The Second of the Two

He came from afar, the scent of the desert upon him: a pure Arab without blemish. Slender as a stalk of wheat, with legs as fine as a runner’s, yet something about him tells you his race is not the race of other men. His face is white, having miraculously escaped the desert sun. There is a slight stoop in his back, as though he had carried something heavy on his shoulders all his life, yet his piercing gaze tells you that no one else could have borne that burden. His beard is dyed with henna tending to red, as if the sun at the moment of setting had found no refuge but there. His clothes are worn, yet the man bears the mark of history’s nobility. I wanted to ask him: who are you? But there are men in whose presence you lose your tongue, and he was one of them. I looked at him for a long time, bound by my silence, my curiosity killing me to know who he was, until he lifted all that from me when he said: peace be upon you. His voice was sweet, as if the letters came from the Hijr of Ismail rather than from his mouth, with a tenderness like a mother’s prayers and a reverence like the recitation of Surat Al-Rahman.