From Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin’s ‘Samahani’

Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin’s Samahani is out this week from Foundry Editions in team translation by Mayada Ibrahim and Adil Babikir.

Samahani–which means “forgive me” in Swahili, stands “in stark contrast to everything that happens in this novel,” the publisher writes, adding, “Set in 19th century Zanzibar, this is a dark story of slavery, cruelty and vengeance, that depict the agonies of the native Zanzibaris at the hands of both Europeans and Arabs, that turns their apparent island paradise into a living hell of cruelty and exploitation.”

Yesterday, we hosted a conversation about the novel between Mayada and Adil. Today, an excerpt in their translation.

BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL

By Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin

Translated by Mayada Ibrahim and Adil Babikir

Harut fixed the Blessed Sultan’s age at exactly fifty-four years, two months, one week, three days, and five hours. Harut was the Torahic name bestowed upon the sorcerer by Sultan Suleiman bin Salim himself, in honour of the legendary angels and master sorcerers Harut and Marut. Fixing the sultan’s age at fifty-four years, two months, one week, three days, and five hours was significant, according to Harut, because it was Satan’s age when he disobeyed the divine order to bow down to the creature God had created from clay taken from a swamp in heaven, the creature who came to be known as “Adam” in some quarters and elsewhere as “the human being”. Satan, who was created from fire, reasoned that Adam was created from a vastly inferior element. Needless to say, Satan is the grand master of all magic orders on earth and later in the netherworld, as revealed in the book of al-Juljulūtiyya al-Kubra, and in manuscripts written in Geʽez and found in ancient caves on the Ethiopian plateau, near the city of Gondar.

At least according to those knowledgeable in the Secret Codes, the sultan could live five times the age written for him in the Preserved Tablet when he was still just a cell in his mother’s womb, a mere thought in God’s mind. This was to remain a secret known only to the sultan. He was never to disclose his real age, be it in conversation or in written form. He was to sow constant doubt among his subjects about his age. It is important to mention this at the outset, as the novel delves into the story of the Blessed Sultan, eternal ruler of the islands of Unguja and Bimba and the surrounding isles, self-proclaimed commander of all that is in the heavens, except God, of course, and all that is on earth, except China, since it’s too far away.

The narrator will now turn to the setting of the novel.

In 1652, immense ships hailing from Oman arrived at the coast of what was known during a murky period in history as Unguja. Zanjibar is its present-day Arabic name, derived from Zanj Barb, the Negro Coast, the name given to the island by a clattering of drunkard Persian sailors who happened upon it by chance some centuries ago. What they found were dark inhabitants, dense thickets, wild animals, trees laden with ripe fruit, and a species of bloodsucking nocturnal fly known today as a mosquito. For one reason or another, they did not take to Zanjibar and returned to Persia, and because the barriers of language and fear were impenetrable on both sides, they took nothing with them except tales they had fabricated and come to believe about the land and its people, and they left nothing behind except a single Persian word: Zanj Barb, which underwent a series of transformations across languages, encounters, and epochs before ultimately taking its current form.

On board the Omani ships were destitute soldiers, wayward merchants, and seamen on a one-way voyage. Their ship commander had told them as much.

Fight courageously and defeat the enemy, and you’ll inherit this paradise with all its bliss and its black houris. Your mixed offspring may even return to Oman one day. But turn away like cowards, and you’ll meet your end. 

To the commander, the “enemy” was both the indigenous people, who were portrayed as cannibals and evil sorcerers by the early seamen, and the Portuguese, who occupied the African inland and the islands on the coast. The Portuguese were engaged in an earnest search for gold, silver, and diamonds, as they were wont to do. They hunted animals for precious skins and tusks, and gathered wild herbs for medicinal purposes and magic rituals. They spent their recreational time in the company of curvaceous black women, as well as those who lacked such features, playing cards, drinking liquor distilled from dates, spreading the message of Christ, the Heavenly Father, or picking one-sided skirmishes with bothersome locals who invariably ended up killed or enslaved.

