The Significance of the Traveller in Amin Maalouf's Leo, the African: Self, Other and Identity in the Early Modern Mediterranean.

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.) 

Bibliography.

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 1^st 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.

Plutarch  (c 75 AD) Plutarch's Lives.  Translated by Bernadotte Perrin. Reprint.  London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1919. Perseus Digital Library. [ Online] Available at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0243%3Achapter%3D1%3Asection%3D

Zemon Davis. N. (2007.) Trickster Travels: The Search for Leo Africanus. Faber and Faber Limited. London.