Just what the doctor ordered

“We all flow from one fountain.”—John Muir“The sound of water is worth more than all the poets' words.”—Octavio PazWhen surveying the maze-like Grand Bazaar in Fez, Morocco the souk, already a trading emporium for 800 years—you don’t generally plan on buying anything substantial. Maybe a shawl or two, a shiny serving tray, pretend-gold earrings, perhaps a pair of curved daggers–all trinkets, really. If so inspired, maybe you will find room for the trip back home for one of the heavier ornate chess sets, your choice of Crusaders vs, Ottomans, as either white or black, onyx or stone. The tagines, the overdecorated conical pots for serving stews, are arresting in their own way, but then you remember luggage constraints—and the ceramic will likely break en route.The traditional Moroccan rugs are certainly versatile. Handwoven by Berber tribes (from the word barbaros, barbarians) from the Middle Atlas Mountains, these sheep’s wool rugs sort of look like the weavers ran out of yarn in the middle. The designs are asymmetrical, austere, minimalist—befitting a semi-nomadic people.Yet, just when I thought I had accumulated enough to certify my visit–the excess explosions of colour, pleasant but unidentifiable scents, the plaintive invitations of vendors, all while trying not to step on stray but welcome cats–that’s when I saw it.Certainly, it was not as grand as the monumental marble fountain in the courtyard of the King Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca, inaugurated in 1993–with its towering minarets shining green laser beams eastwards towards the holy land. The mosque, more a statement of grandiosity than fervent belief, appears to be battling the Atlantic Ocean, as it’s half-perched over water.But as I lingered in that craftsman’s shop, my bargaining position now gone, the vendor sensing a possible sale, my wife appalled that I could even consider it, a deep memory was stirred. A recollection from the subterranean refuges of my mind, my psychic basement, long buried, rose up to greet me.Read: Dr. Shafiq Qaadri: The quiet appointmentAl-AndalusAs a teenager, I had visited Al-Andalus, the south of Spain, site of the glory of Moorish civilization, especially the city of Granada. In the fateful year of 1492, the Spanish crown reconquered the city—the Reconquista—and began the desolation of structures and exile of the population. It was the end of the Moors’ 800-year reign. Still, a few things have come down to us. The Spaniards found a special “apple” to their liking, then called pommes de grenade, now pomegranates.When King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile came upon the Alhambra Palace, they decreed that it should not be destroyed. They realized that the palace was too beautiful to lose, to allow the marauding soldiers to decimate. I thank them for this last-minute reprieve. Indeed, the entire Alhambra complex is situated on a commanding hill, as if it’s merely visiting, earthbound for a moment, yet ready to reascend skyward.Washington Irving, author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, made famous by Disney, recounts his 1832 visit in Tales of the Alhambra:How unworthy is my scribbling of the place! Here, where the air breathes of departed greatness, and where every arch, every court, and every broken wall speaks of poetry and romance. . . . The very architecture, so light and fantastic, seems to have been devised by fairy hands. It is a place where the fictions of the poet appear to have become realities.In the Courtyard of the Lions—Patio de los Leones—there is a multi-point fountain. In the midst of the intricately carved pavilions, water still flows from the twelve sculpted lions 750 years on. The whole effect is ethereal, ineffable, and category-creating. Under the blazing sun, feeling an untraceable cooling, as if you yourself were inside an eternal life size sculpture, you have been offered a transcendent glimpse of absolute Beauty. For me, it was the imprinting of a spiritual realm; it was a foundational/fountational moment. ‘My brother, special price’Having a fountain in the middle of a courtyard, indoors or out, set a pattern for Islamic architecture for twenty generations—including, it turns out, mine. It was the memory of that mystical experience that I carried. That transient view of the sublime resurfaced after so many years in a craftsman’s shop in an unremarkable corner of a market in the Maghreb, North Africa.“For you, my brother, special price,” the Arab shopkeeper, wearing his traditional long robes, promised. I had already violated the generally accepted rules of bargain-hunting. By staring at the one item you actually want, betraying your interest, I had de facto surrendered my authority. “Yes, credit card. But Amarikan dollars better,” Sulaiman stressed.When I accepted his special invitation to see how the fountain was, in fact, handmade by his craftsmen in the back workshop, everyone got excited. Another one bites the dust—it was the seller’s day. Spiced teas with spearmint leaves were summoned for us, Berber rugs were laid down for our tourist feet, and stools—also available for purchase--were brought out.“Kanaada? That is . . . far . . . but I do best to ship,” Sulaiman assured me. “You are my brother now.”In this 24/7 world, when Uber Eats can deliver a single latte to your doorstep in minutes, watching these craftsmen toil was transporting—and even saddening. How could they possibly survive in the modern, assembly-line age? Their production schedule? Once we selected the mosaic pattern from tile samples, it would take eight weeks—maybe—to hand carve, with possible delays for festivals. There were no prefabricated slabs, no instructions, no Allen wrenches, no drills; Ikea it was not. Every small, coloured stone, somehow intuitively plucked from assorted plastic buckets by the workers, the emerging pattern memorized, was chiselled and affixed into place one by one—hundreds of them. It was poetry in motion. Sulaiman didn’t seem to have a firm idea of the exact final weight, but I estimated the 4-foot by 4-foot fountain to be at least 300 pounds, which rather exceeds the checked baggage limit. To speed things up, multiple craftsmen worked on different parts of the fountain simultaneously. To a North American, used to deadlines, who urges productivity on others and himself, who measures output per unit time, it was otherworldly, not-to-be-believed, from another era—frankly, insane.In my studyIn my study, as I let myself be lulled by the delicate trickle and splashing of water, it occurs to me that for people living near deserts, being near a source of constant waterflow is life-affirming. Water was not decoration. It is even said that some of our next wars will be fought over water. The scriptures themselves repeatedly affirm water as a blessing:The Lord will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail… (Isaiah 58:11)And We made from water every living thing. Then will they not believe?(Qur’an 21:30)O Waters, ye are life: ye are the mighty support of all that moveth, flowing as a generous stream, ye bestow prosperity and vitality (Rig Veda 10)We come from water, we gestate in water, most of our body—70 percent—is water; so is the earth. Maybe the comforting gurgle, the personal peace that I feel, is deeper. Perhaps there is an ancient memory from our primordial past, old as time, buried in our genes, that flowing water speaks to and soothes. The pattern is the pointThus, the secular ascends to the spiritual. The lovely stone patterns, so laboriously assembled by the Moroccan craftsmen, signify meaningfully. This too is not mere decoration; the pattern is the point. The designs, like those gracing thousands of structures in the East, are Arabesque complex, repeated geometric patterns, resplendent with intricate lines, always flowing, with no beginning nor end. What they are supposed to embody is the infinity of the universe and the deep structure of a higher realm. The endlessly repeating motifs are supposed to echo, to reify—at any and all scales—the handiwork of the master artisan. The fountain is a physical expression, an invocation, of old ideas; it is a spiritualized artifact, a reminder of origins, resonant with culture and one’s dreamscape.Thank you, Sulaiman, my brother—it was just what the doctor ordered.…Dr. Shafiq Qaadri is a Toronto physician.

Just what the doctor ordered

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