Chapter II: The Mongol in Mardan

Log II

The first stop of my wonderfully educational journey will be Mardan, a small, rural city northeast of Peshawar. Known for its extreme temperatures and rather fair complexioned people, Mardan will undoubtedly host people who will marvel at my knowledge and whom I will be delighted to theorize about. And even though I have not yet left the borders of my country as I had proposed I would, I believe one should see one’s own country first to better acquaint himself with his roots.

I reached Mardan by air at around 9 a.m. PST, and took a taxi to the Sheraton Hotel (ah, the marvels of neo-Capitalism). Around 3 p.m., I left my hotel (where I’d enjoyed an exquisite Victorian meal served with the popular, local delicacy, daal maash) and departed on my ‘scientific’ exploration.

The weather was rather pleasant, so I decided to proceed on foot. I had been walking for about 10 minutes when I came across an oddly dressed man prostrating simultaneously to two oddly textured stones set a foot apart from each other. My limited but keen knowledge of geology indicated to me that one of the stones was a black, volcanic igneous, rare in these lands, while the other one was an ordinary marble, common in these lands. The men I had come across previously were all dressed in the traditional shalwar-kameez, and had the local pukhtoon caps on their heads, whereas this unusual individual was dressed almost like a Nepalese.

“Mongol, you dim-witted, underweight skank, I’m dressed like a Mongol.” I realized I had spoken my thought out loud.

“Pardon me for my failure to recognize your unique attire, my good man.”

It wasn’t until a brief moment later that I realized this man had actually spoken to me in English. As he continued to prostrate, ignoring my interruption, I inquired more inquisitively, “How is it so, dear sir, that you speak English so very eloquently, even though your attire does indicate otherwise?”

“You sucker of the superficial, attires indicate only whether a man is hot or cold, and nothing more. And … well, I dunno, marvels of Americanization, I guess. When you’ve seen too much of ‘Friends’, you’ll end up speaking English as well as the friends themselves.”

I was once more shocked to note that a man whose dress was oddly distinguishable from those around him was aware of the ever-popular TV series. Recovering from the alarm, I continued to inquire.

“Impressive, sir, your acquaintance with one of western media’s greatest achievements is indubitably impressive. But pray do tell, who are you and why do you incessantly prostrate to those rather ordinary rocks? Surely, the people in whose city you dwell will either have you demarcated from amongst them, or killed for this rather paganish act in a country where idol-worshipping is taboo.”

The Mongol finally stopped his rapid prostrations and looked up at me with a strange, rather subtle frown. He then patted his hand on the ground, indicating me to seat myself in front of him, which I did much to my regret. Indeed, this had been the first time I had ever sat myself on the ground, and had great difficulty adjusting my legs and avoiding the dustier spots. But recalling that this excursion was about placing myself within these people to understand them better, I sat myself acquiescingly.

“My name is Genghis Khan the 27th and …”

“How very odd,” I interrupted. “You must be related to the first Genghis Khan, the great Mongol conqueror.”

“No, you bolstered buffoon, I am not related to the first Genghis Khan,” mimicked the Mongol in an over-exaggerated tone.

“I swear, I hate it when everyone says that. Why,” he suddenly shouted at the heavens, frowning and whimpering as he did. “Why does it hurt so much? God!” I had not yet recovered from my contorted expression at this rather unwarranted behavior when the Mongol redeemed himself from his upheaval as if it had never happened and turned back to me.

“Alright, I AM related to the first Genghis Khan, but not directly. You see, his 15th generation grandson had married another descendant of Genghis Khan, as was customary, but had had another child from a Dutch mistress.” The stranger began to draw lines on the dust to show me a rather strange sequence of relationships.

“Now this child, in turn, married a Hun who, ironically, had also been procreated by the same Dutch mistress, his mother. So when the bastard and the Hun realized that their first-born son was in fact a son of two siblings, they could do nothing but exile him when he became an adolescent so as to avoid the humiliation. I am from the line of that poor, vile child and, thence, indirectly related to Genghis Khan.

