple voices were omens of the chaos that had destroyed his predecessors.
Abu Ja‘far al-Mansur (714–775), the true architect of the Abbasid state, built upon fear with calculation and oversight. A masterful politician, foresighted and cunning, he saw freedom as a threat to the unity of the realm and absolute consultation as a path to disorder. He stated plainly:
“The subjects have no say in the rule of their sovereign; if they do, their affairs will unravel.”
He believed that the unity of the nation could exist only under disciplined silence, that the ruler was the “single mind of the people,” unchallenged by any voice.
In another council, he is said to have declared:
“By God, these people will never hold together except through fear. If they feel safe, they scatter.”
In his philosophy, fear was the mortar that held the pillars of power—not trust, not freedom. He built a meticulous network of spies and informers to watch governors and commoners alike, turning the state into an “eye that never sleeps.” Dissidents—from Alawites to Kharijites, from thinkers to local leaders—were crushed, for disagreement was the first step toward division.
He founded Baghdad as the seat of absolute caliphate, a city designed to embody central authority: rule by surveillance, not consultation; by awe, not liberty.
Through these two men—al-Saffah and al-Mansur—the early Islamic “iron state” took shape. One built through fear, the other governed with wary calculation. Both saw freedom as a threat, obedience as the foundation of the state, and crushed any life or idea that stood in the way.
Centuries later, as European influence rose and concepts like “constitution,” “freedom of the press,” and “citizens’ rights” began to spread, Ottoman officials looked on with dread. Freedom, they decided, was no ideal—it was a silent weapon, poised to tear the empire apart from within.
One senior governor reportedly said in Istanbul in 1880:
“If we let people speak as they wish, the state will crumble under its own tongues.”
Under Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1876–1909), this fear hardened into policy. “The freedom they demand is nothing but disguised chaos,” he would say in council. Two years after issuing the first constitution in 1876, it was suspended “to protect the state from disorder.” Freedom, in practice, had become a threat to the empire itself.
He built a vast surveillance network over newspapers, correspondence, and councils. The Hamidian intelligence service hunted writers and thinkers. Freedom became a crime. Constitutional and reform movements—like the Young Turks before 1908—were suppressed in the name of protecting the empire from Western influence.
He smiled to himself as he scribbled in the margins of his notes:
“A true architect of history.”
In the outer garden, the trees stood in silent rows, their drooping leaves whispering secrets of ages long past. A man of the cloth approached—chosen by one of the princes—draped in garments not meant for ordinary men, but for shadows that embodied power itself. His robe gleamed under the sun, each stitch a promise of authority and severity. He brushed his long beard as if wiping away time itself, then stepped forward with measured weight, eyes blazing with a mix of curiosity and menace, his calm smile sharp as a blade glinting in the shade.
He stopped directly before him and spoke, his voice deep as the echo of history, throwing words like stones onto his chest:
“Who are you, to judge the great men who forged our Islamic history?”
The words struck like lightning, shattering the garden’s silence. That smile carried terror beneath the calm. It was as if the ground had turned into a chessboard, each step calculated, each tree a watchful witness, storing memories of battles, authority, and centuries.
At that moment, the cleric was no mere man. He was the embodiment of power, of a history that refused erasure, of a fear rooted in the souls of men for generations. Every word he spoke seemed to whisper to time itself: obey, or vanish. No voice of courage or justice would cross the boundaries of the inherited order.
He stood there, engulfed in that solemn stillness, sensing history staring back, demanding a choice: confront authority as it is—or bow as countless before had bowed.
He recalled the voices of scholars long gone, those who had justified every act under the cloak of religion:
“We crafted jurisprudence, schools of thought, and interpretation, all to protect those who obey and fear… and the disobedient paid the price.”
From the shadows, a figure emerged, as though born from the memory of the earth itself—a ghost of the innocent who had been slaughtered across the centuries, leaving behind a silence that screamed. The figure was mute, yet his presence was louder than any shout, rewriting every tragedy, every unseen tear, every silenced voice. He stopped and lifted his face to the darkened sky, seeking answers in the gloom, and spoke in a voice that echoed the moan of ages:
“Did we truly not deserve life? Was any of us the caliph God intended us to be?”
A dense silence followed, the question itself a fresh wound upon history’s face, cutting through past and present, reminding the living that they were only witnesses to a merciless era.
