Me: Dr. Muhammad-Effendi, it has been a pleasure looking through the bulk of those unreadable half finished manuscripts of yours. I would like to start my interview  with the question which of them will you be most likely to finish?

Mahdi: None.

Me: Which, then, is the most important project you're working on?

Mahdi: To stay alive against the odds.

Me: Well, let me then proceed to the question all your readers will be burning to have answered: What is your favourite dish?

Mahdi: Falafel.

Me: Would it interest you to know that falafel is my favourite dish too?

Mahdi: Well, prepare us one, then!

(I blush.)

Me: Mr. Mahdi, you say you have been influenced by quite a number of writers who are all of much earlier generations if I may say so...

Mahdi: Say so if you please!

Me: Well, to come to the point of the question: Is there any up-to-date, well, contemporary or new age author who has influenced you?

Mahdi: Yeah, but I'd like to refrain from mentioning who it is.

Me: It's sheer pleasure doing an interview with you.

Mahdi: I know it is. You should rather have prepared a falafel.

(I clear my throat.)

Me: Do you think a woman's role in society should be restricted to preparing falafel?

Mahdi: I would never publicly state any such thing, for together with Fatima Mernissi, I'm the leading feminist of this age. But that cannot make me overlook the fact that there is a certain class of women whe believe their social role should be restricted to not preparing falafel.

Me: Sheikh Muhammad, it has been said of you that, inspite of your feminist beliefs which you have just so impressively demonstrated, you have never been able to marry a woman without divorcing her.

Mahdi: Don't blame me!

Me: But it's a historical fact that you've been divorced more than once. What prompted these decisions?

Mahdi: Are you Yellow Press now? The decisions were prompted by the fact that when I married them they were young and sweet but soon -too soon- afterwards...

Me: Don't say it! That would compromise your reputation as a champion of women's rights.

Mahdi: You mean to say that this is part of the official interview?

Me: How can you doubt this? I'm a champion of press freedom and of people's right to see the truth surface. Moreoever, I'm a woman, and I'm interested in these things.

Mahdi: Don't let yourself be mislead by my personal attitudes ya setti; they have nothing to do with my political convictions.

Me: There's no chance I'd oblige you by suppressing this.

Mahdi: I will deny everything.

Me: But I will give you the opportunity to rehabilitate yourself by stating the true reason.

Mahdi: The true reason is that it is impossible to live in peace with a woman.

Me: Why couldn't a man live in peace with his wife?

Mahdi: Because women are too bad.

Me: What would motivate you then to care about their rights?

Mahdi: I believe people should have the right to have rights even if they are bad.

Me: So it's altruism?

Mahdi: It's love.

Me: You're confusing.

Mahdi (courteous smile): So are you.

Me: I would like to come back to your literary work. Which among the modern authors do you count among your favourite ones?

Mahdi: Every author is my favourite author, save those who are not. But, honestly, there's a great number of very interesting, very original authors in the field. But a great majority of them don't feature high profile because there's a certain mainstream culture being mercilessly promoted, and anybody who has an insight into contemporary society and the principles by which it is operated knows: it's not professionality, it's not talent, it's not potential or mastery of whatever it is that you are doing but, firstly, promotion and, secondly, conformity on which career is based. And often enough survival, for that matter.

Me: You have decided to keep a rather low profile for yourself.

Mahdi: Yes.

Me: Is it to preserve your independence as an artist?

Mahdi: I wouldn't call it that. Nor would I say I'm an artist. No, I'm a serious person. There is another reason to restrict publicity and there's also a very plain technical side to it in that since 2005 I don't have the facilities to produce, for example, typoscripts, neither digital nor otherwise.

Me: That's a great impediment, certainly...

Mahdi: But there's no need for anxiety, There's enough of unfinished work to concentrate on and, once the opportunity arises, I won't mind spending a year on producing typoscripts from the drafts assembled and in the process produce the final versions.

Me: There's some of your work on the authorsden website, though.

Mahdi: Yes, that serves as a reference. What you find there is about 15 % of my output. But be careful: much of it is not yet properly edited, as it is assembled under time pressure, and not always by me personally.

