LEO THE AFRICAN - Book review

Amin Maalouf’s Leo the African was published in 1986 and translated into English by Peter Sluglett in 1988. This paperback copy was published in 1994.  The book is based on the true-life story of Hasan al-Wazzan, the sixteenth century traveller and writer who came to be known as Leo Africanus. It is told in the first person, and covers his first forty years.

He begins his narration when he was born – not as absurd as it first appears: we’re privy to second-hand details from his father and mother about their time in Granada in the late fourteen hundreds. His mother Salma befriends a Jewish pedlar-clairvoyant and healer, Gaudy Sarah, and ‘began to read my palm like the crumpled page of an open book’ (p6). Sarah’s prediction – and her elixir of orgeat syrup – result in Salma’s pregnancy (with Hasan).  Sarah also ‘doubled, when necessary, as midwife, masseuse, hairdresser and plucker of unwanted hair’ (p8).

The days of Islamic Andalusia are numbered. ‘And did not Andalusia flourish in the days when the vizier Abd al-Rahman used to say jokingly: “O you who cry ‘Hasten to the prayer!’ You would do better to cry: “Hasten to the bottle!” The Muslims only became weak when silence, fear and conformity darkened their spirits”.’ (p38).

The Arabs were evicted from Spain in 1492, among them the ineffectual ruler Boabdil, who lingered on the last ridge that afforded him a view of Granada – a place the Castilians thereafter called ‘The Moor’s last sigh’. It was said that the fallen sultan had shed tears there, of shame and remorse. ‘You weep like a woman for the kingdom you did not defend like a man’ (p57). At this time of expulsion of his family, Hasan was three years old. After eight centuries, no more would the voice of the muezzin be heard to call the faithful to prayer.

Hasan grew up in Fez, alongside Jews and Christians as well as Muslims. It is during this time that he learned about the philosophy of life and death: ‘… thank God for having made us this gift of death, so that life is to have meaning; of night, that day is to have meaning; silence, that speech is to have meaning; illness, that health is to have meaning; war, that peace is to have meaning…’ (p103)

Hasan’s friend Harun the Ferret got a job as a porter: ‘Three hundred men, simple, poor, almost all of the illiterate, but who had nevertheless managed to become the most respected, most fraternal and best organised of all the guilds of the city’ (p108). This guild takes care of its members; ‘when any of their number dies, they take over the responsibility for his family, help his widow to find a news husband and take care of his children until they are of an age to have a professions. The son of one is the son of all’ (p108).

The families would hang on the walls of their adopted homes the keys of their homes they left behind, hoping one day to return to Granada. Hasan was a quick learner and soon became successful in trading.

One of the most powerful men in Fez was the Zarwali, an ex-bandit and murderer who ‘had built the largest palace in the city, the largest, that is, after that of the ruler, a piece of elementary common sense for anyone who wanted to make sure that his head remained attached to his body’ (p131).

Harun the Ferret had learned about Zarwali’s past and his behaviour. Zarwali was ‘always convinced that his wives are trying to betray him, particularly the youngest and most beautiful ones. A denunciation, a slander, an insinuation on the part of one of her rivals is enough for the poor unfortunate to be strangled. The Zarwali’s eunuchs then make the crime look like an accident, a drowning, a fatal fall, an acute tonsillitis…’ (p137). Hasan and the Zarwali will clash – and there will be dire repercussions…

There are several amusing and even apt sayings scattered about the book, for example: ‘Destiny is more changeable than the skin of a chameleon, as one of the poets of Denia used to say’ (p57); and ‘If anyone tells you that avarice is the daughter of necessity, tell him that he is mistaken. It is taxation which has begotten avarice!’ (p154); and ‘I had become very susceptible to magic and superstitions… This is probably the fate of rich and powerful men: aware that their wealth owes less to their merits than to luck, they begin to court the latter like a mistress and venerate it like an idol’ (p196); and, finally, ‘in the face of adversity, women bend and men break…’ (p250).

Hasan ventures to Egypt and witnesses the Ottoman conquest there; he is abducted and becomes a prisoner in Renaissance Rome under the Medicis, and yet remarkably finds himself being a confidant of the Pope, and converts briefly to Christianity, and ultimately witnesses the horrendous sack of Rome in 1527.

The book possibly suffers from too much barely digestible religion and politics, yet these were the driving forces that impelled Hasan to wander.