Then a soldier stepped forward, his armor stained with remnants of old blood, his face etched with the exhaustion of centuries and the bitterness of enforced choice. He spoke in a hoarse voice, as if confessing for all those who had been forced to choose between death and inflicting death, obedience and betrayal:
“I was just a man who wished to live… yet before me lay only two paths: to be killed, or to become a maker of killing, of plunder, of domination.”
The old garden trembled beneath his words, as if it were recalling the echoes of buried screams, hidden deep within its soil for centuries. Every stone, every leaf seemed to bear silent confessions: history had not died—it continued to judge its children in endless, unyielding silence, a silence that shouted truths no one had ever heard.
From the shadows, a voice erupted, shaking the entire place. The trees shivered as though they might snap at the roots, shedding leaves in terror:
“Did they not know, all of them—and you too—the purpose God intended for the creation of all humans? And for all creatures?”
The voice struck like lightning, compressing an eternal question into a single instant, linking past and present, sin and obedience, freedom and tyranny. Every shadow quivered; every pulse in the garden whispered that history is not merely what we live—it is what we carry in silence and conscience.
Then a figure emerged, one of those who had embodied authority across the ages. He advanced with measured steps, eyes radiating a mix of awe and threat. He stopped before the man, raising his voice from a memory that stretched through history:
“You must claim this meaning of freedom only after living the kind of veiled liberty found in societies built on the enslavement and subjugation of peoples.”
The man’s hands trembled over the pages, his fingers faltering, before he wrote inwardly with a voice that blended anger and faith:
“Did God not send you all prophets and messengers? Did they not teach you that the Qur’an presents freedom not as a political banner or external face, but as a spiritual duty and a condition of human dignity?”
He drew a deep breath, and each word that followed rang stronger than the last:
“Freedom liberates a person from three servitudes: the servitude of desire, the servitude of men and tyrants, and the servitude of ignorance and blind tradition. And through servitude to God alone, all human freedom is born.”
He raised his hand toward the sky, as if drawing strength from above, and declared:
“God Himself confirms this in His verses, affirming human dignity and the right to choose:
‘O mankind, We created you from a male and a female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous.’
‘And We have certainly honored the children of Adam… and preferred them over many of those We created.’
‘There shall be no compulsion in religion; guidance has become clear from error.’
‘Let him who wills believe, and let him who wills disbelieve.’
‘Do you compel mankind until they become believers?’
‘Say: The truth is from your Lord. Let him who wills believe, and let him who wills disbelieve.’
‘No bearer of burdens shall bear the burden of another.’
‘Those who convey the messages of Allah and fear Him and do not fear anyone but Him.’
‘Indeed We have guided him to the way, whether he be grateful or ungrateful.’
‘O People of the Book! Come to a word equal between us and you…’”
He stood a long moment, breathing slowly, as if sharing in the silent weight of history itself. He realized that the words he had spoken were no longer merely an inner echo—they had become a weapon against domination and tyranny, proclaiming that freedom is not a banner or a mask, but a spiritual principle and an innate right of human dignity.
He stepped forward—the political leader—leaning on his cane as if the crooked wood held the weight of history itself. His smile was mocking and slow, the kind that had sharpened under crowns and banners. He spoke with cool contempt, a practiced sneer aimed at the idea of dissent:
“You say that because you do not know how life is kept steady. The life of a people only settles in a unified society—and that requires politics.”
The man lowered his head for a moment, closing his eyes to summon the faces and phrases of rulers he had read about: men who had built empires out of order and fear. Then he picked up his pen and, with a quiet firmness that tightened the air, wrote his reply to the lineage that man pretended to carry.
“Islam,” he wrote, “is by nature a liberating law, not an instrument of subjugation. It freed human beings from servitude to false gods, from blind dependence, from political and social injustice. It gave each person will, dignity, and responsibility.”
He spoke the words aloud as if reciting a creed, and the garden listened.
He named the teachings that had guided people toward justice and liberty: that every human life, property, and honor is sacred; that no Arab is superior to a non Arab, nor one skin tone to another—only piety ranks us; that each of us is a shepherd, responsible for those in our care; that deeds are judged by intent; that one is not faithful until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself; that freeing a believer is a deed so great it fights the fires of damnation; that counsel and choice are virtues; that no human obedience is owed when it requires disobeying the Divine.