Me: But all is written by you personally.

Mahdi: Wallah'l 'adhim: I couldn't bear the idea of having anybody mess up my work. There are writers though who are collaborating with others but I can't, for the life of me, imagine how that works.

Me: What made you chose authorsden as a PR tool?

Mahdi: It's a very handy tool and, inspite of the fact that I can't, for the reasons provided, use the full capacity of the facilities I could otherwise, I'm very happy with it.

Me: So it's the device matching your current needs?

Mahdi: Eh. Generally speaking though -and leaving my own case aside- I would welcome a gradual increase in PR tools, including commercial tools, but not with view to competition but to cultivation of originality, of diversity.

Me: Of the authors presented, that is?

Mahdi: Yes. Though, of course, enhancing their profile will enhance the profile of authorsden as such. I would also recommend to envisage moving toward regular releases of hardcopies and e-books anthologising authors presented on the site, first as a pure PR action and then, in the course of time, with the objective of expanding the scope of publications to such a degree that authorsden itself would eventually assume the role of publisher, producing e-books and hard copy books alike. A concept like print upon demand -upon order, that is- would work very well in that frame, as it would economise the process. Interested authors could actively be involved. They're a  great potential and the strategies evolving would benefit both sides.

Me: You've so far rejected the option of becoming a full time writer though your literary work, typoscripts or not, over the years has become quite voluminous. Doesn't a life as a full time writer has a certain attraction?

Mahdi: See, at certain times writing has been my main or sometimes even exclusive occupation. That time I did have means and ways to have the typoscripts done. But writing is not an industrial profession. You don't  do it 8 hours a day. Nto, I don't. The only time I do this is when producing a typoscript, which is when my drafts reach their final stages. Then it's 12-18 hours a day, admittedly beacuse my disposition tends toward obsession and I can't stop what I'm doing. But in the original productive phases it won't be more than 3 hours. Contents, forms and structures must grow in peace. They take shape in the way a dream does. In that phase they are settled entirely in the substrata of consciousness, and you have to let thoughts flow undisturbed rather rather than try to catch them. There's no benefit in that, for when an idea is articulated or materialised too early, it will turn out shallow, and its outer form may cause you to become blind or insensitive to its original depth. That's why your life or your daily rhythm should not be fixed on the notion of mental production.

Me: Mental production. A nice term.

Mahdi: Intellectual production would not say it. It's an area of heart and mind deeper than that. It's a thing conceived, not reasoned out or thought up. A second -and as such the strongest- point in not being a full time writer is the need not to be restricted. As an author, your role is that of the critical intellectual whose entire focus is on contradiction whereas in politics you are faced with the harshness of necessities that compel you to act in accordance to pragmatical requirements, which are the ever-shifting dictates of the moment. They're the opposite of what you would favour doing, if not always, most of the time. Life consists of both components and I cannot restrict my identity to only one fraction of reality. That would mean to fragment it, which would result in isolation. Isolation necessitates hypocrisy, and that doesn't come to me easily. I can't hold it through for long. That's why it's difficult in life to make a living. And that's why I'm droping in and out of politics. But I always leave a big impression. See, I tire easily when there is a reason to be tired. Nevertheless, I have a great talent to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person. That's danger and protection in one.

Me: That's an interesting point...

Mahdi: No comments, madame. As a writer, I can voice out what I cannot voice out as a diplomat and thereby build up a distance that enables me to criticise myself. This, to me, is the embodiment of freedom. It's the ability to look beyond yourself and make your decisions in greater awareness. It helps to lay open -in a way you can see it- the essence that will outlive yourself when its immediate implications have become obsolete.

Me: Is there a particular atmosphere you need for writing?

Mahdi: O yes, absolutely. It's closed doors, absolute solitude, curtains drawn, preferably night hours, green tea -with mint or pure, heavy- and music, styles like Abdel Wahhab, Oum Koulthoum, Fairouz, Farid Al Attrache, Saliha, Natacha Atlas, Malouma, of course, Sudanese music, Abida Parveen, Rai or traditional styles, this kind of mood.

Me: And your favourite instrument would certainly be the oud of Sanaa?