“However, I should note that my first name ‘Genghis’ comes from the word “jungee”, meaning ‘warring or belligerent’, because that was my innate nature prior to stone-worshipping. However, the last name ‘Khan’ has a different story altogether.

“You see, this vile child, from whom I trace my descent, was exiled to Europe to a place now called Holland. There he met yet another daughter of his original-Dutch-mistress grandmother. This daughter, named Pandora, was half-English and, of course, half-Dutch, and was by far the most beautiful woman in all of Europe. … oy, are you lost already? Damn it, keep up with the story. I thought you BBCD’s were supposed to be smart.”

It was true; I was having an onerous time trying to track the details. Nonetheless, I was thoroughly offended and was about to detail my academic credentials to this backward Mongol when I was interrupted. “Ok, so Pandora instantaneously fell in love with the vile child for she had a great, untamable and inexplicable desire for Asian men. But after recognizing the same eyes in him as her mother’s, she decided instead to adopt him. Even though the child himself was rather dark complexioned and ugly, the company of the fair Pandora ended up reflecting on the child, who started to become very fair and handsome, and within a decade, had all of Holland, men and women, wanting to court him.

“Now when the Catholic community within which she dwelled came to know that the vile child was living with the gorgeous Pandora, the church contended that she be crucified whilst being burnt alive. Fearing the safety of her adopted son, Pandora asked one of her lovers, Christopher Columbus, to board the vile child away with him to India, while she herself fled to France. Christopher Columbus had promised Pandora that he would take care of the vile child, but instead, threw him overboard during his historic journey from Spain to India. Some say that as a curse for his treachery against fair Pandora, Christopher Columbus never found India, but instead, found a land whose riches are said to be great, but cursed for all time to come.

“The vile child, on the other hand, swam all the way from where he’d been thrown over to the shores of India to a city called Junagadh. There, he met Dittu Laxmi, a fair Brahmin of a very prestigious Hindu family. Because the Brahmins saw evil in the foreigner, they ordered that he be burnt alive whilst being urinated upon by bullocks. Fearing the safety of her love, Dittu fled with the vile child north to a barren land now called Afghanistan. There they started their own family and benefited by creating large farms of walnuts. Hence, the name “Khan” may have originally come from Genghis Khan, but is accredited more closely to the vile child, who later changed his name to Tera Khan after his 13th child.”

I sat there, mouth-wide open, unable to properly grasp the entire story, while the Mongol returned to prostrating the two stones, ignoring my awestruck expression. My limited but keen knowledge of history indicated that this story was by far too outrageous to be true, yet the time periods of the events described by the Mongol were fairly accurate.

“Outrageous, sir, simply outrageous. Truly, the ‘Khans’ are a much more extraordinary people than I had originally presumed. Why is it that I have never heard of this story before?”

The Mongol looked up at me in a ridiculing manner.

“You think a Pathan would actually tell you about his origin? If there’s one thing we ‘Khans’ are good at, it’s keeping a secret, especially the secret of our origin.”

“Indeed. But pray do tell, why do you prostrate these stones, whereas your entire population is Muslim? Have you a family hither or thither?”

The Mongol, once more, reluctantly stopped his prostrations and sat up facing me. He was clearly annoyed.

“I was once a Muslim, but I left my people and their ways a long time back. I could not follow their religion nor their ways.”

For a moment, I was shocked. “You mean you apostatized? How is it that your people didn't kill you, or demarcate …”

“They did nothing,” interrupted the Mongol. “I left them myself. And it was not I who apostatized, it was they who had apostatized. I fled from them so as to save my faith.”

“But you were Muslim originally. To leave Islam is to apostatize. And stone-worshipping is by far the worst of crimes to the religion of …”

“You Occident-obsessed oaf!” His anger was now clearly discernable from his face, but not so much from the words he was using. “Do you even know what a Muslim is? Let alone what it is, do you even know what the word itself means? And don’t say ‘total submission’ like one of your ridiculous scientific facts. I swear, you social scientists; every time you define something, you end up consciously limiting it so that it can be ONLY what you say it is and nothing more, nothing less.

