Menstruation by Ammar Abdulhamid

Author:Ammar Abdulhamid [Ammar Abdulhamid]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Hasan

A thought: How do I judge a woman like Salwa? How do I judge a man like me? How do I judge betrayal?

For Salwa and I are most definitely involved in an act of betrayal, I for the first time in my life, and she for the umpteenth. And none of us is feeling guilty about it. What does that mean? Do we count among those whose hearts have become sealed, as the Qur’an puts it, so that they cannot see, nor feel, the wrong in their acts? Well, perhaps. Perhaps.

The deeper I get in my reexamination of my erstwhile beliefs, the deeper I sink in doubt, but that somehow doesn’t disturb me anymore. Not that I accept this state of affairs, not that I can live forever in doubt, it’s just that I feel that the answers, if they are to be the right answers, if they are to be final, need to be given their time to arrive, to form themselves in my mind and soul.

And so nowadays I don’t seem able to judge, to condemn, people like Salwa and me, or acts of betrayal like the ones Salwa and I are committing . . . No, I don’t judge, I merely accept my responsibility in what has taken place, and is taking place. I leave judgment to those who think their souls are purer than mine, not to mention their acts. And how many such people really exist, at a given moment? I don’t know. I just don’t know. But what I do know is that there are those who would claim to be among them; my brother for instance, though I know enough about him not to believe his claims. I would have claimed to be so myself not a few months ago, and now here I am, with much having changed in my life, and without a single precursory sign to warn me of the coming of such a change. So I will let those people judge, I will let them condemn if they like, but I will never let them impose their judgment on me.

Sooner or later, we all have to be sullied by life, don’t we?

My second new belief then could be something like: in matters of morality, one can only judge oneself, if one has to judge at all. Above all one must refrain from judging others. There are no gods among us and the saints are very few, they never proclaim themselves as such, and they never form gangs.

An event: Hasan and Salwa had been stealing every moment they could possibly steal from the set-patterns of their lives to be together. For Salwa the task had not proved difficult, for her life had been scheduled to accommodate just such affairs.

For Hasan, however, the task had proved a bit more difficult, for he wasn’t his own man, he had a family to answer to, he had a domineering father. Still, one way or another, he managed to find the necessary time and excuses to keep things going, to enjoy himself without feeling pressured.

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