His voice gained strength as he quoted, each line a blade against the vanity of power. Around them the garden’s silence hummed—no longer mere hush but a verdict. His words cut through the presumption that authority is an end in itself. Each sentence on his paper felt like a sword that might sever the illusions of tyrants and restore the communal conscience its claim to dignity and justice.
For a long moment nothing moved but leaves and breath. Then the man with the cane, for once, could not summon another sneer. History, it seemed, had been addressed—and for the first time in that place, the answer did not bow.
The politician paused, a shadow of thought crossing his face, as if inviting the man to look beyond the moment, to see history with wider eyes. His voice, calm but heavy with experience, cut through the garden’s quiet:
“Yet all these events… all this bloodshed—was it unique to Arab Muslims? Or has every nation, every civilization, carried in its history the same struggle for survival… for power?”
The man smiled quietly, letting the weight of centuries press upon him—the ambitions and violence etched into every page of history, the tension between ideals and blood, freedom and chains. The words seemed to seep into him like echoes from an ancient hall, calling the names of those who ruled, those who killed, and those who claimed authority in the name of “national duty” or “divine right.”
He picked up his pen and wrote:
“The struggles of history belong to no single people or faith. Every civilization has wielded power, imposed rule, marked its boundaries, and stained its pages with blood. What’s the difference between a king who rules by the sword and a tyrant who rules through fear?”
Silence settled over them. It was as if history itself had paused, holding its breath, waiting for an answer that only emerges when thought stretches beyond geography and time, when one sees that freedom is neither privilege nor exception—it is a universal human right, no matter the names or eras.
The politician stepped closer, eyes locked on the man, trying to read his heart before his mind. His tone blended mockery with challenge:
“You speak of freedom as if it were granted, or earned. But tell me—do you see? Life can only stabilize in a unified society. Discipline alone guarantees survival. All else is chaos; all other voices threaten the structure.”
The man walked slowly through the old garden, where trees whispered forgotten secrets and shadows stretched like searching souls. He lifted his face to the cloudy sky and spoke, voice carrying a mix of faith and quiet anger:
“Islam, in its essence, is liberating—not enslaving. It freed humanity from worshiping false gods, from blind obedience, from social and political oppression. Prophets were sent to guide communities with noble values, to uphold justice, honor the human being, and plant mercy in hearts.”
He paused, as if calling upon the voices of time itself, gesturing to the ancient texts that the wind whispered across the leaves. The words echoed in the stillness:
“In the Torah, in Exodus 20:13–16, the commandments teach: ‘You shall not kill. You shall not steal. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.’ And Moses says in Exodus 22:21: ‘Do not oppress the stranger or mistreat him, for you yourselves were strangers in Egypt.’ These laws affirm the sanctity of one human being for another—life, property, dignity—as the Prophet also affirmed.”
The air trembled around him as he continued, voice steady yet charged with both faith and defiance:
“And in Deuteronomy 10:17, Moses says:
‘For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awesome God, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribe.’
And in the Gospel, Christ declares:
‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ.’ (Galatians 3:28)
All these texts teach the same truth: status is not measured by birth, race, or color, but by faith and righteous action.”
He moved toward an abandoned bench and sat, tracing a circle in the dirt as if mapping the boundary between justice and oppression.
“David, in the Psalms 78:70–72, chose his servant from the sheepfold to shepherd Israel with a whole heart and skillful hands. And Christ said: ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.’ (John 10:11)
These words speak to moral responsibility and compassionate leadership—toward family, nation, community.”
He lifted his eyes to the sky and pressed on:
“In Acts 5:29, the apostles declare: ‘We must obey God rather than men.’ And Deuteronomy 13:4 commands: ‘Follow the Lord your God, fear Him, keep His commandments, listen to His voice, worship Him, cling to Him.’ The meaning is clear: no human authority should compel obedience when it contradicts the divine command.”
His voice rose, carrying over centuries of injustice:
“And the prophet Micah says (6:8):
‘He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?’
And in the Sermon on the Mount, Christ affirms:
‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’ (Matthew 5:7–8)”
All the prophets—from Adam to Muhammad—spoke with one voice: that human dignity mirrors divine dignity, freedom is inseparable from responsibility, and justice cannot exist without mercy.