The smells, the colours and the feeling for the period are well-conveyed and indeed instructive for anyone interested in these historic times. 

A holy forest

Córdoba was once the greatest city of the Arab west, rivalling both Cairo and Baghdad. Its mosque – Mezquita – is one of the world’s most beautiful Islamic buildings.

From the fifth to the eighth century Córdoba was ruled by the Visigoths. Two hundred years later, the Moors came, with the help of the city’s disaffected Jewish residents. The Islamic rule permitted the worship of other religions, so Jews, Christians and Moors lived and worked cheek by jowl. A far cry from the intolerance of the Spanish Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand who threw out of Spain not only the Arabs but also the Jews in 1492.

Cordoba - the river is often populated by cattle and goats in the height of summer!

 

It’s an intriguing fact that often beneath any place of worship you may find older hidden churches and cathedrals. Apparently, during the Visigothic period the church of San Vicente was built, only to be destroyed by the Moors who began in 785 to build on the same site their great mosque; the construction took two hundred years and the mosque was considered so important that it saved the city’s inhabitants the arduous pilgrimage to Mecca, which boasted the only mosque of greater size and importance.

 

Abd al Rahman I, inspired by the Mosque of Damascus, intended the design to include the traditional ablution courtyard – where the faithful washed before prayer – and the hall of prayer itself. His successor, Abd al Rahman II, carried out the first addition, lengthening the courtyard and the prayer hall aisles.  A minaret was constructed in the courtyard but this is now embedded in the cathedral’s 93m high bell tower, Torre del Alminar. Al Hakam II increased the splendour of the decorations, bringing Byzantine artists to provide beautiful mosaics. The final expansion of the mosque was effected under the rule of Al Mansur.

With its seventeen aisles, divided by tiers of arches spanning columns often taken from Roman and Carthaginian sites; it still has a powerful effect on any visitor entering from the Courtyard of the Orange Trees.  The profusion of magnificent arches has been called ‘a holy jungle’, which is most apt with about 850 columns creating a criss-crossing of alleys, the pillars supporting two tiers of striped arches that add height and create a remarkable feeling of space.

The mihrab – a prayer recess – is situated along the wall that faces Mecca and it held a gilt copy of the Koran. Here you can appreciate the exquisite mosaic art and interlaced arches. The mihrab is topped by a shell-shaped dome. The worn flagstones indicate where pilgrims circled it seven times on their knees – it’s now fenced-off, probably to preserve the floor.

 

The great mosque and its courtyard were places of worship, centres of teaching, of justice and here too a social life thrived.

In the eleventh century, civil war devastated the city, hundreds were massacred and much of the beautiful city destroyed. Although it remained a Muslim city for another two hundred years, its power had gone, being transferred to Seville and other petty Islamic kingdoms. Córdoba finally fell to the Reconquest in 1236 and its Muslim inhabitants fled south.

Immediately after the Christians took the city, the great mosque became their cathedral – Church of the Virgin of the Assumption – with minor architectural changes, such as placing chapels in the outer aisles. The first chapel – Capilla de Villaviciosa – was built in 1371 and its multi-lobed arches are quite stunning. In 1523 began the construction of a tall cruciform church in the centre of the mosque building. Emperor Charles V had given unthinking permission for the construction. When he saw the result, he accused the cathedral builders: ‘You have built here what you or anyone might have built anywhere else, but you have destroyed what was unique in the world.’ Part of the Mezquita was destroyed to accommodate the cathedral; much of it survived and was transformed. And with its dazzling visual effect, the great mosque is still unique.

What is surprising is that, unlike so many other times, the reconquering Christians actually let the original Islamic building stand. They razed many to the ground. This great mosque and the Alhambra palace of Granada suffered privations, but even now they’re still standing, captivating emblems of Arabic history and culture.

Now you encounter the breath-taking forest of Islamic arches then the hodgepodge of styles (Gothic, Renaissance, Italian and Baroque) that comprise the Christian cathedral.  The Christian architects created a Latin cross shaped plan, ingeniously integrating the caliphal structures. The main altarpiece is covered by a vault inspired by the Sistine Chapel, with an unusual set of stalls. Outside, the Muslim courtyard was remodelled with the cloisters. Original palm trees – imported by the Caliphate – were replaced by orange trees in the fifteenth century. It has been argued that the Cathedral administration has preserved the great mosque, which is now a World Heritage Site.