Adam Bin Yaqzan

By the writer Saber El-Ganzouri

In this story, Saber El-Ganzouri takes the reader from the chaos of the sea to an island of deliverance, and from the disorder of the world to a dream of justice and meaning. It is a text charged with symbolism and wonder, blending narrative with reflection and placing the human being before an old, ever-renewing question: Is salvation a place we reach, or a state in which we are born anew? In “Adam Bin Yaqzan,” the writer opens a gate between two worlds, one that burdens the soul with fear and contradiction, and another that seems like the promise the heart has long pursued.

 Adam Bin Yaqzan

Everything was moving outside the window of my cabin on the ship. Scenes passed one after another, and the minutes slipped by with the movement of the clouds. The waves rose and fell, the sun changed its course, and the sky changed its colors, while I remained in a state of stillness...

Then motion was thrown into turmoil and chaos erupted. The ship shattered and dissolved into the depths of mist, and with it time and place vanished, and all sight of things was lost.

I found myself among dense trees on a strange island.

A sip of milk in a small earthen cup saved me from death.

When I exhaled, and the soul that had nearly left my frail body returned, I found him before me, smiling. He looked like the first man: long unkempt hair, a long beard, hair covering his chest, and a leather garment covering his lower half.

He said, “Do not be afraid.”

I asked, “Who are you?”

He replied, “Hayy Bin Yaqzan.”

I said, “You are a legend, not a reality.”

“Here I am, real before you,” he said mockingly.

“But you spoke in my language, as if you were from my world, the one in which I lived.”

He replied, “Your world, the one you wish to flee.”

“How did you know?”

“Do not ask about the unseen.”

He fell silent for a while, then asked,

“Why do you want to flee?”

“Because I can no longer live falsely in my world.”

“That is because you are the son of a world of opposites. Everything has its opposite. Every construction is met by destruction, and every evil is met by its counterpart in good.”

“Where am I now?”

“On the Island of Deliverance.”

“And is there anyone here besides you?”

“Those who fled from your world, and the animals, and me...” He pointed toward small huts standing side by side.

I looked and saw, in the distance, men and women, lions, wolves, foxes, gazelles, cattle, and camels. What a forest it was!

He read what passed through my mind and said,

“The law here says this: justice is the foundation of life. That is why you find the wolf living alongside the sheep, and the shepherd in peace.”

“And who rules the island?”

“We all live together, and each of us knows his right and his duty... Come, so that you may know your planet, the one in which you will live.”

The sun set and evening entered, and before the attack of night, the sky was lit with white lights that rose from the trees and palms before the huts.

He pressed a button on a small remote control device he took from the pocket of his leather garment, and the hut door opened. A woman received us whose beauty seemed to gather in itself all the women I had ever seen in my world.

My feet froze in place, and my heartbeat quickened.

“This is your bride tonight,” he said, and left me with her.

She called me by my name. “Come, Adam, look. You will know me.”

Never before had I known a woman of such beauty.

She whispered, “Let your heart see me.”

I felt a movement in my heart and cried out,

“You resemble my beloved, the one I once saw in a dream!”

She astonished me.

“What you long for in your world and do not attain, you behold in your hands in another world... I am she, Adam.”

Everything in the hut was new: the bed, the curtains, and a screen unlike any I had ever seen before.

The strange thing was that everything began to work according to whatever thought passed through my mind, and my thought itself became the device controlling the instruments before me.

After spending my first night with “Jannah,” I realized that I was in a true paradise. Yet I did not know whether it was on earth or in the sky, and whether the world in which I now lived was the real world and not a virtual one, and that I was not dreaming. Perhaps it was the counter world, or the relative one, to time and place, and to the world in which I had lived.

The light of morning burst from the core of a magical night, where no darkness existed except in the graves of the island.

A wedding procession reached my ears, with singing, the beating of drums and tambourines, and the scent of oud and incense mingling with the perfume of “Jannah,” a fragrance the like of which I had never smelled before.

“Hayy” was now in another form than the one in which I had seen him the day before: a beautiful face radiating light, short white hair, and a neat white beard. In his white garment he looked like one in a state of consecration, with nothing of his body showing except his right shoulder, and so were the men with him.

As for the women, they were like angels and white doves.

“Hayy” entered my hut, along with some of those who were with him, and they offered us their blessings in prayer. A white dove sang, and “Hayy” chanted with it, while “Jannah” laughed, her teeth showing like pearls, light shining from her eyes, and shy smiles answering each time one of them asked about the news of the wedding night.

“Would you like to see the world from which you came, Adam?”

“Hayy” said, and I expressed my desire to behold it...

He pointed to the large screen hanging on the wall, and began moving between the stations, commenting on each event he watched.

“These are the wars of East against West, and these are the struggles of North and South...

On the dark continent, you see every kind of madness, and on the white continent, you find every kind of depravity.”

He studied my reaction, then added,

“You have seen the last station, and I fear that if you see it now, you will not be able to bear what you are about to see.”

My astonishment showed, and he shook his head and continued,

“My son, the signs of the warning have begun, and the appointed day has drawn near.”

Then he stopped and wept, and before leaving, I asked him,

“Are you the son of the earth or the son of the sky?”

He looked at me in a way that made me feel as though he were my father, then said,

“Do not trouble yourself with that. Live your life with ‘Jannah’ and prepare to begin work with the people of the island.”

“Will I return to my world?”

He laughed a clear laugh whose echo went on resounding between heaven and earth, and said,

“You need one hundred light years
to return to your world.”