The Arab Omani army stunned the locals and Portuguese alike with its valour, its size, and its extensive arsenal. The Portuguese retreated inland to what was to become Angola, leaving the coastal area to the Arabs, who were armed with a highly destructive weapon: an awareness that they could not go back to where they had come from. This was the same weapon that had once enabled the Amazigh Tariq ibn Ziyad to occupy the Iberian Peninsula. As for the indigenous Africans, they were the hay that fed the fire for the Omanis to enjoy the abundance of their promised paradise, Unguja.

Here the reader may wish to consult the following passage from the memoir of Salima bint Sa’eed, daughter of one of the most legendary sultans from Hadhramaut to rule Zanjibar. Salima – or Emily Ruete, as she later came to be known in Germany – escaped her father’s palace in 1867 with the German merchant Heinrich Ruete, whom she married and settled with in Berlin. This memoir is one of the dubious sources used in putting together this novel. Of course, the reader is at liberty to proceed directly to the first chapter.

Another incident affecting the Arabs’ sense of pride. A neighbour to the French consul chastised his recalcitrant slave as severely as he deserved, but, with a negro’s usual cowardice and inability to bear pain in silence, he struck up a frightful howl, which brought down the French consul’s rather arrogant interference. This gentleman was himself no immaculate saint, seeming to hold the maxim, “let others practise what I preach.” For he lived with a negress he had bought, who had presented to him an excessively black little daughter – finally taken in by the French mission. It should cause no surprise if upon such experiences the Arabs distrust Europeans… “One ought to mind one’s own business and not interfere in the affairs of strangers,” he told him curtly.

From Memoirs of an Arabian Princess by Emily Ruete (also known as Salima bint Sa’eed, a princess of Zanzibar and Oman) 

Those who read the foregoing paragraph may also wish to read an excerpt from An Omani Adventurer in the African Jungles, the autobiography of Hamad ibn Mohammed ibn Jum’a al-Marjabi, a fierce military leader who was born in 1840 and died of malaria in 1905. He was better known as Tippu Tip, a name mimicking the sound of bullets. The Africans also knew him as the Spotted Hyena. The novel makes only occasional references to him, and the reader may notice that historical accounts surrounding him and others are far from accurate, as the novel is ultimately concerned with the human rather than with history.

Before dawn, our men went to inspect the dead among the enemy. There were more than 600 of them, their arrows, bows, drums, and axes scattered around them. They clustered together and that hastened their demise. We remained there a long time. At around two in the morning, the enemy reappeared. We were ready for them but we waited until they came close to their hideout. Then we opened fire. In less than seven minutes, they fled, leaving behind 150 dead. We lost only two. After chasing them for two hours, we returned to our camp.

From An Omani Adventurer by Hamad bin Mohammed bin Juma Al Marjabi 19 A Young Woman in Love 

A YOUNG WOMAN IN LOVE

The Blessed Princess loved the scents of the marketplace, particularly the fermented coconut when the breeze mixed it with the scent of cloves, fresh ginger, and lemon, and carried it to her delicate nose. She loved the colours of mangoes: rich yellow, green, gold, pink. They reminded her of her childhood of endless frolicking. They also reminded her of the strange discoloration on her growing breasts. The princess could trace each scent back to the kiosk it came from. The market was divided into eastern and western sections, with vegetable kiosks on one side and perfumes and oils on the other, ending at the slave market. But it was the smell of burning sulphur she could not help but follow to the kiosk of the Indian goldsmith.

Since her revelling husband had agreed to sever his relations with all his concubines – the Romanian, the two Ethiopians, the voluptuous Ungujan, the mercurial Copt, the Indians with the perky breasts who never stopped talking, the strange Sicilian recently bought from Oman, who some suspect is a jinn because an old Omani slaver claimed to have captured her from the Indian Ocean – she had developed an obsession with spending the money he had sold them for to buy all the jewellery she could get her hands on.

She fantasised about making them drink her urine, so deep was her hatred for them.

 

Whores. Vulgar thighs of all colours filling the house with their clamour.

Her ultimate aim was to lure her husband – not because she loved him but because she wanted to captivate him, to overpower him, knowing perfectly well that he loved nothing but the throne.

