CHARACTERS:

GAZVAN Reis-ul-Berid, Chief of Police
AL HALLAJ Poet, philosopher, and heretic
RABIYA Dancer and Gazvan’s lover
ABU TANABIYA Physician and old learned man
IBN TEVAB Berid and Gazvan’s assistant
GRAND VIZIER Main ruler in the city
PRINCE HASSAN Al-Hallaj’s protector
MANSUR Prisoner turned into Al-Hallaj
AR-RAZI Old philosopher and teacher of the faith
AR-RAZI’S GRANDSON Boy of seven
SUFYAN Wealthy merchant, Al-Hallaj’s friend and host
IBN SABAH Prince Hassan’s man and guard
MAHMUD Sufyan’s neighbor
DZAFER Gazvan’s servant and latter berid

SERVANTS, GUARDS, BERIDS, PORTERS, FISHERMEN, MERCHANTS WEDDING GUESTS, DANCERS, AND ALL KINDS OF OTHER SCAM IN THE FORTRESS.

NOTES:

The original Al-Hallaj's poems used in the play are borrowed from: "The death of All-Hallaj" by Herbert Mason University of Notre Dame Press, 1979.

This version is based on translation by Slobodan Drakulic with Patrizia Albanese. Toronto, 1998.

1. EXT. TWILIGHT. BAGHDAD 922 A.D. A NARROW STREET LEADING TO THE FORTRESS. THE FROTRESS SERVES AS A POLICE QUARTERS AND PRISON AS WELL GAZVAN NERVOUSLY AND IMPATIENTLY WALKS TOWARDS THE FORTRESS, WHILE RABIYA FOLLOWS HIM TWO STEPS BEHIND.

2. INT. TWILIGHT. GAZVAN AND RABIYA ENTER THE FORTRESS AND STRAT CLIBING DOWN NARROW STAIRS. GAZVAN IS TAKING RABYNA INTO THE LOWER PART OF THE FORTRESS WHERE APPEARS TO BE THE PRISON. SHE CARRIES A BUNDLE AND SOME KIND OF A TRAVELING BAG. THEY ARRIVE AT THE CENTER OF THE HUGE MOSQUE LIKE CIRLCE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE FORTERESS. THEY ARE SURROUNDED BY CIRCULAR ROWS OF CELLS THAT GO ALL THE WAY UP TO THE CELING WHERE THERE IS A SMALL WINDOW OF LIGHT.

RABIYA
Why did you bring me here? You told me we were going away.

GAZVAN
I had to come here first.

RABIYA
Why did you have to?

GAZVAN
Because I can always find peace and self-confidence here.

RABIYA
In this prison?

GAZVAN
This is my garden Rabiya. Look around.

RABIYA
You have a lot of strange plants growing here.

GAZVAN
Don't make fun of me, Rabiya. Everything is a mess anyway. I have been building this place for years here. I thought it will be a marvelous world. I wanted to create a world of order, to create a world in which everything is delineated and clear, where any chaos or disorder is punished as a crime.

RABIYA
Oh, this garden is so precise, Gazvan.

GAZVAN
Look up there. That is the seventh layer. I call it the gathering point. It looks a place where we all will arrive on our way to the other world. We will wait for our trial to take place there. After that we will be sent to paradise or to hell. You see, there dwell together the petty thieves and terrible murderers, petty cheats and notorious robbers. All sorts of scum.

Look down there. The sixth layer has no cells, because there are those who have offended their neighbors and guests, or have offended someone in a public place. After they have been cramped all together there, they have to learn how to relate to their neighbors or relatives.

In the fifth layer you have only petty street pickpockets and thieves. Before they were locked up for theft they had one hand cut off. They are not being fed here. They have to steal it the way they used to do that their whole lives. And the one who manages to steal some food from the pot has to give it to his neighbor.

RABIYA
A black, fatal blotch ... and yet... A blotch upon an over-indulgent world, a world without limitations and prohibitions which does not remember how to fast.

GAZVAN
Underneath it are those who had sinned against the faith, but not so badly that they would become a case for the Ulema to deal with. It is better for a society to have many criminals than to have many heretics.

GAZVAN TURNS TO THE OTHER SIDE SHOWING THE BOTTOM OF THE PRISON

And there, at the very bottom, at the deepest level are those sentenced to death and awaiting for it. Each one is locked up in a separate cell and they will be there for life. They cannot get out at all.

RABIYA
Lord has seven heavenly worlds and you have seven floors of the prison cellar. Your cellar garden is as almighty as the divine gardens.