“You have no idea what Islam is; neither you, nor the fools whom I had to flee. You have the greatest book of the universe that was made NOT for mankind, but for ‘Man’, the individual man. It is a book designed so intricately and exquisitely so that every individual may understand it according to his or her own perceptions, and still have the same level of faith as any other person who reads the Book on his or her own. But no, you just HAVE to bring in a third person to tell you what it reads. Just like what happened the Christians before us, this third person tells you what he thinks it means, or changes the words altogether so as to make it mean what he wants it to mean, and consequently, benefits off the foolishness of others. These fools listen to the third person blindly, thinking he is only reading what is in the Quran, whereas he’s telling them nothing of the sort, but blurting self-made conjectures so that they may follow him and him alone, and that he may become the all-powerful, whereas God is All-Powerful.”

His tone then changed from clamorous to demoralized.

“The ulema of my tribe used to do this. But when I read the Quran on my own, I could see nothing of which they said. They made our women low and insignificant, whereas the Quran declared them imperative for the society and demanded that they be treated exceptionally. They spoke harshly and angrily to others, and were cruel without reason, whereas Quran demanded respect, kindness and sincerity to the fellow Muslim. They despised the Shias and the Shias despised them and fought madly with each other, whereas the Quran banned sectarianism and all violence amongst Muslims. They were miserly, and the Quran forbade that recurrently. They told me I was a fool to be interested in knowledge other than the Quran and their own religious teachings, whereas the Quran time and again indicated me to reason with the signs in this world, with the manifest and the latent, the obvious and the discrete, the natural and the paranormal. I asked them to explain to me why my faith was on a decline and why my heart felt so disinclined to their ways, and they said I had the devil in me. They used religion for their political agendas and somewhere along the way, the original message was lost forever. And if, in spite of all these and many other faults, you still ask me to revert to your ‘Islam’, I say I would rather burn in hell, and I say that with full sincerity.”

In spite of my ability to listen to others for hours, somewhere in the middle of his speech, I was completely lost on what he was talking about. There is no doubt that I have a keen interest in sciences, but I believe religion is not something to be spoken much about and consider its discussions and inquiries irrelevant to the scientific process. Nonetheless, being a Pakistani Muslim, I felt reluctant but obligated to defend the social institution of Islam.

“My fellow friend, perhaps you are right about what you say, and quite honestly, I do not find such arguments for and against religion very necessary. I believe we’re Muslims and should ignore the differences and, as you put, ‘self-made conjectures’ of these preachers, and progress with the modern age. However, you must note that despite your talks of faith, you are worshipping these two rocks. And as far as my limited but keen knowledge recalls, worshipping anything but God is the greatest sin.”

The Mongol let out a loud, almost forced laughter, and then spoke in a patronizing manner.

“Vanity, my friend, vanity is the greatest sin.”

I wished to differ, feeling rather offended, and stammered a wavery ‘no’, but was instantly interrupted by the Mongol.

“Do you know what these stones represent?”

He then picked the stones with each hand and held them out to me.

“This white one, which you’d like to call ‘ordinary marble’ is Thumthum. And this black one, which you’d like to call ‘rare-in-these-lands volcanic rock’ is Daavu.”

“Interesting. Extraordinary even,” I exclaimed. “But what do they mean?”

“No idea,” shrugged the Mongol. “I made these names up just now. They were just ‘black’ and ‘white’ before you came. See, they are mere objects that allow me to reach a goal; specifically, they are the means to an end. And as far as their significance is concerned and why I prostrate them, that is also another story.

“After I left my people, my faith grew weaker and weaker. Foolishly hoping to find a better Islam being practiced in other neighboring areas, I wandered from city to city hoping to find the ‘perfect mosque’. Now I know that a mosque by definition is the house of God, and, thence, perfect. But a mosque loses its perfection and starts to appear less divine and more manmade when either two or both things occur within it. One – the mosque’s administration does not practice what it preaches, and two, and more importantly, if what is being preached is inaccurate, manmade and not backed by the Quran.