Mahdi: Yes, there's no sound like this, especially when played as a solo instrument. It's a very rich, heavy, meditative sound with the sites producing the rhythm as well as the melody.

Me: It's an ancient instrument that hasn't been played for more than 50 years.

Mahdi: Yes, it was rediscovered only at a time when the art of palying it had nearly become an extinct knowledge. So it was Harithi's generation...

Me: Muhammad Al Harithi, who sings and plays classical Yemeni music.

Mahdi: Yes. It was the people of Harithi's generation who still commanded the old styles, that had to reintroduce the old instruments and the classic repertory and teach the new generation how to play those instruments, how to sing those songs, at a time when many of them were already far in their eighties. It was the last moment, wallahi, and it was an act of divine mercy to have preserved them for us to learn from them who we are.

Me: In your own style, there is a great deal of Arab renaissance, of African renaissance as well...

Mahdi: It's not a renaissance, Madame, what it is about, not a fashion or a passing sentiment, but the rebirth of Afro-Asia, the gigantic task of cultural, intellectual and economic revival, construction and reconstitution the peoples of Afro-Asia, like those of Latin America, have to master in order to play their part in history, in order to reassert themselves through the richness of their identity and heritage and finally, at long last, to be the masters of their destiny.

Me: How great a role do culture and art have to play in this process?

Mahdi:  A central one, for cultural identity is the backbone of sovereignty. If your awareness of yourself, of your own identity, is weak, your mind can be neither sovereign nor independent nor could your action. If that identity is multiple, you have a greater wealth to draw on, but not if it is foreign-imposed.

Me: And what role do you think women have to play in this process?

Mahdi: The main role. (laughs) A major role. Naturally, women have to play a major role in this process, because awareness of our potential as a civilisation, as a culture, as a society, will crucially depend on the awareness of women's potential to shape and cooperate in the shaping of this civilisation, culture and society. Depriving them of a full scale participation in this process would mean to deprive ourselves and our peoples of some of the most important resources and of a unique chance of renewal. But then, though it is true and obvious that women innately differ from men in certain aspects -and also in some of their social tasks-I'm not in favour of overemphasising this distinction because that could lead us to attach to it a signifcance it doens't really have.

Me: Would that mean you reject segregation?

Mahdi: I think it is being by far exaggerated. A strict gender segregation will not be constructive with view to the sanity of the social organism. Everything we know of Islamic society during the life of the prophet (s.a.w.s.) does virtually contradict the assumption that that had been his vision. I'm, in the Islamic sense, in favour of a mild, latent segregation with elastic and flexible limits that become effective where the preservation of social integrity requires them. This implies internalised limits rather than externalised ones.

Me: Sounds interesting. Could you envisage a female head of a Muslim state?

Mahdi: Yes, but she must be very beautiful.

Me: Of course.

Mahdi: As a matter of fact, apart from from female caliphs that have existed in the Yemen, there have been precedents in our time, most striking among them Pakistan's Benazir Bhuto. Unfortunately, their conduct hasn't exactly contributed to making the idea popular but that is owed to their personal disposition rather than to their gender identity. That just touches upon what I have said about not exaggerating the differences.

Me: I knew it was understood that I'm not meant to ask such a question but, if you permit overstepping the line a bit: How much is Islam an inspiration in this process you contemplate or in other words: What role should Shari'a law play in the constitution of a state model you would support, or should the Quran itself be that constitution?

