198 No god but God
turned and ran from the grove back into the desert, vanishing like a
shadow into the night.
Years passed. The leaves on the palm trees lost their color. The
flowers shed their petals in mourning. As the countryside turned yel-
low and wan and the gardens slowly withered, so did Layla. The light
in her eyes dimmed, and with her final breath she breathed her lover’s
name.
When Majnun heard of the death of his beloved, he rushed back
home and writhed in the dust of her grave. He lay down and pressed
his body to the earth as though in prayer, but his parched lips could
utter only one word: “Layla.” Finally, he was released from his pain
and longing. His soul broke free and he was no more.
Some say Majnun’s body lay on top of Layla’s grave for months;
others say years. No one dared approach, for the grave was guarded
night and day by the beasts of the desert. Even the vultures that
swooped above the tomb would not touch Majnun. Eventually, all that
remained of him was dust and bones. Only then did the animals aban-
don their master to lope back into the wilderness.
After the animals had gone and the dust of Majnun was swept
away by the wind, a new headstone was fashioned for Layla’s tomb. It
read:
Two lovers lie in this one tomb
United forever in death’s dark womb.
Faithful in separation; true in love:
May one tent house them in heaven above.Sufism—the term given to Islam’s immensely complex and infinitely
diverse mystical tradition—is, as Reynold Nicholson long ago
observed, fundamentally indefinable. Even the word Sufi provides lit-
tle help in classifying this movement. The term tasawwuf, meaning
“the state of being a Sufi,” is without significance, referring as it prob-
ably does to the coarse wool garments, or suf, which the first Sufis
wore as an emblem of their poverty and detachment from the world.
Indeed, as a descriptive term, the word Sufi is practically interchange-
able with the words darvish or faqir, meaning “mendicant” or “poor.”
Some have argued that Sufi is derived from the Arabic word safwe,