“Beyond the sanity of fools is a burning desert
Where Your sun is whirling in every atom…” –Rumi
Two.
It has been two years since my last entry which noted the passing of a mortal truth, a corporeal luminary, my jiddo. Since then, a giant fissure formed within the vessels of my heart, and Through underwent a catharsis that nearly verged upon web(purg)atory.
I missed jiddo dearly, and found it a monumental task to find a subject worthy of following the literary shadow of his mention. So I let it be for two years, and found other ways of honoring him through my daily rituals and activities.
As it would happen, I was hired to work in a managerial position at an educational institution in the city soon after. I have also had the pleasure of teaching for an up-and-coming Bahá’í-inspired non-profit institution which offers language and skill development classes. I am engaged to a man I've known for nearly eight years and am planning a wedding for the end of April of 2010. And such is the circadian rhythm of life.
I am hoping to return to Through as the sun of the future seems to be whirling majestically….
It’s in this clear crisp light that I remember what Through was originally intended for: to celebrate the beauty of humanity and to analyze, critique, and remark upon the tiny particles that connect us to all things.
Visit soon as I’m planning on visiting often.
I regret not having shared the following information sooner here...
His name was Siddiq Abdu’l-Majid Sulaiman. My grandfather. Whether you knew him or not is a factual nomenclature of little import. --For his life, his experiences, his stories provide us all with a catalogue of examples of one’s limitless capacity to love and a glimpse into the mysteries of the human spirit. His official obituary is below, followed by some notes. It is my hope to follow-up with some stories of his life and details attributed to his beloved personage.
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Siddiq Abdul-Majid Sulaiman left this earthly realm for the Abha Kingdom an hour after midnight on 4 February 2008. Born in Mosul , Iraq , in 1914, Mr. Sulaiman embraced the Baha’i Faith in the early 1940s and subsequently followed a distinguished career of service in his homeland. A high school teacher by profession, Mr. Sulaiman served, for a period in the 1950s, as the chairman of both the Baghdad Local Spiritual Assembly and the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Iraq. He was later imprisoned for the Faith, spending from 1973 to 1979 in Abu Ghraib prison.In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he lived in Alexandria , Egypt , where he received his Baccalaureate in the subject of philosophy from the Alexandria University . It was there that he met Anisa Abdul-Razzaq Abbas, another Bahá'í from Iraq , who was also studying at Alexandria University . They were married in 1952 and had three children: Abir, Alhan, and Ruwa. He is survived by Ms. Abbas, his children, and five grandchildren (Zina Irwin, Menar Irwin, Remz Pokorny, Mona Majid and Zane Pokorny). Mr. Sulaiman passed away after a long decline in Bedford , New Hampshire.
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I invite you to watch a short video on youtube that I created on behalf of all of the grandchildren in memory of our grandfather. We would be honored if you watched it:
I met my grandfather when he and my grandmother, Anisa Abbas, arrived to America before the Gulf War after being separated from their children for over 11 years. He was tall, spoke English better than any Englishman, and immediately embraced us with an unforgettable tenderness. For the next 18 years I had the privilege of growing with him, listening to his stories and studying his exemplary life. Echoing the words of one of his dear friends, I am one of many who has taken pride in “being an unworthy student of Siddiq Abdu’l-Majid,” my jiddo.
He was born in 1914 in Mosul before WWI commenced. Mosul, in northern Iraq and West of the Tigris River, is a place my grandfather often spoke of with the fondest recollection. Today, it is the country’s second largest city, but during his childhood it had a much smaller community. His father owned a small but prosperous nut and ice cream shop. His devoted mother was part Kurdish. A siyyid (descendant of the Prophet Muhammad), my grandfather was raised as a Muslim and dedicated many years to the study of Islamic texts. As a boy he memorized most of the Qur’an, a common tradition in the educational curriculum.
He became a member of the Baha’i Faith as a young adult, after intensely reading Nabil-i-Azam’s historical narrative “The Dawnbreakers” (in which Nabil wrote about the socio-political climate of nineteenth century Iran, the Babi movement, and the Baha’i Faith). The Baha’i Faith is an independent world religion (not a sect of another religion), founded by Baha’u’llah whose name means “Glory of God.” Baha’is (the members of the Faith) believe in one God, the oneness of humankind, the equality of the sexes, the unity of science and religion, the independent investigation of truth, and that all religions stem from the same Source and share a common spiritual essence, among other key beliefs.
His dedication to these tenets and to the Baha’i Faith eventually led to his imprisonment (alongside other Baha’is) in Abu Ghraib. Under the suspicious and fearful regime, minority communities (including the Baha’i faith -regardless of how peaceful and non-political it is) were subject to government scrutiny and action. At Abu Ghraib, my grandfather was kept near the most vile and contemptible members of society -murderers, thiefs, etc. He was also subjected to cruel actions in an attempt to have him recant his Faith. His refusal kept him imprisoned for six years until a regime change, though he was sentenced for life and had gladly accepted that potential fate.
He always taught me that human beings have a great spiritual capacity and that capacity can be veiled by selfishness and ignorance. In the pursuit of truth, he said, we must always be humble and detached. Physically blind himself, he taught me to see with spiritual eyes. And to love unconditionally as love requires no reason for expression, except to exercise the human spirit.
Say it. A single word --one not marred by the ephemeral perversity of thoughts, One not asphyxiated by the conditions of feelings. A single word unhindered, unsullied by meanings secluded from transient truths abandoned by understandings --whether divergent or whole. Say it. Without love of it And for it One which, by its own virtue Needs not saying, Needs not being. Can you say it? Can it even escape your swollen lips? If you could say it, If you were to say it It has No sound But if you say it.
I molt in my sadness. Shedding my sugar-coat, casting off the sweet dew from my brows discarding the curves of my smiles and the openness of my palms.
From what was relinquished an inner peace will be quenched. An eye re-opened by forsaking a teardrop, an ear quitting a familiar voice again attuned to the sound of longing,
The sight of going, shut, and the vision of returning unwrapped from the seal of the heart and its time-trapping design.
Far resigns and becomes farther Near leaves and becomes nearer Close becomes both distal and proximal. Closer is a sweeter day, to molt is to find its promises.
I will miss and be missed. But it too shall pass again and again until the earth spins so much and becomes one color, neither red nor green. Just one. And newer it will be. And I will smile, but differently in another way.
My grandfather Seddiq, my grandmother Anisa (middle), university students in Alexandria, Egypt 1940s
You are yourself and I am myself and we exist in a pattern before a pattern, on an ancient scroll, in a day that has neither sun nor moon. You are the word, I am ink. We have not found each other, though we have soaked through the same thread and have bled from beginning to end. You are nothing and I am nothing, and our nothingness is infinite. But to exist in nothingness, in its deeps, is to be as lonesome as the word and as deprived as the ink, soaking the never-ending thread of life which has existed since the day that has neither sun nor moon. -me.
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