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.
