Prologue: A Jar in the Sand
And follow that which is inspired in thee from thy Lord. Lo! Allah is Aware of what ye do.
– Verse 2, The Koran, SURAH XXXIII, The Clans
Outskirts of Nag Hammadi, Egypt 1945
The sun blistered down upon the day, drawing every drop of life from the hard-baked ground. Muhanna Ali al-Samara and his two brothers rode solemnly alongside each other, their camels impervious to the heat and the urgency of the day. Three of their cousins joined them in a motley collection of six: strangers to, outcasts of, and enemies in, the land nearby their own. Three extra camels, for packing out riches, plodded in tow behind them. There was strength in numbers today. The al-Samaras had ventured far from home, though close in terms of miles, into the hostile territory of the Inland Empire, ruled by the ruthless al-Yassid clan.
From the distant horizon, with heat rising in sheets from the sand, they appeared as shadows, wavering figures riding above the ground, six phantoms emerging from the abyss. Their turbans and robes rippled in the breeze. Each had a soft-colored scarf worn around his neck, to serve as a prayer cloth on which to kneel before Allah in devotion and gratitude. The silhouettes they created were haunting, tribal, primordial even, as if risen from the roots of the earth and driven by the singular need for survival.
From high atop the cliffs of Jabal al-Tarif, Abu al-Yassid watched the travelers approach, as the Nile flowed by in the background. At first he thought they were from his own village, returning from a supply trip in the nearby city of Nag Hammadi.
Abu’s eyes narrowed in a combination of rage and delight, however, as the shapes came closer and his view became startlingly clear. The leaders of the al-Samara clan, his sworn enemies, had roamed far beyond their limits and had sealed their fate with their arrogance.
Abu calculated the time it would take to return to his village of Hamrah Dum and back again to the cliffs. He had ridden far today, much further than his normal survey of the crops under his family’s control. He didn’t expect to see anything of interest when he set out; he’d merely been inspired to wander. Allah had willed it, to be sure. Now, suddenly and urgently, he needed to rally his clansmen. A dozen of their strongest could swoop down upon the unaware al-Samaras and kill them within the span of a minute, reveling in their blood, and leaving their bodies to rot in the sun.
Abu gazed into the sky, feeling the sun on his face. A good day, he thought. Allah smiles upon me. The heart of the enemy clan had stumbled directly onto the tip of his sword. By the setting of this day’s sun, Abu would deliver a glorious victory to his family. The head of the snake would die in the sand and, with it, the violent feud that had cut through the generations before him. Abu’s desire for vengeance, weaned from youth on hatred, was made stronger, more virulent, and perhaps – in the absence of a carefree childhood – more bitter. The youngest al-Yassid turned his camel away from the cliff and raced homeward.
Muhanna and his brethren approached the cliffs with caution. Until recently, they had not been this far from their village in many, many years. Not since a quieter time, a time when rivalries had not become so bloody, a time when the sources of their injuries could still be remembered. It had taken much urging, insistence, anger even, for Muhanna Ali to convince his brothers and cousins of this errand.
But Allah had spoken clearly to Muhanna and he would go. The idea had flashed bright and clear in front of him while he was tilling a skinny row of corn stalks. Go to the cliff of the tombs, where the birds thrive, there to find the seeds of a better life.
To fellahin, village farmers, life rose and fell from the land, and those with fertile ground would prosper. Those without would struggle. The land of Muhanna’s family, sharecropped for an absent landlord and taxed by the government, was sandy scrabble. It took much work, much water, and much prayer to eke out a living from year to year, generation to generation, with no hope for permanent land ownership or the prosperity that came with it.
Muhanna thought of his hard-working father, Amr al-Samara, just two weeks dead and cold in the ground. The cowardly al-Yassids, a pack of them, had laid in wait for the unsuspecting farmer. They planted a decoy in the fields, a man whose sole job was to bang two sticks together, and then skitter through the fields from one location to the next.
Woken in the night by strange noises, Amr, the head of the al-Samara family, rose to survey the perimeter of his farm. Concerned about the irrigation system – which was the lifeblood of his crops and his sheep, and easy prey to spiteful sabotage – Amr strode the land in the dark cold hours before morning.
It was then and there he met his death, as the al-Yassids sprung up behind him, sliced his throat and defiled his dying body with their spit and urine. Muhanna found his father when the sun came up, and he – the coldest, most shrewd and cunning of his family – knelt in the dirt and wept.
I will have bloody, merciless revenge, swore Muhanna, with his face to the heavens as he had many times before. And the weight of it bore down on him. So too, did the weight of his family fall upon him. The survival of the al-Samara clan rested on Muhanna’s thin, hard shoulders.
Now, in an unexpected gift from Allah, Muhanna had a vision to improve the land and the lot of his family. It would be he, Muhanna, eldest of the sons of Amr al-Samara, who would raise the clan to prosperity. It would be he who would earn the praise and respect of his dead father and of the God he worshipped.
In his vision, Muhanna saw, and realized it to be true, rich fertile soil at the base of the giant cliffs. The Cliffs of Jabal al-Tarif rose high into the eastern sky, and were pockmarked with tombs, a sacred cemetery of ancients, long since forgotten. In the shade of these abandoned tombs, many species of waterfowl gathered, along with rodents and reptiles, beetles and bugs, each prey or predator to the other.