A wind stirred among the trees, and the listeners felt the words no longer as mere speech but as a living echo breathing through the garden, through the universe itself. History still judges; ethical truths endure; true freedom begins where blind obedience to injustice ends.
The politician flinched slightly, as if the words had pierced his armor. He stepped back a few paces, then regained composure, wearing a cold, measured smile:
“Beautiful… but don’t you see? Every civilization has faced the same challenges of survival. Every nation, every leader, had to impose order by force—or watch their people collapse into chaos.”
The man sighed and nodded, his voice carrying a quiet moral certainty.
“Yes, the struggle is universal. But Islam sets boundaries. It defines what is permissible, what is forbidden. Power is never absolute; force is never an end in itself. Freedom is not a slogan—it is a responsibility, first a matter of faith, before it becomes political.”
A heavy silence fell, every shadow in the garden seeming to whisper in awe. Then the politician shouted, this time with a voice thick with fear and conviction:
“And what happens if we let this freedom loose? If people decide to govern themselves? Won’t it destroy the state—its words, its ideas?”
The man smiled, as if he could see the sweep of history laid bare before him.
“Freedom doesn’t destroy the state. It destroys ignorance, it liberates minds. History—the very weapon you think keeps control—is the same history that can be written by noble values. Every ruler is accountable for injustice, every people accountable for their silence.”
Silence stretched. The evening wind slithered through the trees, carrying whispers from the past: History forgets nothing. Freedom cannot be killed.
A distant voice called from behind an ancient wall, almost fading into the past:
“And why you?”
The man tilted his head, puzzled.
“I don’t understand your meaning.”
The voice returned, echoing like a memory across the space:
“Why are you the one to take up these ideas, to open the path for everyone? Why has no one come before you carrying them?”
He paused, staring at the vanished source as if it had spoken from another era. Then, taking a deep breath, he answered, his voice a balance of humility and resolve:
“Because ideas choose their bearers at the moment the world most needs them. I am not the first to speak of freedom, but those before me were silenced—by swords or fear. Each generation leaves a shadow of truth, waiting for someone to awaken it.”
The voice softened, as though listening, and he pressed on:
“I am neither prophet nor leader. I am merely the echo of a word spoken a thousand years ago, unheard until now. Truth does not die; it remains hidden until someone believes that the word is stronger than the sword.”
The garden stirred under the evening breeze. Trees leaned as if sharing the spirits of those present in their quiet dialogue. They sat in an invisible circle, each carrying the echo of their own lives, each word a stone on the path toward understanding.
Ḥallāj—the mystic—lifted his head first, his voice resolute:
“I am the truth. I called for the unity of being and the freedom of the soul in its relationship with God. The rulers and jurists tried to silence me with swords; they crucified me in Baghdad… yet divine love and inner freedom remain alive in the hearts of those who seek truth.”
Sahrawardi’s eyes shone with sorrow and understanding.
“And we, Ḥallāj… we tried to blend Greek wisdom with divine light, to prove that man is capable of self-enlightenment. They executed me young for heresy, yet thought itself survives beyond all swords—and it alone frees the spirit from tyranny.”
Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ stepped forward, eyes blazing with fire.
“I wrote about the social contract and freedom of thought centuries before Rousseau. Every word I spoke was a crime in the eyes of power. They burned me alive—but today, anyone who listens understands: truth cannot be burned.”
Al-Kawakibi smiled, calm and unwavering.
“I exposed tyranny in the name of religion. I wrote The Nature of Tyranny and The Mother of Cities. I died poisoned in exile in Cairo—but the voice of freedom did not die. It still echoes in the hearts of those who seek justice.”
Bruno raised his head from the shadows, his voice ringing through the trees.
“I proclaimed that the universe is infinite, and God is in everything. The Church burned me alive—but the courage of free thought endures, and ideas cannot be conquered.”
Spinoza stepped forward, eyes serene, voice deep.
“I was exiled for calling for freedom of thought, for questioning sacred texts. I lived in solitude—but my spirit was free, and the light of reason shines even in darkness.”
Socrates’ voice filled the space.
“I refused to abandon my ideas. They accused me of corrupting youth, and sentenced me to death. I drank the poison, saying to my students: ‘Thought cannot be imprisoned.’”
