Qur’an, Deception, and Betrayal

Yemeni mp

Ahmed Saif Hashed

When our new home became three stories tall, I would sleep in the living room with my mother, father, and younger siblings. One night, during a dark and stormy evening, I woke from my sleep. The night was pitch black, and the darkness was profound; the surrounding silence allowed me to hear the breaths of those nearby, almost as if I could hear the scurrying of ants and their breaths too.

After a short while, I began to hear the movement of our cow downstairs and the chickens in their small coop outside. I started to hear heavy footsteps on the roof above us, the sound of doors opening and closing. My hearing became acutely sensitive, or rather, my perception of sound became sharply heightened—an auditory hallucination laced with terror and fear. What I was hearing intensified and grew louder; what had initially been faint became clearer to my ears, and with it, my fear and dread multiplied as the sounds grew more pronounced.

I began to hear voices and sounds that grew clearer over time, especially as I continued to listen intently. My mother and father were deep in sleep, and I was puzzled that they could not hear what I was hearing, now more resonant and distinct.

I recited Al-Fatihah to myself, a surah that had troubled me to memorize, and I struggled with its recitation. Yet, despite my efforts, nothing changed. I suspected that the ineffectiveness of Al-Fatihah stemmed from my numerous mistakes in reading it.

The sounds grew clearer—murmurs expanding, a child’s cries, a woman’s voice shouting at our milking cow, the creaking of doors opening and closing. I felt as though I had entered another world, one that moments ago had been filled with tranquility and silence.

I saw no way to rescue myself from my plight but to scream at the top of my lungs. In panic and terror, I cried out, my voice piercing the night and the stillness. My parents jolted awake from their deep slumber, their minds nearly reeling. When I saw my father’s flashlight flickering in his hand, a wave of relief washed over me, and I felt my breath return as my mother held and embraced me, her heart racing with fear.

My mother began her incantations against the accursed devil, anxiously asking what had happened. She believed I had been overtaken by a terrifying dream or nightmare. I responded with stammering words, trying to explain what I had heard, while my father began to recite Surah Al-Jinn to drive away the spirits I had failed to banish.

I trembled with fear and panic like a small rabbit facing a knife, trying to gradually regain my composure. I sought to emerge from my terror as I heard my father reciting Surah Al-Jinn. I wished to hear the screams of the jinn as they vanished in the flames ignited by the surah, but I heard nothing of what I had hoped for!!

My mother got up and retrieved from her iron box the amulet of the “Seven Covenants,” placing it around my neck. We wore it as a protection against grave matters. I felt a sense of peace and reassurance, and my parents did not sleep that night until I had drifted back into slumber after a considerable time had passed, finally sinking into a deep sleep.

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When I grew older, someone claiming to belong to the “Qur’an” remarked on that story I had shared:

“- You have not been forsaken by the Qur’an, Mr. Ahmed; rather, you have let yourself down. Know that the Qur’an is a healing and mercy for the believers. As for the amulet of the Seven Covenants, it is idolatry and sorcery. I pray that Allah guides you back to Him beautifully.

I replied, “Indeed, by Allah… the ‘amulet’ is also filled with the remembrance of my Lord and verses from the Wise Reminder. I will not repeat the well-known proverb among their elders: ‘Recite Yasin with a stone in your hand.’ Instead, I say that it was the path I took, raised under its banner, just as the Qur’ans were lifted on the tips of spears during the Battle of Saffin. The hooves of its horses trampled my flowers, my green dreams, and my pure breaths. The feet of its followers passed over my weary body and bleeding soul on the day we went out on May 25, 2017, demanding that the authorities and war governments provide salaries for one and a half million employees and retirees, who found themselves stranded, their means of a dignified living cut off.

And today, their march devours me with an insatiable hunger, a gluttony that knows no bounds. It tears morsels from my mouth, seeking to consume my tongue and throat, along with what remains of my salary and the sustenance for those I care for. They live a bitter struggle in the battle for survival, clinging desperately to a life we hold onto with great effort, as we grapple with danger and wrestle with death by hunger in an era marked by departure—an age where death prevails, and graves flourish.

Today, their march has sunk its long, curved claws like eagle talons into my starving belly, which is fading away. It insists on feasting upon my hunger and the few days that remain to me. I am hungry and crushed like this afflicted people, battered by war, hunger, and death.

I conclude this discourse with a few Baradoni  verses!
    
O thief of morsels from the mouths of the city’s children,
O plunderer of the slumber from the eyelids of imprisoned Sana’a,
Who will stop your hands from squeezing the deep wounds?
Who will respond if these hidden laments call out?

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