Mahdi: As we are all aware, there is nothing like Shari'a Law per se but there are different schools of law, and within these schools there are different interpretations of what exactly are the implications of these laws. Shari'a, linguistically, derives from a concept that designates a road, a path to be followed or made ready, not dissimilar to the Chinese dao. This refers to the ethics and legal principles established in the Quran and by the prophet (s.a.w.s.) in reaction to the concrete realities of the Madinan state in his time. There are incidents such as particularly one instance when a ruling by the prophet (s.a.w.s.) directly contradicted the penal code laid down in the Quran. This is the penalty on adultery and fornication -excuse me to say-. The Quran decrees an honour punishment, and Sayyiduna Muhammad (s.a.w.s.), for reasons of his own, a number of reasons pertaining to the given environment of a given time, administered capital punishment. This should help us to see a point: namely that, as a fact that the prophet himself (s.a.w.s.) was fully aware of and which by his own example he helped to distinguish, the legal code of the Quran is an ideal system, that is a law as would operate in an ideal society. Now, what Einstein pronounced in physics has been realised in society long before: There is no ideal system in a real existing organism. Theory translates into practice in relativity to the environment in which it occurs. To practice law by the letter is to destroy it. Thought must be organic. That means: the implication of an ethic or legal code depends on the environment to which it is applied. This is not realised. I know. The idea of literal applicability of a law is the legacy of Westernisation -because the Western concept proceeds on that assumption which is quite the opposite of the Islamic one- but it keeps on distorting Muslims' perception of Islamic law, which would be better characterised by referring to it as the Islamic ethical code. Shari'a must be looked upon in this context. The term designating jurisprudence is fiqh. The constitution should be inspired by this ethical code which, historically, is also the inspiration of the European system of law. It should be inspired by the Quran, in a wise, appropriate manner, but the Quran must not be made into a constitution, into a system of state law itself, as that would in the dialectical sense be an expression of its desecration. The supreme inspiration of which legislature derives and which is paramount to it must not be degraded to an executive level. Again: why? Because that would deprive it of its capacity of a sublime source of renewal, reassessment and redefinition. Thus it is that in the Madinan state in the days of the prophet (s.a.w.s.), as I have been trying to demonstrate, the understanding was rather to the effect that the administration of the law must be flexible in order for its spirit to be preserved uncompromised. Against the background of our multi-ethnic, multi-religious societies and in view of the state of the future not being a nation state, it becomes clear that the constitutions of the state entities bound to evolve of the process of reconstitution will be of a different quality and character than their current predecessors. The concept of a state religion as well as that of a nation sate is unfunctional in such a frame and will therewith be obsolete.

Me: The state of the future will be secular?

Mahdi: That is another obsolete category. If my right hand doesn't know what my left hand does, I have no power to act. If my right hand is not responsible for what my left hand does, I am a hypocrite. I would have no integrity, no basis of decision making. These state entities will rather be cooperative societies, formed by  a system of interwoven strong religious, cultural and ethnic autonomies.

Me: What will hold them together?

Mahdi: Paramount interests of eco-political nature.

Me: Common economic and political interests, that is?

Mahdi: Precisely. As I said. The realisation that their interests and benefits are organically linked up with one another, as each of us is a significant force only as long as all of us together constitute a power bloc significant enough to be reckoned with. And however reluctant people may have been in the past to face up to this, it is bound to eventually sink in that this is the natural, hence the only feasible, solution to a set of problems that have been with us for a long time, and nearly as long has been the realisation that this is how it is but a century in history is a short time, and the inertia of the human mind set requires persistent, strong, sustained impulses to be shaken and eventually be transformed. But once a new situation has come into being, human nature shows a remarkable flexibility in adapting to the circumstances.

Me: I deciphered in a screenplay called "Mal'ak Taous" (The Peacock Angel) the quotation: "...You know what the human soul is? Indian rubber. Man is an extremely pliant size..." etc. You let Stalin say that in a surreal conversation with a stray dog in Kureika. That's an obvious reference to the Kynics, isn't it? How much have you been influenced by that school of philosophy?

Mahdi: The two major achievements of Greek philosophy are the Kynics and the Stoia. At a certain level, they are complementary to each other. As far as the Kynics are concerned, their most relevant technique in the cognitive process is the questioning of the background of moral values and their concern with what and whose interests they are meant to disguise. Conventions are a superstructure. The basic motives of human and social action lay concealed underneath them, in the individual no less than in the social system as a whole. We are never what we profess to be nor do we ever do what we profess to be doing.

Me: That's frightening.

Mahdi: Truth always is. There are characteristics the Kynics share with the Sufi doctrine, such as the notion that knowledge and action are purer when their sovereignty is not curtailed by the motive of courting favour, hence the emphasis on independence of convention and of the favours of men as a prerequisite of cognition, on an attitude of mental renunciation, of renunciation of the claim for acceptance, which is the source of prestige as a driving force.