“After a month of wandering, I ended up in this region. While I was walking down the shores of the Indus River, dejected and despaired, I saw these two stones set right beside each other. Indeed, I thought, this was definitely a sign of God, for good and evil coexist just as light and darkness coexist, or as the prey and predator coexist. And here were two odd, oppositely colored rocks showing JUST this notion: how two opposite factors coexist despite being opposites. I took this as a divine sign and immediately picked these two stones. However, I was still at a dilemma; if I were to worship the white stone, then the white stone would become oppressive over the black, and vice versa. Hence, I concluded that God was everywhere, manifest in good and evil forms to test mankind, and that my long, tiresome search had finally come to an end and I had found the two objects, both of which had to be worshipped equally so as to make them coexist. Indeed, this is how God has established the yin-yang in this world. And this is evident in the Quranic verse: ‘We have established the balance’.

“Hence, all in all, I’m still a muslim, still a believer in God, but more of a Taoist-Pantheist than anything else. For if I call myself a Muslim, people will assume that I am the ‘common, socially-defined’ muslim, which is something I will never have. Hence, when people ask, I just tell them I believe in one God and that is all. And I prostrate to these stones to show to God my belief in his signs and his Oneness and the fact that all is balanced in this world.”

My limited but keen knowledge of religion reminded me that Taoism was the traditional Chinese belief in the supremacy of the yin and yang, the representation of the balance in the universe; Pantheists, on the other hand, believed that God existed in everything. Realizing that in this strictly Islamic society where terrorism and fundamentalism were so common, an ordinary man had managed to create a faith that fused two other beliefs. Indeed, this was a unique find in a land where such people would not be tolerated but instantly demarcated. I was reluctant to interfere further in his religious affairs so I simply bid him farewell with the following sentence.

“Indeed, you are unique in your own way. May you find peace in what you do, my good fellow. Godspeed and good luck doing what you do ... uhh, may God find gratification in your unrelenting efforts.”

The Mongol looked at me with a surprised look, for he did not expect me to say something this inane. And for a moment, I too was shocked at my inability to come up with a more apt sentence. But then, the Mongol smiled.

“That’s the question of the ages. How DOES He find contentment in our deeds, if there is such a thing for Him? Through our prostrations to Him? See, prostration towards the Kaaba is a … prostration towards the Kaaba. It is in fact the body that prostrates the Kaaba, but the soul is what prostrates God. The Kaaba is manmade, and was built only to unite Muslims towards one direction, and that is what it has always attempted to signify.”

He then paused for a moment. His forced smile transformed into an enlightened expression.

“Nonetheless, I realize where I was wrong all this time. It is not about the people or their deeds or the words men write.” He then turned to the stones and picked them up with each hand.

“Or even about these stones.” He kissed the two stones and threw them as far away as he could. I was, once more, curious as to this act.

“Material objects", he said. "I was turning into the exact same thing that the enemies of my forefathers, ‘the Imperialists’, had always tried to seek. They sought peace in material objects, as their successors still do, whereas true peace can only be attained when the soul is at peace; and the soul will only be at peace when it is united and in parity with its origin: God. These stones are merely signs from Him, an indication of His true nature, the nature of balance. Yet He, I realize, can only be connected to through the soul.”

I was once more astounded by the words of this strange foreigner. Indeed, this was a great scientific find in a land so very esoteric. I bid the Mongol farewell, but he only stood straight, looking up in the direction where he had thrown the stones. Just as I was walking away from him, he yelled out his final sentence to me.

“Remember, Sheikh Sahab, do not fool yourself by thinking that things can be defined. Nothing can be limited by defining it, and nothing is definite as a whole. It can be more or less than it appears. Just remember that.”

I turned around and waved in approval. His words were gently spoken, but I did not understand them. A few seconds later, I recalled that I had never told the stranger my name. But when I turned around, the Mongol had disappeared.