210 Kökoğlu
more suitable, knowing that my inner meaning at the time was hid from thee,
and knowing also that my daughter would have scorned thee wrongly ...’” 61
Camruddin represents Saïd Halim Pasha’s revivalist views of Islam combined
with Pickthall’s own energetic spirit as a new convert. He is “something new”
for the degenerated Turk situated in-between the West and the East, and at the
same time “something old”, as Deyli Ferid tells him in admiration: “‘You are the
man whom I have all my life been seeking, sincere and unaffected, yet of good
intelligence’”.62
Camruddin’s first wife Gul-raaneh, probably a Circassian, is a very submis-
sive woman. She confuses the freedom Camruddin promises to her with lack
of affection. She also has excessive love for her husband as her confidante
Reshideh tells him earlier in their marriage: “O foolish man, can you not see
that she is mad for you – would follow you to battle if she could?”63 Camrud-
din’s love for Gul-raaneh is not passionate but balanced on the basis of a higher
communion with God. He considers passionate love dangerously harming for
both sexes, for the self and the other. After a serious conflict in their marriage,
Camruddin tells Gul-raaneh that the worship of the sexes regarded as the goal
of life in Europe degrades women while it seemingly honours them. He tells
her that the romantic search for true love and communion with a member of
the opposite sex “must end in disappointment always”.64 He adds:
The soul of every living man and woman is solitary from the cradle to the
grave unless it finds, by service, that communion with Allah for which, in
truth, it was created. [...] I have my personality and you have yours, both
given to us by Allah; I cannot make you me, nor my thoughts yours; nor
have I any right to seek to do so. [...] I love you, and I praise the Lord of
Heaven and earth for giving me the comfort of such sweet companion-
ship upon a portion of the road. But if you love me not, then go your way;
for you are a free servant of Allah and it were sin for me to keep you here
against your will.65Gul-raaneh is far from understanding Camruddin. She considers him a Sufi.
His words only confuse her more, but her excessive admiration for him is
61 Marmaduke Pickthall, The Early Hours (London: Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1921), 263.
62 Ibid., 164.
63 Ibid., 226.
64 Ibid., 215.
65 Ibid., 215–6.