“Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase)/awoke one night from a deep dream of peace/And saw, within the moonlight in his room… an Angel writing in a book of gold.”
These are the opening lines of a poem I learnt in my primary school years at Athlone North Primary School in Kew Town in the 1940s. For some reason which I cannot explain, this week’s column centres on this recollection. I shall use the poem to exhort my readers: Be all you can ever be. Read!
If you are familiar with the poem, you will know that Abou addresses the Angel, asking quite openly: “What is it that you are writing in that glorious-looking Book?” The Angel’s reply was: “The names of those who love the Lord.” “And is mine one?” Abou asks hopefully. “Nay, not so.” Despite this disappointing answer, Abou makes a plea: “… I pray thee, then/ write me as one who loves his fellow men.” The Angel writes and vanishes. The poem was written by a little-known Romantic poet called Leigh Hunt. His poem is so memorable because it is telling a story, the significance of which only caught up with me recently.
Looking at the content, one is struck by the attractive notion of an exotic easterner waking up and finding an angel in his room. This is the stuff of Romantic poetry, the cosmic notion that has God at the head of affairs and exercising complete control over the fate of mortals, while at the same time demanding complete and unquestioning obedience. I have learnt since those far-off days that Leigh Hunt chose the Middle East setting based on the life of the ascetic Sufi mystic, Ibrahim bin Adham. The poem, therefore, functions as Oriental Romanticism.
There are many stories I read as a child which centred around oriental characters: Ali Baba, Sinbad the sailor, Scheherazade and the Thousand and One Nights. The list is endless, as endless as it is fascinating. Of course, my initial encounters were based on pure entertainment. We loved the things that happened in their world.
Think of the ungrateful camel who asks only to put his head into the Arab’s tent, and, having achieved that, soon expels the owner of the tent through sheer brazen negotiation which left the Arab owner out in the cold. If you think I am drifting, or losing the plot, consider the following.
These days such stories would carry ideological or political or stereotypical relevance. In my day as a child when I was labelled Coloured and confined for life to the sandy wastes of the Cape Flats, this was sheer and unadulterated escapism. These days we have silo’d religion into exclusivist fragmentation that was already being addressed in my undeveloped mind those many years ago. I had to eventually read the magisterial polemic of Edward Said to understand how literature created the tragically unspanned division of us/ them, the notion of the Manichean Other.
The story of Ben Adhem returned to show me how adult understanding rests on the clear minds of children, who do not see colour, or ideological differences, or exclusivist faith biases. You see, the night after the Angel left with the damning words that Abou was not one who loved the Lord, the story being touted, I suspect, in a Christian-dominant environment, he returned and showed Abou the list of those whom God has blessed.
“And lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.”
I will not pontificate further. The lesson embedded in that delightful little poem has remained with me all my life, convincing me that salvation does not only lie with obedience to the God of your religion of choice but in loving all your fellow men.
Peace on earth, and goodwill to all men.
* Alex Tabisher.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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