196 No god but God
no shame. When he heard of Layla’s arranged marriage to a man of
untold wealth named Ibn Salam, Majnun lost all sense and reason.
Tearing off his clothes, he crawled naked through the wilderness like
an animal. He slept in ravines with the beasts of the desert, eating wild
plants and drinking rainwater. He grew famous for his love. People
from all over the land sought him out, sometimes sitting with him for
hours as he spoke of his beloved Layla.
One day, while he was idly reciting his verses to a captive audi-
ence, a scrap of paper, borne by the wind, landed on his lap. On it were
written two words: “Layla” and “Majnun.” As the crowd watched,
Majnun tore the paper in half. The half on which was written “Layla”
he crumpled into a ball and threw over his shoulder; the half with his
own name he kept for himself.
“What does this mean?” someone asked.
“Do you not realize that one name is better than two?” Majnun
replied. “If only you knew the reality of love, you would see that when
you scratch a lover, you find his beloved.”
“But why throw away Layla’s name and not your own?” asked
another.
Majnun glowered at the man. “The name is a shell and nothing
more. It is what the shell hides that counts. I am the shell and Layla is
the pearl; I am the veil and she is the face beneath it.”
The crowd, though they knew not the meaning of his words, were
amazed by the sweetness of his tongue.
Meanwhile, trapped by the restrictions of her tribe and forced to
marry a man she did not love, Layla was plunged into a lonely dark-
ness. She suffered as deeply as Majnun but did not have his freedom.
She too wanted to live with the beasts of the desert, to declare her love
for Majnun from the tops of the mountains. But she was a prisoner in
her own tent, and in her own heart. When one morning an old mer-
chant passing by her tribe brought her news of Majnun, Layla felt like
a reed swaying in the wind, hollow and weightless.
“Without your radiance,” the old man told her, “Majnun’s soul is
like the ocean in a winter’s night, whipped up by a thousand storms.
Like a man possessed, he roams the mountainside, screaming and
shouting. And there is but one word on his lips: ‘Layla.’ ”