The Mediterranean
Sea is one which ‘separates and links at the same time…a sea that knows the
pleasure of leaving but also that of returning’ (Cassano 2008 p370.) This
internal sea has facilitated travel between three continents for millennia, and the
‘traveller’ features largely in the history and mythology of the Mediterranean
world. Arguably, the greatest of these are Moses, Odysseus and Alexander the
Great whose stories all involve conflict, encounters with different cultures
and centrally, an important journey.
In Leo the African, Amin Maalouf portrays
the early modern Mediterranean world through the travels of the merchant and diplomat, Hassan Ibn Muhammad al Wazzan al Fasi. It will be argued
that three types of people who travel are represented in the novel and can be
related to the three great Mediterranean figures. The refugees in Leo the African, like Moses, are focused on a single identity
centred on one land. The conquerors or would-be conquerors, like Alexander,
have the sole aim of imposing their power and identity on others. I will argue that Hasan is neither of these
types but an essential traveller, shrewd and articulate, who overcomes
adversity through diplomacy and dissimilation much more like Odysseus. Using the
theories of self discussed by Maalouf in On
Identity (2000) and Franco Cassano in ’Mediterranean Thinking’ (2008,) I
shall explore the notion of the traveller as one who embraces and makes use of
plurality, hybridity and diversity.
Maalouf’s novel begins with the fall of Granada in 1492 in which Islam lost its
last foothold in Europe. Catholic Spain called this victory a ‘reconquest’ of
Christian land but Henry Kamen demonstrates that, of all Europe, Spain had been
the most ‘profoundly Muslim,’ and for
nearly eight hundred years (2007 p53.)
Granada’s fall led to great multitudes of Jewish and Muslim exiles fleeing
forced conversion and persecution. The
family of Leo Africanus (as I shall call the historical personage) was amongst
them. Bernadette Andrea describes him as ‘The prototypical liminal subject on
the borders of Arabic and Italian, Islam and Christianity, Africa and Europe’(1999
p16.)
Chambers asserts that ‘The
polylinguistic and polycultural composition of the Mediterranean encourages a
reshuffling of the usual cards of national belonging and partisanship’ (2008 p32.) In ‘On
Identity’ Maalouf argues that identity and self is formed from each
individual’s unique mix of religious,
social and cultural allegiances but that we frequently ascribe collective
qualities to others (2000.p18.) This way of looking at people ‘imprisons them
within their own narrowest allegiances’ (p19.) Maalouf argues that we also confine ourselves to one aspect of
identity when we feel that part is threatened (12.)
We
see this in ‘The Book of Granada.’ When Muslim Salma, Christian Warda and Jewish Sarah
bond over the female business of pregnancy their
collective identity at this time is ‘subordinated woman’ and the ‘other’ is
‘patriarchal man.’ Sarah says “For us, the women of Granada, freedom is a
deceitful form of bondage, and slavery a subtle form of freedom” (1988 p6.)
Together they are able to temporarily deny Muhammad sexual access to Salma and
Warda. However, when the persecution of
the Jews begins, Salma recalls Sarah’s shouting ‘“Do you think that such a fate
could befall your people here in Granada?” She gave me a look which seemed full
of hatred’ (p50.) Now Sarah is a Jew, Salma a temporarily privileged Muslim and
Christian Castile is the dangerous ‘other.’
In the Exodus story, central to all three
religions in the novel, ‘self’ is clearly defined as one people and ‘other’ is
anyone else. God tells Moses ‘(O)ut of all nations you will be my treasured
possession ‘(19:5.) Be careful not to make a treaty with those
who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you’
(34:12.) We see this separatism in the Granadan exiles. A diaspora community
lives in Fez and assimilation is not an aim. ‘On the left is the quarter of the
Andalusians, founded centuries ago by
emigrants from Cordoba’ (p82. My emphasis.) It is significant that, to
Moses, the
Mediterranean Sea serves as a border to
the Promised Land and is described as the ‘utmost sea’ (Deuteronomy 34:2) The
sea is the limit beyond which is nothing of concern. Cassano describes a
mentality he calls ‘fundamentalism of the land’ which ‘chains men and women…
shreds their individualisation and prevents them from taking the road of the
sea, from leaving, from encountering other worlds’ (2008 p370.) Hasan’s respected traveller uncle says ‘The
only reason for their existence is the thought that soon… they will find their
house once again… all intact, unaltered… They live like this, they will die
like this, and their sons will do so after them (p122.)
