There lived a magnificent king called Kafur in Kabul. He was a wise men, a scholar. He used to introspect on every dream, thought, conversation and was eternally in search of the divine TRUTH.
One night he had a dream that his son Tawfiq, the apple of his eyes, had suddenly died. His pain and suffering was so intense that could have died. Suddenly, he woke with a start. Once he realized that it was just a dream, his joy was so powerful that he thought he could have died of his happiness. The next day, king Kafur thought hard about human emotions. He came to the conclusion that human beings are victims to the crests and troughs of their emotions. As he took a walk in his garden, he realized the fickleness of the human mind. How easy it was for humankind to get swayed by the intensity of dreams and reality!The King also realized that life was fickle so he decided to get his son married so that he could have a grandchild soon.
On the other side of Kabul, there lived a ninety year woman called Aliya. During her youth, she was quite a sensation and had many affairs. She never married. Now when she was old, she was all alone and longed for company. Though her body was old, she was young at heart and wished for a young lover for herself! She went under the knife and undertook several procedures to make herself more attractive. She used to dress up as a bride, put on make-up and used the best perfume oils from Europe. Alas, no matter how hard she tried, the age would show! She resolved to have her way by hook or by crook!
To appear spiritual, she memorized several aayats from Holy Koran to entice prospective companions. However, during conversations her shallowness would often show itself revealing her true nature. Aliya was told by her friends about the handsome prince Tawfiq. Aliya decided that she had to win over Tawfiq come what may!
Tawfiq was a young man but with an old soul. Whenever he happened to meet Aliya, he could see through her and make a hasty exit. Frustrated, Aliya invoked Satan to give her beauty and youth and help her trap Tawfiq.
Even Satan wanted to stay away from Aliya! But Aliya persisted for months. Finally, Satan, just to get Aliya off her back, relented. He gave her a vial of magic dust which when sprinkledon Tawfiq, would make him fall in love with her. It would work only if Tawfiq would let his guard down and let materialism creep in.
King Kafur meanwhile found the perfect bride for his son. In a distant corner of his kingdom, he found a sufi’s daughter who was known for her beauty, wisdom and humility. She was a symbol of all that is good and divine in each one of us and had a large heart and a balanced head.
On the way for his wedding, Tawfiq passed by Aliya on the streets of Kabul. He was lost in the thoughts of his bride and didn’t notice as Aliya splinkled the magic dust on him. He immediately stopped his horse, got down and was instantly smitten with Aliya. Like a spider, Aliya had him caught in her web.
King Kafur and Tawfiq’s bride waited and waited but the price did not turn up. Once the King got to know of what happened to his son, he was distraught. He sent several angry messages to his son but Tawfiq refused to come back. The King agonized and fell into a depression. The trees around him began to shed leaves, the rivers dried up as if the whole kingdom was mourning the spiritual downfall of the prince.
Tawfiq was unable to extricate himself from Aliya’s clutches. He had madly fallen for the witch of Kabul. He thought his father was just an old fool with lot of spiritual mumbo jumbo. What did he know about the joys of the world? Life was for living to the fullest and in Aliya’s company, he found all the pleasures of the world!
An year passed and Tawfiq’s bride waited patiently for the prince to return. The King sunk into an overpowering grief and forgot all about his learnings on human emotions and detachment. One night, he had a dream again and saw himself entering the door to death. As he was stepping in, he suddenly woke up and realized that just as his son was in the clutches of the witch, he was in the clutches of his own grief. He was just as misguided as his son!
He got up, and went in to the center of his being and surrendered himself and his son to GOD Almighty. “You have willed it to happen. How could this happen without your will? I surrender myself and my son to your will!”
King Kafur gave up all attempts to get his son back. He prayed and left everything to GOD. One night, King Kafur saw a light coming towards him. King knew help had arrived from the one who could fight Satan’s black magic. A deadly battle ensued between the good and the evil and as always, finally evil was defeated. Tawfiq was liberated from Aliya’s trap. As the prince woke up, he saw the old witch shorn of all her magic. He immediately felt ashamed of himself but surrendered his foolishness to the divine who had willed it to happen.
Tawfiq immediately felt pity at this old woman who was unable to overcome her worldly needs and turn towards the spiritual wealth that was for anyone to dip into. “I am leaving now, he said looking at Aliya in a way in which nobody had ever looked at her. There was such kindness in that look that Aliya felt acceptance for herself as a human being for the first time. Though her heart was full of sorrow and grief, she knew that in time she would be able to accept the truth about her decaying body and surrender to the love of GOD.
Prince Tawfiq came back to the palace and fell at his father’s feet. “Forgive me O Father, for I have erred.” The King replied, “So have I” wiping his and his son’s tears.
“I was under the spell of the witch of Kabul”, said the prince. “The world is the witch of Kabul, my son and it is our job to tread the path of truth!”
The END
Discussion points
1. King Kafur is a wise man. He is aware of the yoyoing of human emotions to the extremes of happiness and sadness.Yet, he begins to take the extremes of human emotions as the reality of life and falls into the pit of extreme grief and is unable and unwilling to come out. This happens to most of us. Even though we know the momentariness of our sufferings, we are unable to shrug them off.
2. King Kafur is deeply attached to his son. As Tawfiq falls victim to the black magic of Aliya, king Kafur falls into theinsurmounatable depths of grief and sorrow. His attachments to his son make him blind to his own responsibilities towards his kingdom. Even a learned man like him is unable to get over his deep attachment and believes that he ‘owns’ Tawfiq and must control his destiny. In reality, all of us come from the divine and the DIVINE takes care of all of his creation without fail!
3. Most often, wisdom is not permanent. Only sages have been able to convert pride into humility and unite with the supreme wisdom permanently. King Kafur seems to have these flashes of brilliance when he seems to rise about the crassness of human emotions. Before long, he falls downagain, only to rise again towards the end of the story. This is true for most of us in our journey to discover ourselves.We keep falling in our lives. The long journeys back up belong only to those who persevere, who have faith. Soon they discover that with practice, the depths of the falls become smaller and smaller and the sufferings reduce over time. Those who give up end up wasting this incarnation.
4. Even a righteous price like Tawfiq, ever cautious, has a momentary slip and falls into the trap laid by Aliya. We may blame Aliya, Satan or circumstances. The fact is that all our experiences are sent to us by the same power who made us. Even our bad experiences have a purpose. The bad experiences are necessary to test us so that we can improve and proceed forward on our JOURNEY.
5. Aliya signifies the entrapments of this world. On our journey, we meet and fall for several such traps. Aliya signifies the illusions that makes all the unworthy things so desirable.
6. King Kafur eventually surrenders his son to the will of the Almighty. We all must eventually do so or we die raging like Hamza in the “Let Justice to done’ story. As soon as the king surrenders his son to his own destiny, help arrives.
Story Credit: this story has its source in the six volumes that comprise the Mathnawi of Jalalu’din Rumi, edited and translated by Reynold A. Nicholson ( Cambridge, England, 1982)
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