Week 8: Sufi Piety
Joseph and the Flood
For a short time in his life, Joseph lived in a small farming village beside a large river. Almost everyone in the village lived the simple life of a farmer along the plains of this river. When times were good, everyone lived a comfortable life. But times were not always good. One year, there had been so little rain, that the river was starting to run well below its normal level so that it seemed that it might dry out entirely and the village would starve. Fortunately, the villagers were shrewd and everyone had stockpiled plenty of grains and gold from the previous harvest so that they could continue to support themselves and even enjoy some luxuries, such as the passing fairs that sometimes came through.
But Joseph knew something the villagers didn’t. When all the villagers would spend some gold each week on new clothes, entertainment, or good food, Joseph would instead buy bricks and eat only small amounts of his grain. One day, after about a month of this, the villagers asked Joseph why he was buying all of these bricks. He told them it was to build a wall around his house for when the river floods in a few months. The villagers laughed and said he had no idea what he was talking about. Only one other person, Joseph’s friend took him seriously and also began to buy bricks. The two of them slowly built their wall as the rest of the villagers continued to mock the two and ignore their warnings.
Just as Joseph and his friend were finally finishing their walls, the first signs of rains appeared as clouds blew in from the West. The villagers were ecstatic. Over the next few days, the clouds built up so that it seemed that rain was imminent. And indeed it was. The rain fell nonstop for 2 weeks. By the end, the river had completely enveloped its flood plain and was only a few yards away from the first few houses in the village. This was not unusual to the villagers, and they continued their celebration of the long awaited rains. They asked Joseph where his great flood was, but he continued to tell them that they would see before long the great mistake they had made. And in fact, Joseph was correct. Only a day after it had stopped raining, a lake located in the mountains far upstream the river began overflowing, adding a new tributary to the river and greatly increasing the volume of water passing through. The river rose at a rapid pace and began to flood every house in the village, with the exception of Joseph and his friend, who by now had built a wall entirely around their house along with an irrigation channel to divert all water that approached their house out to the fields.
When the flood finally passed. All the villagers were left with the ruins of their simple homes and faced the destruction of all their stockpiles. Joseph and his faithful friend were spared this devastation. Joseph then tells the villagers that in order to survive until the next harvest season, they should all migrate to the East for the winter where they will be able to fish and hunt for food. Not one villager questioned his suggestion. For one year they lived off the coast in the East and were all able to return to their ruined village safely the following Spring and begin the long process of rebuilding.
This week, the reading from Seven Doors to Islam discussed the usage of stories to depict events in the lives of the Prophets. Many of these events were fantastical in nature, but generally involved teaching the reader some sort of spiritual lesson. They were a means by which the author could introduce a moral to the reader in an approachable manner. Moreover, some authors, such as Ibn-i Munawwar suggested the idea that recalling individuals of great devotion, such as the Prophets, is an act of religious devotion. Furthermore, we also discussed how different communities wrote stories around the lives of Prophets that were not part of any sort of established Canon, such as the Swahili legends around the different Prophets. One example of a Swahili legend centers on a mythical battle between the Prophet Muhammad and a tyrant named Anzurani. In this story, the Prophet leads an army against the tyrant, but is about to lose, until he performs a ritual in which he solicits support from God in the battle and receives it so that God helps them win the battle.
To capture some of these concepts, I wrote a short story around the life of Joseph that resembles the type of short story that could have been written about any of the Prophets complete with a lesson for the reader. Joseph was one of the son’s of Jacob and was believed to have had the gift of Prophecy. This is represented in the story through his ability to see the future flood that will wipe out the village. The villagers, representing foolish people who ignore the Prophet, are convinced he is insane and ignore his warnings. As a result, their entire village is destroyed. The lesson learned by the villagers at the end of the story is to always heed the word of the Prophet, even if it seems to contradict their reasoning. Moreover, the one friend of the Prophet who followed his advice had his home and possessions spared representing the idea that one can be saved by following the teachings and manners of the Prophet. One similar concept between both this story and the Swahili legend is use of divine powers to aid in real world matters. Even though in my story, the village was destroyed by the flood, they eventually survived hardship due to the power of prophecy just as in the legend, the battle was won through help from God in the form of his help to Joseph.