However, for Hasan, ‘the discovery of Fez was
just beginning. We would uncover its layers veil by veil, like a bride in her
marriage chamber ‘(p109.) This imagery highlights the fact that the Mediterranean
traveller is male. Hasan’s first journey coincides with what is implied to be
his first sexual experience and with a slave girl. This mastery of travel and
women combines in a ‘coming of age.’ ‘I had left Fez in my uncle’s baggage
train, with no other function than to follow him, listen to him and learn… I
returned that year in charge of an unaccomplished mission…and the most
beautiful woman’(p166.)
Hasan has
sexual relationships with four very different women in the novel and in this he
is like Odysseus. Links can be made
between Fatima and Nausicaa the virgins confronted by alien male sexuality and
also between Hiba and Calypso the seductresses whose own desires are ambiguous. Nur, like Circe, is depicted as emasculating,
dangerous and powerful and perhaps the fact that she was the only woman who chose to enter a relationship with Hasan
is part of the threat she presents. Maddalena like Penelope, is an object of male
desire and a symbol of homecoming. ‘Her
hair had that deep blackness which only Andalus can distil… her breathing was
familiar to me (p303.)
Women are also seen to be victims of the
conquerors’ assertion of dominance over the conquered ‘others’ in the novel. The
Ottomans ‘gave themselves over to pillage and rape’ (p265) and ‘Nuns were raped
on the alters...before being strangled by laughing Lansquenets’ (p350.) It is
significant that ‘rape’ is so often paired with ‘pillage’ – the forcible theft
of property - and that there is particular outrage at the rape of nuns who
literally ‘belonged’ to the patriarchal Catholic Church. It suggests that the
pain, terror and violation felt by women is less meaningful than the insult to
their rightful male owners.
Plutarch, writing four hundred years after the
death of Alexander the Great, claims that Alexander himself did not participate
in the rapes committed by his armies, though his abstinence was not due to
empathy. ‘The
pleasures of the body had little hold upon him… sleep and sexual
intercourse …made him conscious that he was mortal… he did not covet pleasure,
nor even wealth, but excellence and fame… and wars and ambitions’ (4: 4-6)
Alexander was motivated by a single ideal, that of his own glory and even
divinity.
Numerous
characters in Leo the African are
shown to share Alexander’s disdain for material comforts or worldly pleasures
and to be solely motivated by glory or idealism. These include the ‘gaunt’ Astaghferullah
(138), ‘bony’ Hans (292), Adrian who ‘wants to make a perpetual fast out of
life (307)’ and the battle-worn and ragged Tumanbay and Barbarossa. The 'slim-waisted' Nur, significantly referred
to mostly by her defining identity ‘the Circassian,’ is solely focused upon
restoring her husband’s dynasty to her son . When Hasan deplores the eight
thousand deaths resulting from Tumanbay’s rebellion she says ‘Are not four days
of courage, four days of dignity, of defiance, worth more than four centuries
of submission?’(p270.)
Hasan’s later capitulation to Pope Leo suggests he thinks not.
When Nur asks Hasan ‘What substance are you made of
that you accept the loss of one town after another, one homeland after another…
without ever fighting… without ever looking back? Hasan replies ‘I go nowhere,
I desire nothing, I cling to nothing, I have faith in my passion for living, in
my instinct to search for happiness’ (p259.)
We see most clearly in what Hasan calls Nur’s
‘relentless obsession’ (p259) the ‘fundamentalism of the land’ as it applies to
‘self’ and ‘other.’ This form of fundamentalism ‘does not know shades and
complexities; it divides humanity into faithful ones and traitors’ (Cassano p370.) Hasan resists being tied to any single
identity or place but relishes shades and complexities. He delights in his
mixed identity - ‘a Maghribi, dressed in the Egyptian style, married to a
Circassian woman, the widow of an Ottoman amir, and who decorated his house
like a Christian ‘(p261!) He
describes having an ‘overwhelming urge’ (230) to dress in the fashion of
whichever country he is in and relates a ‘great sense of well-being’ at
becoming a ‘real Cairene notable’ (p230.) Travel represents freedom to him.
A caravan he says ‘ is a village, with
its stories, jokes, nicknames, intrigues, conflicts, reconciliations, nights of
singing and poetry, a village for which all lands are far away, even the land
one comes from, or the land one is crossing. I badly needed such distance’ (p150.)