Ḥallāj’s voice rose, defiant:
“So… is freedom just a word to be raised, or an inner path that begins in the soul and reaches society?”
Sahrawardi answered:
“It is a journey toward the light. It begins with understanding, bears wisdom, and frees humanity from oppression and ignorance.”
Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ interjected:
“But those who fear the sword remain slaves. Freedom demands courage of the spirit before it can manifest outside.”
Al-Kawakibi nodded:
“And truth, however long silenced, eventually emerges. All tyranny collapses before the light of reason and conscience—these are the laws of human nature.”
Bruno added:
“Even if our bodies are burned, ideas wander through time. The universe itself witnesses human courage.”
Spinoza said:
“Critical thought is responsibility. Freedom is not a privilege or a slogan; it is the duty of anyone who seeks truth and justice.”
Socrates looked at them all:
“Truth with oneself births the truly free. He who does not know himself cannot know freedom.”
Hassan al-Hallaj rose, his voice shaking the air:
“Blind obedience to authority does not make a human—it replaces the soul with slavery.”
Al-Suhrawardi smiled, calm but unwavering:
“The mind is the guide, faith is the light… together, they build a free society, unshaken by tyranny.”
Ibn al-Muqaffa leaned forward, his voice burning with conviction:
“And whoever keeps silent remains a slave, even for a lifetime… freedom demands courage and relentless struggle.”
Al-Kawakibi raised his hand:
“Sacrifice is never wasted. Every word written, every idea shared, becomes a legacy for liberty—even if the author never sees its fruits.”
Bruno spoke next, his tone alive with certainty:
“Ideas are immortal. Tyrants may try to bury them, but every true thought opens a new horizon for humanity.”
Spinoza nodded quietly:
“And critical thinking casts a light that frees the mind from ignorance and superstition.”
Socrates’ eyes swept over them all, firm and commanding:
“Truth with the self gives birth to freedom. Those who do not know themselves cannot know freedom. Those who do not know truth cannot know justice.”
The evening breeze rustled through the garden, the trees swaying as if echoing the words of the living philosophers. He sat in an invisible circle, pen in hand, glowing with the intensity of clashing thoughts. Every word he wrote became a stepping stone toward understanding; every silence carried the weight of a buried scream.
He lifted the pen again, his voice a mix of sorrow and resolve:
“Thought cannot die… freedom endures… and no matter how hard tyrants try to silence it, humanity will always seek truth and dignity.”
He continued, eyes distant, seeing the long stretch of history:
“History is not pure, nor innocent, nor sacred. It reflects human struggle, greed, fear—our desire for power, survival, spoils, and favors.”
A vision of his older self formed before him. He whispered inwardly:
“Reading was never mere knowledge… it was an inner confrontation, a dialogue with all that history has wrought, with all those who remained silent, with every voice that should have been heard but was not.”
He sat there, pen in hand, gathering every voice, every stance, every contradiction within the garden of his mind—where history, truth, politics, and religion intertwined. Writing became the only way to live with it, to understand himself, to face the invisible weight embedded in every page of history.
He stared at the paper, a lifetime of experience reflected in every line: small and great, conscious and remembered, literature and history, the questions of the writer’s own self, the masks worn for decades. He was ready to speak the truth, however taxing, however unprepared the world might be to hear it.
The man remembered the first stirrings of his political awareness, whispering to himself:
“I felt my weakness the moment I began to understand power. There was no choice but to adopt the convictions reality demanded before those who held the highest authority—to protect myself, my family, from their schemes, their cunning, their cruelty.”
His voice dropped, almost a confession to the empty garden:
“I was small before them, powerless, with no recourse but submission… pretending to believe, while they wielded moral and psychological firepower, climbing ever higher, sacrificing dignity yet claiming dominion over all.”
A shadow of one official appeared in his mind, strict, calculating, his voice echoing:
“Foolishness? Merely a way to see the world our way… We craft laws and concepts, mold them, name them with prestige, all for our own ends.”
The image of his trembling younger self surfaced, anxious:
“How can I resist, hold my dignity, when everyone else bends the world to their will, turning it into instruments of power?”