Me: So it's austerity to which you subscribe?

Mahdi: My approach is an attitude of mental austerity combined with emotional intensity, which when cultivated consequently is bound to result in the highest degree of sensual refinement.

Me: Sensual refinement as a philosophical discipline?

Mahdi: Sensual refinement is a spiritual discipline. Its implication is the cultivation of the instincts and the inner knowledge in which ishraq, the revelation and appropriation of the previously unrevealed, unlearnable, is rooted.

Me: How consequent can independence of society and conventions as you describe it be?

Mahdi: Pursuing it, we know that it's an illusion because, naturally, the abolition of dogmata in itself is a dogma. Driven to the last point, it will merely replace them. But what the principle designates is an attitude of not developing -or of renouncing- devotion to anything save the one final, ultimate category by which everything and everybody is sustained and of which every other category is a mere aspect, a mere expression.

Me: Which is God?

Mahdi: God too is a concept, a name. The Beloved to the lover becomes an illusion as soon as he knows him as "The Beloved". This is what I mean by saying: "I am, for I am not." (Discorsi: Al Jawhar Al Ahmar)

Me: Or "...Love, like yourself, is neither sought nor found. It is, for it is not." (Mirage)

Mahdi: Yes. It's not an image but the Everything of which everything derives, the totality of being which is its own reason and its own aim, which is so concrete that to the human mind it appears as abstract.

Me: But illusions, according to you, are necessary tools.

Mahdi: They are necessary tools of their own destruction.

Me: How necessary is the necessary?

Mahdi (glance): Inevitable.

Me: Tell us something about "Mal'ak Taous"! It has a number of striking images. There is Maimun, a creature half ape, half human. He's the child of an illicit relationship between the governor general's neglected wife and Mal'ak Taous who appears to her in the guise of a monkey, as we learn. When he approaches her, he refers to Astarte and Dammous. In the play he obviously symbolises the era of capitalism emerging from the feudal systems and just as obviously blasting them.  There are a lot of such personages in it whose images and statements are often provocative. I think there's a lot of the Kynics in this one too...

Mahdi: You've read it well. Well, "Mal'ak Taous"is an evaluation of or a comment on the cultural history of mankind, on the emergence of the great civilisations, their values, their motives and their fall. There's a lot of material being utilised. The surreal setting is necessary in order to handle the enormous vastness of topics compiled in the frame of a screenplay, a film script. It's a body of subjects that range from the Mahdia and the British reconquest of the Sudan over Tibu Tib and the transatlantic slave trade to the Stalin era and Stalin's personal history and from the Amarna revolution to Hurem Sultan -that is Roxellana- and the Ottoman Empire. The frame of the story is an astronaut's encounter with Mal'ak Taous after his spaceship exploded when returning into the atmosphere of the terrestrial belt. Mal'ak Taous confronts him with the fact of his death but the astronaut, task-driven, refuses to accept it. From this, there evolves a debate on the meaning of human existence in which Mal'ak Taous suggests to decide humanity's fate by firing off three arrows from a bow. The arrows' position will either signify the ruin or the redeem of mankind. These arrows, the position of which Mal'ak Taous, of course, knows beforehand, correspond to the three main sections of the narration. He acts as a kind of spiritual guide to the astronaut when assembling them and articulates himself, instead of words, in the images that form the narrative itself. The figure of Mal'ak Taous as such derives from the Yazidi cult where it is believed that Iblis has repented the act of apostacy and been readmitted into the shelter of divine mercy whereupon he is transformed into a sublime tool in the scheme of redemption, and those who recognise him in this aspect are the eclect of mankind. Thus the Yazidi cult prohibits any reference to him as Iblis or Shaitan but refers to him as Mal'ak Taous or Mal'ak at-Taous, ya'ani, the Peacock Angel. There are parallels in this to Hallaj's and the Sufi interperation of the figure of Iblis, and condemnation or the condemned in this context acquires a double meaning, which is a key to the interpretation of history given here.

Me: He's a mephitic figure, could be said?