Nesting along the Nile or roosting in the empty tombs, birds traveled these skies and scoured the sand for food. They ate ravenously, leaving behind their droppings to mix with the sand. These droppings, in turn, created a thick, rich fertilizer called sabakh. When mixed with ordinary soil, sabakh produced a thriving environment for the growing of corn, wheat and fava beans – the crops of the al-Samara.
Muhanna brought his brothers and cousins together to collect as much of the thick soil as they could carry, day after day for nearly a week. They carried their treasured soil in cloth bags, counterbalanced and strung with rope over their camels. One more trip, Muhanna had insisted, and we’ll have enough. The others were anxious to avoid this area, a zone considered neutral by authorities, but ruled by their al-Yassid enemies nonetheless. But Muhanna had been sent here by Allah and his confidence – and iron fist – ruled the day.
On this last day, Muhanna chose a large pair of boulders sitting like sentinels at the base of the honeycombed cliffs. It was evident that these two boulders had once formed one, and had broken apart in their fall from the side of the mountain. It was here they would dig today. Then their work would be done and they could celebrate their good fortune and the grace bestowed upon them.
They had dug for only an hour before Muhanna’s youngest brother, Abdul, called out. “Muhanna! Come quickly!” Muhanna raised his head from his work and held out his sharp digging tool, prepared for any attack of man or beast. “Over here, come look!” cried Abdul, who was kneeling in the sand. Muhanna and the others circled around the kneeling man. “Look what I found!”
Sitting deep in the sand, partly exposed in the hole Abdul had dug, was a large, red earthenware jar. Four handles, loops near the top, could be seen jutting out from the ground. Abdul and a few of the others began to work furiously to raise the jar out of its sandy grave.
“We’ve found treasure!” exclaimed Khalifah, Muhanna’s middle brother. He brushed sand from the rough surface of the jar. Three feet long and a foot in diameter, the jar was heavy, and sealed at the top with a shallow bowl embedded in thick black pitch. When Khalifah shook the jar from side to side, they heard a soft, slushing sound.
“It’s a jinn!” cried Muhanna’s cousin, Jabaz. “Put it back! Put it back!” He looked around wide-eyed, fearful they’d stumbled upon an evil spirit that, if released, would follow them for the rest of their days, playing nasty tricks on them. The circle widened as several of the men stepped backward.
“Don’t be a silly woman,” mocked Khalifah, who was neither smart nor kind. “We are in the shadow of ancient graves.” He pointed his gaze to the cliffs. “This is clearly a treasure, buried long ago, and dislodged when these stones fell from the cliffs.” He turned to Muhanna, who was still holding his digging tool. “Use your mattock, Muhanna. Break it open.”
“No!” cried the fearful cousin, Jabaz. “I say put it back. Now.” Excited murmurs rose and fell among the gathered men, some agreeing with Jabaz, others eager to reveal what was hidden inside.
Muhanna considered the jar for a moment, the happenstance of its discovery, and its significance to his mission. This was not in his vision. Was this a distraction? A test of devotion to his purpose? Or was this the real treasure Allah wanted him to find? In this jar would he find the seeds of his family’s fortune? Or would he find only trouble?
“Stand back,” ordered Muhanna. A hush fell on the gathering as Muhanna knelt down and ran his hand along the pottery. It did indeed look very old. It was faded and chipped, brittle from the hot sand. Yet the stone was cool against his touch. It looked innocent, docile, not the likely home of a jinn.
Muhanna rose and stood with authority over the treasure. A breeze came up suddenly, blowing his robes behind him, causing the tail of his turban to rise and flutter in the wind. “Allahu Akbar,” he whispered, raising his mattock high over his head. “God is great.” As if guided by fate, or pushed by the powerful hand of God Himself, the mattock dropped through the air and fell upon the jar, shattering it into countless jagged pieces.
It seemed as though Muhanna’s heart stopped beating for a moment, as he and the others peered into the shards of red stone. Just then, as the wind began to howl through the cliffs and echo through the empty tombs, something stirred from within the jar.
Muhanna dropped his mattock to the ground as he and his company involuntarily stepped away from the broken jar. A few dropped to their knees in fear. Great dismay covered their upturned faces as they watched a plume of gold rise from the remnants of clay. The mysterious form twisted and sparkled as it stretched into the sky. For a few dazzling seconds it lingered, glittering in the bright sunlight. Then, in a breath, it was gone.
In the near distance, ten riders on camels watched the frightening scene at the boulders. Their eyes were riveted on a shimmering funnel of gold. They pulled up their camels sharply and watched in fear and awe. Their camels shifted nervously as the men looked back and forth between each other, wordlessly. As the gold plume rose into the sky, they saw their enemies kneeling at its feet.
Abu al-Yassid drew his face into a dark scowl. What evil magic was at hand? Did the al-Samara command it? Or did this shimmering spirit rule them? It mattered not. Abu would not tarry with such a thing in the wind. The al-Yassid leader turned his camel toward home, hiding his rage in the dark creases of his heart. Vengeance would come another day.
As the golden plume dissipated and the wind calmed to a mild breeze, Muhanna approached the broken jar and peered inside. There, amidst the clay and dust, he found no gold, no silver, no coins or gems. There was only a pile of books, bound in leather, with golden scraps of papyrus dancing in the air. The treasure of Muhanna Ali al-Samara, and his coveted new prosperity, lay in the sand in a disappointing heap of paper and broken pottery.