GAZVAN
Prince Hassan told me the same and made fun of me in front of the Grand Vizier. I am afraid Rabiya. I am terribly afraid.

RABIYA
Why? What are you afraid of?

GAZVAN
I don't know. With all my knowledge I struggled to bring in order, peace and serenity. I wanted to be just a faithful servant on guard of people's peaceful sleep. But everything has gone awry. Everything is upside down. I think my head is going to burst.

RABIYA
I will play for you the way I used to do in my quarters. That will bring you peace and tranquility.

GAZVAN
No, not now, please. I could not stand it tonight.

RABIYA
Why Gazvan? Why do you punish me.

GAZVAN
I am not punishing you. I simply cannot stand it. I am afraid it could finish me off.

RABIYA TAKES CANDLE STICK AND JASMIN INCENSE FROM HER BAG AND LIHGHS THEM UP. SHE TAKES GAZVAN'S HAND AND STARTS TO GENTLY MASSAGE IT.

RABIYA
What is happening to you Gazvan? What is happening to us?

GAZVAN
All kinds of things. So much that even I don't know what.

RABIYA
What does that mean?

GAZVAN
The world is falling apart. I need a clear structures and firm boundaries. I need a world in which the sun shines during daytime and moon shines at night, not the other way around.

RABIYA
Would you like to get some air outside?

GAZVAN
No. It will soon be dark outside. I need light and security and good visibility.

RABIYA
Help me to understand you….What is the matter with your hands?

GAZVAN
You know very well what it is.

PULLS HIS HANDS OUT OF HERS AND TRIES TO HIDE THEM UNDER HIS BODY

GAZVAN
Don't you see? The broken fingers knots.

RABIYA
And what is this?

RABIYA POINTS AT HIS BROKEN FINGER KNOT

GAZVAN
That is a souvenir. From Basra. From hand-breaking. They broke my hands, finger by finger, joint by joint. My feet are like that too.

RABIYA
But why?

GAZVAN
I don't know. There was something. I don’t know what. They locked me up and tortured me. And then everything was cleared, so the Vizier brought me here with him. My people were breaking my bones.

RABIYA
Did it hurt?

GAZVAN
A lot.

RABIYA
Were you scared?

GAZVAN
I was, but not of pain. I feared something else. I do not know what. I fear everything around here. I fear everything. I am afraid of this world.

RABIYA
You, who brought peace to this city, you are afraid?

GAZVAN
Yes, I am.

RABIYA
Tell me, what is it? I will go beg Prince Hassan. He will certainly hear me out if I drop on the floor in front of his knees and beg him.

GAZVAN
I am not afraid of him. He has been digging my grave for a long time, but I do not fear him.

RABIYA
What do you fear then?

GAZVAN
I fear that I am losing my mind. I fear something in me, something very terrible. I actually do not know any more who I am or what I am.

RABIYA
What happened to you?

GAZVAN
Are you afraid of my longing for a prison that levels itself out? Are you afraid of my longing for a world without differences? Are you afraid of my wish for the snow to fall and cover everything up?

RABIYA
No.

GAZVAN
I am. I have just discovered that, and I am horrified. Now I am in fear of myself and for myself.

RABIYA
Come on, you just remember what happened and everything will be better.

GAZVAN
No, I cannot. Believe me. I try to remember. To remember it all as it happened. But I can't.

RABIYA
What is wrong?

GAZVAN
As if the whole world is falling on my head. I try to remember the terror that has crept into me...deep in... A mean terror I carry in myself ever since those prison days in Basra when I sensed that something threatens me. It is not the loss of position or the breaking of fingers, nor time in a dungeon or horrible death... This fear comes to me as a sensation I felt then, in that cellar, and it comes to me steadily. I fear because I fear that it takes the form and inner light from all my acts. I am afraid. I am terribly afraid. I am afraid Raaabiyaaa... What is going on here?

3. INT. DAY. IN THE MOSQUE ON THE MAIN SQUARE. NOON PRAYER WITH A RITUAL SUFI DANCE. AL-HALLAJ IN A DISTANCE RECITES ONE OF HIS POEMS AND DANCES RITUALLY. DANCERS AND BELIEVERS ARE IN ECSTASY AND THEIR CIRCULAR DANCE IS IN CULMINATION. SUDDENLY, ALL OF THEM STOP LIKE FROZEN IN THEIR PLACES. A BLACK BIRD FLYS ABOVE THEM. AS IF DEATH JUST CAME IN. SLOWLY, WITH CAREFUL STEPS, THEY WIND THEIR WAY TOWARDS THE EXITS. THE BELIVERS SCARED TO DEATH FOLLOW THE BIRDS GOING OUT IN THE GARDEN.