He shivered, the garden itself seeming to echo the question. Then he wrote:
“True power is not in swords or laws, but in an unbroken spirit, a heart that refuses submission… and a pen that records truth, no matter the cost.”
Voices rose in his mind, a chorus from past and present, shadows of history whispering words never meant to be heard:
“History… shows no mercy… but it reveals those brave enough to face it.”
“Authority… tests every soul… those who kneel fall, those who resist endure.”
“Conscience… a sword that never rusts, and the pen… the final fortress.”
He sat, the pen trembling in his hand between fear and resolve, thinking of all who had resisted before: those who wrote, who shouted, who died, who sacrificed everything for freedom, for thought, for dignity.
He whispered to himself:
“I too… will write… I will resist… and remain true to myself… even if the world stands against me… even if every other pen falls silent.”
The garden stirred again, the trees silent witnesses, the wind whispering through the shadows:
“Truth… endures… and thought, and freedom… will remain… no matter how tyrants try to silence them.”
The first shy rays of dawn threaded through the branches, falling on him, seated among two dogs: the large black one, guardian of danger and vigilance, and the small white one, innocent, curious. One by one, figures from his life appeared: his grandfather, mother, father, teachers, friends, students, neighbors—all seated in silent communion, filling the space with the weight of memory and existence.
The papers he had written stirred with life, lifted by the wind, drifting among trunks, stones, and pathways, small messages for every soul that might hear them. The words no longer lay static on the page—they became living dialogues with every moment he had lived, with every experience that had left its mark on his heart.
Days passed. Seasons changed. The garden held the scattered pages through autumn’s dry leaves, winter’s snow, spring’s fresh shoots, and summer’s golden sun. The garden itself seemed to declare the endurance of thought and the freedom of the spirit, even when its keeper had long departed without announcing his leaving.
The man lingered in every page, every breeze, every shadow, as time quietly traced its course. Even after he had vanished from sight, the echo of his inner voice remained in his papers, asking:
“Was I right? Did I fail? Was I brave enough?”
When the woman returned to the garden with her small white dog, it settled at his feet, guarding the silent legacy he had left behind. The wind carried the scattered pages, drifting into distant corners, mingling with the rustle of leaves, as if the garden itself whispered to every passerby:
“Thought never dies… freedom endures… no matter how tyrants try to silence it, no matter how its keepers vanish from the world.”
Years passed. Faces changed. Yet the papers remained, bearing the man’s symbolic legacy, narrating his struggles, his questions, reminding all who passed that a person may leave, but ideas, dignity, and a free spirit live on—in every breeze, every shadow, every hidden corner of the garden.
All voices fell silent. Yet the echoes swirled within him like time itself turning in a broken mirror, reflecting his boyhood, his adulthood, his shadow—all at once.
He no longer distinguished between the small dog, carrying innocence in the garden, and the large black dog, which had once chased his shadow through the past; both now rested on the same threshold, as if two faces of a single truth.
He realized life is not a stage for masks, but a journey stripping existence of every false layer. The mind he once believed a safe refuge was only the first prison, whose door could only be unlocked with the key of the unseen.
When he laid his pen on the paper, he felt the words were no longer meant to be read—they were meant to be understood in silence.
So he closed the notebook and gazed at the garden, now quiet in the evening, yet filled with the voices that had inhabited it: his mother, his friends, and himself in every age he had lived. For the first time, they all smiled in unison.
He no longer needed to defend, to justify, to write for comprehension. He could simply see.
He saw that truth is not spoken—it is lived. That the unseen is not what God hides from man, but what light conceals until perception is complete. That writing itself is an act of faith in that light, and that every word he had written, every silence he had held, witnessed a journey incomplete, yet fully meaningful.
As he took the final steps toward the garden gate, he glanced at the empty bench where he had once sat.
And yet—deep within—he knew the small dog had never left, and the great black dog no longer frightened him. Both lived within him: the voice of humanity listening to itself.
Then, a final thought, echoing from the depths of his being, repeated what he had once written on a bright white page:
“I believe in the unseen… for it preserves my humanity from arrogance, and it opens the path to understanding what cannot yet be seen.”
The letters folded in on themselves. The story remained suspended between light and mystery, waiting for another reader… to turn the key of the unseen.
Numan Albarbari
Weissach im Tal, Backnang
Baden-Württemberg, Germany
28/10/2021