Mahdi: Yes.

Me: Against the background of much of your childhood being spent in East Germany, or in Germany as such, the parallel to Goethe's "Faust" is a rather interesting feature. How much is the "Peacock Angel" a Faust adapatation with a different cultural and intellectual setting?

Mahdi: Mhm---Goethe, when he came in contact with the Quran, became a great admirer of Islamic civilisation. He made attempts at learning Arabic. But his access to the writings of the Sufis, especially to those of the heretical branch of mysticism, was if anything restricted. Much less did he have any means of getting acquainted with the Yazidi belief system which is rather remote -hence the concept of the the eclect of mankind- and as hardly accessible to the Western eye as the Donmeh or the Samaritan one. His approach and his intellectual background was Hellenic -or rather Hellenistic-, as we know. His treatment of the figure of Mephisto is rather an instinctive questioning of the age's conventional moral than a conception nourished by any such sources. But it's not a coincident that I introduce the subject with a Goethe quotation, though not from "Faust" but  from his conversations with Eckermann. It's an allusion and a parallel which I consciously would like to bring to mind, though the treatment as much as the narrative is different in content and setting as well as, of course, technically. Designing this as a film script is, of course, a great experiment. It's an effort to produce a dimension of "tawhidu'l fann"; a gesamtkunstwerk in which stage-like monologues are accompanied by pictures and documentary material commenting on that which is said, in which poetry sang or recited to music, interacts with screen images, choreographies, colours, shadow plays that visualise it, forming an integral part of the narration, and where the technical possibilities of computer animation and optic illusion -the technical means peculiar to film- are used and stretched to the maximum limit so as to reach the maximum limits of expression. I'm trying to employ a technique where the comical appears as terrific, where the scary and the ridiculous enter into a union that makes reality palpable in the frame of the surreal. Maimun, of course, is a reference to the King Kong Mythos, which has its roots in the complexes of the Victorian age and its demonisation of the foreign, non-white cultures while it is at the same time -and exactly because of it- fascinated and obsessed with them. The influence of this thinking, then, doesn't fail to produce a corresponding demonisation and fascination with Western cultures on the part of the non-Western, non-white ones, which is reflected in the reaction of Tibu Tib's companions when encountering the creature- and the white woman who gave birth to it.

Me: (quote) "A demon bringing forth another..."

Mahdi: Yes. (quote) "I'm half British and half Brutish, otherworldly, a hybrid, if you please, a half-caste..." and so on. The Empire is endangered by the influx of elements identified as demonic and undermining it in the course of the colonisation of the cultures it conquers and dominates. It must incorporate and accomodate some of these elements if it is not to break. Equally do the colonised see themselves forced to incorporate and accomodate some of the elements, in a much higher proportion, that constitute the make-up of the colonising power if they are not to be crushed. This, ironically, makes them reassert a certain degree of independence. But Maimun is a metaphor put to multiple use. He is, of course, also, as you mentioned, a metaphor that stands for the vitality and the efficient, ruthless unrestrained brutality of capitalist economy and the political systems it produces.

Me: Mal'ak Taous is shown as a male figure of indeterminable age entirely covered in a black cloak. His face is concealed by a touareg-style turban. His eyes are panther's eyes, not human ones. King Solomon's encounter with the Queen of Sheba forms the main motif in the poetic narrative between one complex of sequences and the other. But the Queen of Sheba is never actually seen, and King Solomon is alluded to in shadow theatre style. He never appears on the screen in any other form than as a shadow reflected on the wall in different angles of light. You have obviously very scrupulously adhered to the taboo of depicting prophetic or certain archetypical figures as stipulated by Islam.

Mahdi: Naturally I did so. Their appearance in a film without giving them an image was a great challenge, as you can imagine. But there's a great potential in this restriction. There are many techniques and modes of narration I couldn't have conceived if I wasn't inspired by the indepictability of a part of the personage, compelling me to represent them as symbols, as allusions rather than images. I could never have expanded them as much otherwise as to their implication, their timelessness, their meaning. This, of course, is exactly why in Islam the restriction is in place.

