Free Granada by Raḍwá ʻĀshūr

wiped his nose with his sleeve. Carts rolled in from every direction, from Albaicin and the hospital, from Alhambra and the Jewish Quarter, from the univer sity and the Grand Mosque. Saleema was distraught by this horrible spectacle, and she told her grandfather she didn't want to look any longer. She pulled her hand away from his and ran away. Abu Jaafar remained motionless, drowning in the inner turmoil of his most private thoughts. Could it be that God was abandoning His pious servants? Could He allow His book to be burnt? Abu Jaafar raised his eyes to the sky searching and waiting for an answer, when he suddenly became conscious of the moans of the crowd as the smoke thickened the skies.

    The soldiers hastily dispersed in different directions to avoid the spreading flames. The fire quickly consumed the books, charring the edges and desiccating the pages, as the paper curled up on itself as though it was trying to protect itself, but to no avail. The fire devoured everything that fell in its way, and gobbled up every line, every page, book after book. It crackled and sizzled so intensely that it seared your eyes and suffocated you with its thick, black smoke. Abu Jaafar stared, horrified, as his mind screamed out in silence: this is not a forest set ablaze by fire that devoured its greenery and seared its branches and trunks; this was not a forest whose seeds were carried off by the winds or drenched by the heaven's rains, growing wild and on its own. This was not Granada's Vega, a field that the farmers cultivated year after year, with wheat, figs, olives, lemons, and oranges, and when it suddenly catches fire before their very eyes they respond, "There is no power or strength save in God," and then roll up their sleeves and go back to tilling the soil until they're blessed with a new harvest. It was not a forest or a cultivated land. Abu Jaafar knew it, but he could only see a land and forest besieged by vultures hovering over their heads, swooping down to pluck men's hearts out of their chests.
    Abu Jaafar turned around and went home to Albaicin. On the way he watched the people walking alongside him, but the only thing he could see was the blazing fire. He was coughing and wiping the sweat from his brow. As he walked on the only thing he realized was that the door to God, which he had lived his life believing in, its existence and proximity, was now shut like a solid wall. He stopped in the middle of the road, besieged by a long, uncontrollable fit of coughing that nearly choked him to death.

    When he turned away from the Darro and headed up toward the hill, the inclining mountainous pass appeared ominous and insurmountable. His legs were barely able to carry him, and he felt as though he were carrying a thick tree stump not humanly possible to bear. He managed to go up a bit further, stopped, and continued his climb. His legs wobbled and he fell flat on his face. A trickle of blood flowed out of his nose and he injured his knee. But he didn't seem to notice and got up and continued his ascent until he reached the main square of the Albaicin Mosque, now the Church of San Salvador. He sat on a stone bench motionless until sunset. That night, before retiring to his bed, Abu Jaafar said to his wife: "I'm going to die naked and alone, because God has no existence." And he died.
    The men washed the tall, naked body, recited the shahada prayer over it before covering it with the burial shroud. They lifted the coffin over their shoulders, recited some more prayers, then took him to his final resting place.
    Abu Mansour, Saad, and Naeem went down into the tomb and with outstretched arms took hold of Abu Jaafar's body, slowly and gently. They laid him to rest and then came up and covered his grave with soil.
    That afternoon Abu Jaafar's home was swarmed with the neighborhood women who came to join in the mourning ceremonies with the women of the household. They cried together and rivaled one another with stories and anecdotes