My World: Waiting for my Flight....

[fahim mohammed]

​

It was evening. I was early. I gazed outside the lounge window. The lights reflected of the glass.
I stared at them.

I was young. The afternoon sun felt blinding and hot. I must have been 13 or 14 years old.
A crowd had gathered outside. My friends and I ran towards the crowd to see what was happening.
I was trying to see over the heads of the people. Jumping. Moving from one place to another; to get a better view.
Someone seemed to have been hurt. Help was at hand. There were around 20 hospitals nearby.

Abdullah, tapped me on the shoulder. ' look, look there ', he said. It is him.
We had heard about the person in class. He was very learned. Very well known. A renowned scholar. Gifted, brilliant but famous for being a humble person.
He was dressed in clothes personally designed by Abu al-Hasan Ali bin Nafi. We knew about the designer but way, way above our means.

We stared at the Scholar. He was trying very hard not to be recognized.
He too was watching the medical personnel providing aid to the man lying on the ground.

I turned to Abdullah. ' Why is he here in the sun? ' I asked.
A shrug of the shoulders. ' Come on, lets go home '.

We passed the beauty parlors, coffee shops, the designer clothes windows, the barber salons and the beauty parlors. My city had been transformed by Abu al-Hasan Ali.
Fashion, etiquette, style, had been introduced. My city's fame had traveled far and wide.

Some said that my town ( now a city ) was the center of science, music, art, literature, medicine and philosophy.
I don't know. I was very young.

I walked slowly back, wondering why he was in the crowd.
Qurtuba, Al-Andalus. Long time ago. A.D. 852. My home.

To be continued.

 

[Asher Kelman]

C.E. 850 was a blink ago, so I can imagine him there too!

I never forget the route by which philosophy, science, medicine, engineering, math, calligraphy, spices and the finest poetry was inoculated into flabbergasted nobles lives.

There weren’t even European equivalents for the vocabulary needed to grasp this new knowledge!

If the immense libraries of Alexandria had not been destroyed, previously by fire, the body of knowledge might have been ten fold! Still, Europe was educationally limited beyond poetry of the Romans, making steel and tapestry and the skills to build castles and churches!

The revolution in grasping mapping, geography, astronomy, geo-location from the stars for exploration on the oceans and all manner of science and logic from the ancients was mostly new to Europe!

This turned the nobles sense of “self” as elites, upside down in their armored castles and gardens of Europe, responsible as they were for countrysides of potatoe-fed indentured peasants and cities with trades-folk who, may have feasted on pork and oats, but could barely read!

Asher

 

[Jerome Marot]

This turned the nobles sense of “self” as elites, upside down in their armored castles and gardens of Europe, responsible as they were for countrysides of potatoe-fed indentured peasants

Potatoes came from the Americas and would not have been known in Europe in 850. I am leaving these here as the introduction of new foods from the Americas to the Old World is an event which also changed the world...

 

[Asher Kelman]

Potatoes came from the Americas and would not have been known in Europe in 850. I am leaving these here as the introduction of new foods from the Americas to the Old World is an event which also changed the world...

Thanks for the correction, Jerome. A very important point!

Funny, I did have a strange twinge of reserve when I wrote that!

Asher