Me: Are you going to finish the remaining sequences any time soon?

Mahdi: I may have to. I'd have preferred to complete two funny stories I'm writing, "Nabawiya" and "Cairo Sweetness". They are written in the style of "Sheikha Whoosh" but superior to it in the improbability of their imagery. Unfortunately, it takes a much longer time to complete a funny story than a sad one.

Me: Give us a glimpse what they are about!

Mahdi: Ah, many things. "Nabawiya" is about a poor, old and ugly man who falls in love with the young, beautiful and very intellectual daughter of an incompetent mukhtar -a village head- who rules his community with an iron hand. He derives nobility from a line of ancestors he entirely invented and would never give his daughter to a man without money. So the suitor consults a daya, a wise woman of 101 who, in order to amuse herself, makes the girl fall in love with him by means of a spell, whereby she brings about the ruin of the entire village. It's her revenge on life. Well, there's a modern parable woven into the story. "Cairo Sweetness" is about a man by the name of Al Majhoul who falls in love with a dead woman, a mummy kept in Cairo's National Museum. In order to liberate her from the realm of the dead, he must blast the statue of a cat kept opposite her in the same museum with dynamite. Well, it's the only way, you see. So he does it. And when he does so, he gets himself arrested on the charge of terrorism. He flees together with his mumified beloved who has arisen indeed, and on their flight they encounter a somewhat troublesome 15-year old. She's the daughter of a merchant who owns a flying rug. That's because he is a flying merchant. She's been expelled from home because she had an unrecognised marriage with a man who left her when she got pregnant. So she's on the street. When she gets hold of her father's flying rug, she offers it to Al Majhoul and his beloved on condition they take her along. They accept, and together they'll all have to live through a lot of strange adventures, and I think at some stage their relationship is bound to develop into a triangle of some kind, with much tears and jealousy, which is going to cause a lot of disturbances in town. I haven't assembled all of it yet, by far not all of it. I'm trying to let the story flow so the plot develops out of the story, and the story develops out of itself, without any preconceived synopsis. This is a technique -or an anti-technique, ah?- that I have for the first time used in 2003 with "Death of the Birds", and I was very happy with the result.

Me: Thank you very much. It was very interesting talking to you.

Mahdi: It is always very interesting to talk to a girl with eyes as beautiful as your own.

(I smile.)

Me: Your eyes too are rather impressive.

Mahdi: O, you don't mean it...

Me: It's of no relevance but I do mean it. Personally, I think you are rather attractive if you must know it. But you can't be trusted if it comes to women's rights.

Mahdi: Trust me and I trust you.

Me: Well, one hears all sorts of stories like the one that has you order your secretary to refrain from marrying such and such because you find him unsuitable.

Mahdi: Such and such was unsuitable. He would never have respected her rights. Moreover, he could not be trusted.

Me: It was certainly your sensual refinement acquired through spiritual discipline that enabled you to know that.

Mahdi: The case was so clear-cut that no refinement of any kind was needed to evaluate the situation.

Me: I guess so. Once again, sir, thank you very much for this interview.

Mahdi: Whenever you are free, I'm very seriously looking for a woman to marry.

Me: That will have to be another time.

Mahdi: Or at least to prepare me some falafel.

Me: O please, not that again!

