"Jewel of the Nile" on AMC now

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

There are some things that aren't off the wall-namely the Jewel of the Nile himself. He is patterened after the dervishes of India, who were often allowed to live in the palace with the ruler. There is the story of one dervish, a madzoob (God-crazed person) who would play with a toy cannon in the garden. Wherever the dervish pointed the cannon, the ruler would fortify his borders, for inevitably it meant a threat from one of his neighbors was coming from that direction.

The Jewel is like a dervish in this way, but is really more like a an advanced Murshid, or teacher. Some of them were known not only for their wisdom, but for their miracles. There's a story that a young man asked to be a student of a Murshid. The Teacher told him to eat a strict vegetarian diet. The student's mother, walking by the Murshid's house, noticed that the Teacher was feasting on chicken. The mother admonished him, asking why the Teacher wasn't setting an example. The Murshid put the cover on the chicken and after a moment raised it; a live chicken flew away. "When your son can do that...."

But the Sufis, other than being wild, aren't really that much like Sufis I know. The music-hey, Sufis are KNOWN for music-but except for my late brother Hassan, they aren't known for juggling!