He can wait all he wants. My father won’t die any time soon. 

The princess loved the din of the market: the pedlars’ cries, the slavers’ auction bells, the call to prayer, the braying of donkeys, the hammering of ironsmiths, the shrieking of saws on wood, the roaring of mills operated by heavyset slaves whose hands grew sore and cracked, the bleating of goats being led to slaughter. But her favourite sound was that of the young Unguja singer Uhuru, which she preferred even to the music of the ensemble her father had sent to Egypt for training and which she found odd and lifeless. She loved Uhuru’s songs. Uhuru was the only free Negro on Unguja, save for the old people begging and picking rotten fruit and vegetables off the streets, emancipated only once they became a burden on their masters: too old to work and in need of care.

She loved the discordant rhythm of Uhuru’s three-legged drum. From behind her diaphanous veil, the princess cast covetous, envious glances at her naked breasts, which Uhuru carelessly displayed like forbidden fruit tainted by darkness. No one dared touch her, no human nor jinn, not even the princess’s reckless husband. The singer often stood at the corner between the slave and gold markets where the turbaned goldsmiths sat, their heads full of numbers and one-liners to draw money out of purses. She wore a goatskin loincloth and sang “My Homeland is Heaven for the Occupiers and Hell for the Natives”. The princess found the song somewhat hostile; or rather it made her feel a tinge of shame. She preferred the rhythm of another, far more brutal song, which described the day slavers had attacked Uhuru’s village. Uhuru had memorised it in her native Swahili, spoken in the dialect of the Kaimondi tribe.

 

As I was hiding among the trees

The slavers came to Nyamwezi

From my post, I watched them leave

In the house were women galore

A bad man came, and then one more

Forced one to bed, forced them all

The only one left behind

Was the woman heavy with child

 

As Uhuru started to dance, Sondus, the castrated slave and the princess’s personal servant, urged on the donkey that carried the princess, who sat majestically in a flowing Wakingo gown, drenched in glittering jewels, like a Kushite queen of King Solomon’s era. The princess did not neglect to throw a handful of Maria Theresa thalers for Uhuru, taking care to keep her distance, for it was widely believed that anyone who came into physical contact with Uhuru would be struck by black magic. This was one of the reasons the slave hunters, who only saw people in terms of their market value, stayed clear of her. Uhuru picked up the coins hastily and put them in a secret pocket inside her tattered loincloth. “Asante sana,” she said.

The princess hated the way Uhuru lost herself when she danced, exposing even her genitals and drawing out the most despicable men: bleary-eyed, drunk old fools who believed seeing a woman’s sex improved their eyesight. She spun out of control, like a crazed dervish or an animal in the midst of attack.

She acts this way so no one dares go near her. I can’t stand it. 

The myth Uhuru had invented protected her from merchants and insatiable men, fuelled by their excessive intake of ginger and cloves, who took advantage of a law and social order that encouraged them to own for pleasure as many women and young boys as they liked.

The myth went as follows:

A mighty, faceless jinn will latch on to anyone who dares touch me. No one will be able to banish it, not even the most renowned sorcerers who fast all year and live in caves at the edge of the world.

I dare them to try.

I dare them to try to sell me to the ships bound for the land of the whites.

I dare them to untie the goatskin round my waist.

I will dance the devil’s dance, the devil you fear like nothing else, the devil that will consume your souls as swiftly as fire consumes dry grass.

 

With a little wickedness and some brazen lies, she protected her freedom.

Qaroon, the Indian goldsmith, was a crafty man. His namesake was a figure in the Quran known for his avarice. Qaroon was generous only when it was guaranteed he would receive his due in multiples. He waited for the princess, as he always did on the first Saturday of the lunar month. It was the day ships coming from the west laid anchor, delivering the most coveted merchandise.

The jewellery shop was small but well equipped. In a remote corner, a servant sat on the ground behind the forge blower. He was a brawny young man with a thick head of hair and naked torso, exposing a broad, hairless chest buried under layers of ash and dirt. His lower half was wrapped in a filthy leather cloth. He worked silently, occasionally scanning the room with his bulging eyes. He noticed Sondus, soft and clean, wearing silk and two large golden earrings.