Mahdi: Before you eventually extract yourself from my company, I would like to add my greetings to Regis Auffray to whom I owe the figure of Sheikha Whoosh and the inspiration for the story, to my favourite critic brother Aberjhani who, apart from being that, is a remarkable artist, to Stephanie Hilpert, Mari D'India, Nordette Adams, the heart of New Orleans, to sister Huda Orfali, to Abdi-Noor Al Haji Muhammad, Dena Moore and to Sandra Mushi, one of the great African writers of the future, to Muhammad Abdel Karim, the best government-assigned guide to Cairo, to sister Faiza, la perle du Maghreb -ouais!- to sister Nadiya who has no idea where I am: it's Cyprus, for that matter but I'm half here and half gone. I want to greet Sa'ada, Bilqis, Rabi'a Ya'aqoubu, Estelle Oudayak: Dis Salut a ta mere, Salut de Mahdi, et prend soin de toi!; Auntie Zeinab, my lost in-law Jamila Hussein and husband, Hamida Hussein, brother Hussein Az-Zamarai, Aysha: Mange quelque chose si tu aimes la vie plus que les garcons!; Madame S'ida of the Amazight: Comment allez-vous, ma soeur?; Abu Yusif, Zahra and Mr. Halim Khojaneima, Michelle, sister Elena, Yusif-Bey who has been a loyal friend inspite of grave political disagreement; Safiya Khalid, her daughter and family, Sarah: I haven't forgotten your help in those days and I never will;  Miss Diana Agyekum, Pat: Look after yourself, ok?; Rita Gbettey and Evelyn, sister Eleven-O'clock-In-The-Afternoon, sister Araba, Nii Oti Apese, Mr. Siribuor and sister Adjo, Barnabas, Balarba, David Dontoh and Cady Sa'adi, Ishaq Abdallah, Paul Henessy na h Atha Cliath, Valerie Hughes, uncle Ngyanasegran who survived the fire and the floods (on one occasion together with me), Lenie and Hannah, brother Altaf, Sebastian Holzhuber, Mr. Pham Huy, my favourite Kurdish restaurant in The Hague and in the world: Ozaydinlar -Biji!-; the best Ethiopian restaurant in Amsterdam and the entire BENELUX: Meskerem, the jewel of all Creole restaurants in Ireland: Auntie Zoe's, sister Abina Rombaoa, Mr. Thapa of Nepal, Gudrun and family, Francoise, uncle Vasilo, Hersi Faarah Mahmoud: Where are you?; Ibrahim, Hamdiya, Miss Aida Kurtic, Mustafa Ramadan, Claudia Rothe, everybody in RAWA, everybody in Palestine, Munshid Alim Vosteen and the people of the khanaqa, Mrs. Tongun and Mrs. Mary Kuku of the Sudanese Women's Association in Nairobi...

Me: It will be difficult to greet every person you ever had the honour to come across in your life.

Mahdi: All of you, you know who you are. You know I haven't forgotten. Ni le bien, ni le mal. I don't need to mention each of you for you to kow that. You are with me. You are reflected in what my eyes see and who I have become. Vous sont ma memoire et meme ma solitude du jour d'hui. Je ne regrette pas ca vie ni sa finite, ni l'ombre ni le mur.

Je pense a toi, mon soi a la memoire du Dieu et du temps. Je pense a toi dans le monde de demain.

I greet you, Mawlat Shukriya. (quote) "The light of my heart grew dark since the day of separation. Wherever I look, my heart finds neither trace nor sign. This priceless jewel, this unique pearl, o master! My soul's companion, my intimate friend who always bore my sorrow with me...He meanders everywhere in search of her beauty spot. Burning light of her beauty makes him turn. He doesn't even realise what he has become through this suffering. Do not wait for my heart to return! My heart will not come back to me." (Diwan of the Qadiri Order) If ever I have seen perfection it was in you. (very grave for a moment) I haven't changed, Shukriya. If you hear me, if you read this by any improbable chance wherever you are: I came to look for you. I spent months without hope in an illegal flat of which I had to move in and out in the hope to trace you. I came to all the places connected with us. I have spent every night in your quarter hoping against hope to meet anybody who could -knowingly or unknowingly- give me an indication where to find you. No, I know it was to no avail. Had there not been Elena who has spent an afternoon in your company and mine, I would have doubted your existence. No ya 'omri, I am not blinded by shallowness. But after you, there is no world to me. There's a shallowness which is in truth renunciation. Hayati...should I ever see Jannah, I ask not for the gardens nor do I ask for the rivers not for the houris. I gladly renounce them all. What I ask of Allah in the Gardens of Bliss, is your company, and your company alone. (eyes opened wide, adamant to suppress tears)And may Allah grant this prayer if ever again HE grant any prayer of mine!

(I fall silent.)

Mahdi: Yallah---I want to greet all my readers. Come down to visit me all of you, and let's have a falafel! Antum bi-dunya 'andi. As-Salamu 'alaikum war-rahmatu'llah!