4. EXT. DAY. THE GARDEN. SIX BODIES HAVE BLOSSOMED ON THE OLD TREE IN THE MOSQUE GARDEN. THE CROWD IS SHOCKED AND TERRIFIED.

FIRST BELIEVER
What is going on here?

SECOND B
Tell me what is going on here?

THIRD B
Who are these people?

FOURTH B
I don't know. I have never seen something like this before.

FIRST BWhat is going on among us, people?

THIRD B
Those people were looking very strange.

SECOND B
And they seem to be very poor.

FIFTH B
Listen people, this is a bad omen.

FIRST B
Who are those hanged people there? Does anybody know?

FOURTH B

Such a horrific deed in a mosque garden.

FIRST B
What is going on with us?

FIFTH B
I am telling you that this is a bad omen. This is a sign of Satan.

SECOND B
Something bad will happen. There will be drought. And terrible famine.

THIRD B
No, That is a sign of war and flood.

FOURTH B
Six of them at the same time and on the same tree.

THIRD B
And why right here, in the sacred place and during the noon prayer?

SECOND B
A bad sign for sure.

FIFTH B

This is a sign of Satan. I know. Only he could do this.

FIRST B
I know. The locust will fly in from all sides and destroy the earth - they will destroy the whole world.

FOURTH B
Hard times are coming.

FROM SEVERAL DIRECTIONS ARMED GUARDS ARRIVE LEAD BY TEVAB. PEOPLE PULL BACK AWAY FROM THEM AND THE HANGED PEOPLE. GUARDSMEN FORM A SEMI-CIRCLE IN ORDER TO DELINIATE THE CROWD FROM THE TREE. TEVAB TRIES TO FIND OUT WHO ARE THOSE PEOPLE HANGING THERE ON THE PALM. THE BERIDS [GURADS] RECOGNIZE ONE OF THE BODIES. THEY BRING IN THREE FISHERMEN WHO CONFIRM THAT THIS WAS THE FAMILY OF HUSSAIN IBN HASSAN, THEIR NEIGHBOR.

5. INT. DAY. THE GRAND VIZIER'S BATH-HOUSE. IT IS STEAMY AND HOT. THE VIZIER AND GAZVAN SWEAT AND NAKED LAY ON THE OLD MARBLE STONE BADS AND PLAY CHESS

VIZIER
Hard times are coming, my dear. Very hard... You are a powerful man, Gazvan...and powerful people have to be cautious, because they invoke envy and hatred in others. To be cautious means to be aware of what is going on around you, to know what people in your vicinity are thinking and doing, to know who is with whom and who is against whom - simply, to know everything. And as you are not just the Captain of Guards, but also a Reis-ul-Berid - and that is a huge honor and obligation - it is therefore your obligation to be cautious. Your works are important and the seats you sit upon are high, and therefore you have to know everything - even what other people cannot know. You simply have to know everything.

GAZVAN
Why are you telling me all this?

VIZIER
Because the times are precarious. Everything is somehow hanging up in the air, uncertain. Trade is not doing well and there are all kinds of problems. Harvests are not very bountiful. People are complaining and even though there was no turmoil, at least so far, it is coming. Nobody even notices that all kinds of people have piled up in the cities. Vagabonds and vagrants who pretend that they are poets and teachers of faith, thinkers and philosophers, learned people orators and readers of the Book - while they are in fact liars, vagrants and infidels.

All kinds of bad times are in the making in the foggy times like these, so you have to be cautious. Times like these breed the ones who are preparing and calling out for troubles, but it is not yet the right time to take them on. The ones who do not know what to do with themselves because of being bored and idle - they are the ones who begin to think.

And all those wise and saintly men of faith who write poems and give public speeches, who are they? Great sages and preachers, or liars, extortionists and vagrants? They have traveled around the world and learned how to corrupt and confuse the people. They know many people, so they know what the people wants and what it fears. Those have to be dealt with in time. They should be jailed, isolated, exiled or deported. This city and the whole world should be cleansed of them, because it will be too late if they end up bringing us evil times. And the Ulema cannot do everything. The best thing to do is to figure out a crime to pin on them and remove them quietly, instead of declaring them to be the heretics, or else some of those they have fooled might see them as the martyrs of faith and heroes. It is always better to have many wrongdoers than many heretics. The existence of many heretics may lead many people to think that faith is not one and universal. And a people without a real and unified faith is a bad people. It is actually not a people at all.