Look at that pampered eunuch! And look at me! A big mass of flesh, dark and filthy. 

The servant was chained to a steel wedge so deeply embedded in the ground that not even the mightiest elephant would be able to loosen it.

Inside the shop were small safes firmly placed on steel shelves, and oil paintings of Indian deities. A dancing Shiva faced the entrance. A chapter from the Holy Quran, “Surah Al-Falaq”, transcribed in gold ink, was framed and placed over a large wooden box. And right behind the goldsmith was the sultan’s family tree. The law required all establishments and palaces to display it.

Qaroon couldn’t wait to show the princess his new selection of rare jewels, procured especially for her and sent by the chief goldsmith of France. She knew he was not telling the truth but chose to believe him nevertheless. She needed his carefully woven lies to arouse the jealousy of her conceited friends, the daughters, wives, and concubines of landlords and rich slave traders and clove merchants. Better still if she could kill them with jealousy. She paid him far more than the tatty accessories were worth.

Out of a small gold-laminated box Qaroon pulled a small photograph of a white woman in a silk dress posing pompously. “Would you look at this precious necklace?” he said, pointing with a finger at a big gold ring adorned with a big diamond – a real diamond, he assured her. “It belongs to Duchess Mariana von Padova, the most enchanting of them all. I’m sure you’ve heard of her.”

“I haven’t.”

“She is the most glamorous star in Italy,” Qaroon said, with the photograph gently resting on his palm. “She captured the hearts of Italian and English poets alike. They have written volume upon volume in praise of her beauty. There’s a shanty you hear seamen singing around here that was composed for her.”

“Really?” she said, urging him to continue.

Like a seasoned burglar, the goldsmith sent his fingers rummaging inside the box and pulled out a glittering necklace. He swung it closer to the transparent veil. “A rare ruby piece. It adorned the great Duchess Mariana. And this in the middle is a black diamond – rarer than hen’s teeth.”

“How did you get your hands on it?” She reached out to examine it.

“The pirates!” he cried. His smile exposed yellow, decaying teeth. “The pirates, Your Highness, can acquire anything. My people in India believe the pirates created the oceans. Getting their hands on the necklace of Duchess Mariana is nothing to them.” He laughed.

Even Qaroon’s servant, sitting behind his forge blower, could see the princess’s white teeth glitter behind the veil. As she eyed the necklace, blood rushed through her veins. Her heart beat faster; she could barely contain herself. The smell of burning sulphur stirred an irresistible lust for buying. The Indian gods and Quranic verses hanging on the wall seemed to tremble under Qaroon’s thunderous laugh.

“It costs one thousand Maria Theresa thalers,” said the goldsmith.

“How much?” she said, taken aback.

“Only a thousand Maria Theresa thalers,” he replied, a little smile curving his lips. “A very special price for a very special client.”

The necklace is divine, but I’m not paying a thousand for lies he made up. 

“Five hundred. Nothing more,” she said, rising from her chair.

A pause.

“Give him two hundred and fifty,” she said to Sondus, who was stirring the stagnant air with a palm frond fan and swatting flies away from her gown.

“Didn’t you just say five hundred?” asked Qaroon in a panic.

“Give him one hundred,” she ordered. Sondus continued to wave the fan.

“Your Highness, this is unfair.”

“Give him fifty and nothing else.”

Sondus started to pull out the coins from an old leather bag, selecting the ones with eroded edges. Qaroon counted them silently several times before placing them in a large box. Then he put the necklace in a small box and handed it over to the princess, who thanked him and left, trying with difficulty to suppress a laugh.

Qaroon slumped onto his seat and, in an outburst of pique, started tearing the photograph of the European model. Startled by sniggering coming from inside the kiosk, he threw a furious glance at the dark, shackled mass of flesh 27 by the forge blower. Before leaving at the end of the day, old Qaroon made sure to use the hot solder to cast two new lines on his back, which had already come to resemble a worn fishing net.