Maalouf argues that ‘those
who cannot accept their own diversity may be among the most virulent of those
prepared to kill for the sake of identity’(2000 p31.) Those who accept their
mixed and multiple allegiances, he says, have a ‘special role to act as
bridges, go betweens, mediators between the various communities and cultures’
(p6.) Bernadette Andrea writes of the complexity of identity apparent in the
writing of the diplomat Leo Africanus’
describing his‘amphibian-like agency and multiple conversions’’(9.) She and Zemon Davis see significance in a
parable told by Africanus about a bird named Amphibia who would claim to be a
camel when taxes were demanded of birds and a bird when taxes were demanded of
camels! Africanus says ‘I will do likewise’ and describes foregrounding his
Granadan birth or African upbringing depending on public opinion to either
nationality (In Zemon Davis 2007 p110.)
The fictional Hasan is portrayed as a skilled
diplomat and in this, he is like Odysseus who excels in his role as ambassador
for the Atreidae.
Hasan finds himself speaking for the
Ottomans, the Circassians and the Medici papacy in this novel. Homer describes
Oddyseus as ‘a man of twists and turns’ (1:1) and says ‘resourceful Odysseus … grew up… to know every manner of shiftiness and
crafty counsels’ (3:200-3.) Hasan profits financially from the threatened
attack on Tafza at the same time as negotiating peace there (p189-91,) and
frequently uses his familiarity with different cultures to avoid danger. Top of Form Bottom of Form’I
was well aware of the strange morals of these nomads. They would kill a
believer without a moment’s hesitation …but an appeal to their generosity was
sufficient to transform them into considerate and attentive hosts ‘(p210.)
Hasan
perceives similarities and unities more than difference. He can approve of
Luther’s views on matters such as icons, celibacy and scriptural adherence
because ‘certain of them … brought back
to my memory a hadith of the Prophet Muhammad’(292) but his primary loyalty is
always to those who have shown him kindness. ‘In spite of these similarities, I
could not give my support to someone unknown to me at the expense of the man
who had taken me under his wing.’ (p292).
He is defined primarily by his humanism.
When
Hasan says of Adrian ‘May God curse him and all religious fanatics,’ (p308) he
articulates the dislike of extremism expressed throughout the novel.
In Leo the African members of several races, religions and nationalities define
‘self’ in relation to one aspect of identity and ‘other’ as everyone else.
Maalouf portrays mass murder and
horrific cruelties perpetrated or justified by conquering armies and fanatical
individuals upon those whom they consider ‘other’ for a variety of religious,
dynastic or geographical reasons. However, the traveller who explores and
adapts and embraces diversity and plurality of identity is shown to thrive,
survive, grow and prosper. Hasan, like Odysseus, adapts and learns and uses his
understanding to form relationships and escape danger. In this he represents
Maalouf’s argument against the concept of an ‘essence’ of self or single
affiliation ‘deep down inside’ (2000 p4.) Instead, Maalouf argues, the
individual is the product of his ‘whole journey through time as a free agent,
the beliefs he acquires in the course of that journey (and) his own individual
tastes, sensibilities and affinities’ (2000 p4.)
Andrea. B. (1999)‘Assimilation or Dissimulation? Leo
Africanus’s The Geographical History of
Africa; or, the Parable of ‘Amphibia.’’ Renaissance
Society of America. Available at:
http://ariel.synergiesprairies.ca
(Accessed 1st March 2013)
Cassano.F. (2008) ‘Mediterranean Thinking.’ In Cooke.
M. et al (eds) Mediterranean Passages. University
of North Carolina Press.
Chambers. I. (2008) Mediterranean Crossings: The Politics of an
Interrupted Modernity. Duke
University Press.
Deuteronomy, 34. King James Bible.
Exodus, 19 – 34. King James Bible.
Homer (c.750-700 BC)The Odyssey. Translated by Alexander Pope. Reprint 1725. (Kindle edition.) Available from Amazon.co.uk.
Kamen. H. (2007) The Disinherited: Exile and the Making of
Spanish Culture – 1492- 1975. HarperCollins Publishers. New York.
Maalouf. A. (1988) Leo
the African. Translated by Peter
Sluglett. Hachette Digital. London.
Maalouf. A. (2000) On
Identity. Translated by Barbara Bray. Harville Press. London.
Zemon Davis. N. (2007.) Trickster Travels: The Search
for Leo Africanus. Faber and Faber Limited. London.
