Book Review: Revelations from Rouh’s Mystic Journey

The final part of Rasha Zidan’s “Rouh” or Rouh's mystic journey trilogy is out by Dar Al Karma Publishers. The trilogy comprises “Rouh” (2016), “Lak Wahdak – Only For You” (2018), and “Howa A’nt – It is You” (2020). Through observing Rouh’s quest for her real identity, Zidan touches upon many issues related to mysticism, spirituality, and the man’s relation with God.

In general, the story narrates Rouh’s character development from a depressed porced young woman who went through dozens of temptations to a mystic person after passing through various mystic experiences. Surely, the main theme of the trilogy is love but it is pided into two kinds of love: human love, and pine love.

Rouh’s love story with her mystic teacher Noor is the main force that pushes the events in which Zidan succeeds in linking between enjoyable minor details and several journeys. Zidan accurately chooses the countries Rouh visits like Turkey and Morocco. Both countries are known for their mystic environment for example Turkey has the graves (Maqam) of Rumi and Tabrizi who are leading mystic figures.

The sensitive relationship between Rumi and Tabrizi is the opening story of the trilogy as the first part sheds the light on one fact, each Rumi should have his/her own Shams. This issue is the early flame in Rouh’s journey as she is in continuous search for a source of inspiration and security especially after the death of her brother Gamal and her tragic porce.

The sense of brokenness and the insisted need for healing drive Rouh to re-build her relationship with God to get rise once again, to reconstruct her identity. She strengthens herself by the stories of old mystics, visiting the holy places of Prophet Mohamed family members buried in Egypt such as Al Sayeda Nafisah and Sidna Al Hussein.

Here, Zidan reflected traditional behaviors for all Egyptians which is their tight relation with “Aa’ll Al Bait” or Prophet Mohamed’s family members.

Zidan beautifully mirrors Rouh’s visions, pain, hopes, and inner struggle in vivid images and deep and emotional description. She also deepens on various narrative techniques between stream of consciousness, first-person, and third-person narrative techniques.

Another magnificent technique in the novel is polyphony as she employed a persity of voices throughout the work; she heavily zooms-in Rouh’s psychological struggles between declaring her love to Noor or keeping it inside her to not break Noor’s mystic tendencies before his wife’s family and his students.

Heavy intertextuality is also depicted through the trilogy, it is not only quotations from the Quran but there are verses, quatrains, idioms, and songs. All the quoted parts enrich the mystic environment of “Rouh” for example one of the unforgettable quotes is part from Abu El Sheshtery's poem “Salabat Laila Meni Al Aa’qla” (Laila has Stolen My Mind) which is lately performed by Ibn Arabi Ensemble.

Rouh’s journey from Egypt to Turkey then to Morocco could be linked to another journey. Rouh decides to start a new life in Turkey, Konya where Rumi is buried to taste the real spirituality and provide herself with the required encouragement to continue her life away from her far love Noor, this is the moment when she decides to direct her path to complete pine love.

Here is the link, in 2006, Award-winning and Grammy nominee Loreena McKennitt released her “An Ancient Muse.” This album carries the story of McKennitt's pine journey from Canada to Konya, Turkey, Rumi’s place to heal herself from a dark phase she passed through as she described in one of her interviews.

McKennitt has lost her life love, Roland, in 1998, which broke her soul and drove her to step out the stage for more than 6 years until she decided to change her path to pine love. Although the previous two albums of McKennit carry mystic historical tendencies and mystic journeys, her real mystic soul reached its climax in “An Ancient Muse.”

“It is with an eye on this history that this musical document evolved, with ruminations on the universal human themes of life and love, conquest and death; of home, identity, the migrations of people and the resulting evolution of cultures. Our paths may differ but our quests are shared: our desire to love and to be loved, our thirst for liberty and our need to be appreciated as unique inpiduals within the collectivity of our society,” McKennitt stated in her “An Ancient Muse” booklet.

So, this sense of beating depression and exploring a new identity is a universal theme, it can be applied to different people, everyone has his/her own journey in life since the earliest day on Earth, Homer mentions in his Odyssey, “Tell me, O Muse of those who traveled far and wide.” McKennitt also opens her album with two things: the previously mentioned Homer’s quotation and lines from Rumi’s Mathnawi which is a sourcebook for the whole mystic tendencies, “I am reminded of a Rumi poem (Mathnawi I, 3255-3258), translated by Kabir and Camille Helminski,” McKennitt mentioned.

Zidan’s description of Rouh’s glances at the places, the sea, the ocean, the Nile contemplated Rouh’s wide visions of being grateful for those little gifts, she approaches the world unlike others, she sees the world in different colors! Those lines from McKennitt’s “Beneath a Phrygian Sky” can describe Rouh’s feelings while gazing at the sunset near the ocean;

“The moonlight it was dancing….On the waves, out on the sea

The stars of heaven hovered….In a shimmering galaxy

A voice from down the ages….So haunting in its song

These ancient stones will tell us….Our love must make us strong

The breeze it wrapped around me…As I stood there on the shore

And listened to this voice…Like I never heard before.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLOdqx9Bhok

Another issue that is deeply discussed is the nature of the mystics who are not necessarily following any certain physical codes or clothes tradition. Zidan embraces this concept in her physical appearance for her main characters: Baraa’ who used to chant in mystic events, Hayat who is Noor’s wife, and Rouh herself. Both Hayat and Rouh are attacked by different men because their looks didn’t seem to be such religious or have strong ties with God.

She chooses normal youth, normal social characters already existed in society, move freely without anyone notices their mystic hidden life. Well known Egyptian author Ahmed Abdel Majid quoted one of Ibn Aataa’ Allah Al Sakandry concepts in his “Tarenemet Salam” (Hymn for Peace) that mystics are walking in the streets without anyone notices their relation with God, they can be among us and not kept inside mosques.

The same concept McKennitt is adapted in her “The Mask and Mirror.” She quoted part from iconic mystic researcher and author Idris Shah; “a secret tradition behind all religious and philosophical systems, Sufis have significantly influenced the East and West...They believe not that theirs is a religion, but that it is religion...The ‘common sufi’ may be as common in the East as in the West, and may come dressed as a merchant, a lawyer, a housewife, anything...to be in the world, but not of it, free from ambition, greed, intellectual pride, blind obedience to custom, or awe of persons higher in rank.”

Man’s relation with God is in eternal development, it is like climbing steps or stairs. Portraying man’s spiritual development as stairs was borrowed from early spiritual Christian writings like St. John of the Cross’ “The Dark Night of the Soul,” he emphasizes the impact of the communication between man and God in the late night as it is present in Islam. Those concepts indicate universality and peace.

McKennitt describes in her “The Mask and Mirror” booklet about the poem, “  I find myself drawn to one by the mystic writer and visionary St. John of the Cross; the untitled work is an exquisite, richly metaphoric love poem between himself and his god. It could pass as a love poem between any two at any time...His approach seems more akin to early Islamic or Judaic works in its more direct route of communication to his god...I have gone over three different translations of the poem, and am struck by how much a translation can alter our interpretation.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MclLF473XtA

Mirrors and Masks are also included especially in the third part. Rouh's continually gazes at the mirror to define herself, to mediate, to distinguish her road, and to observe her character's development. Depending on mirrors is an authentic mystic tradition. While the masks mirror the difference between what the man's reveal and conceal, it is like the man's spirituality v.s. his/her physical form. Those parallel concepts are deeply handled in McKennitt's "The Mask and Mirror" where she traced her spiritual journey to Spain, Morocco, and Ireland.

Using archetypes is also one of the employed techniques by Zidan. She reconstructs many archetypes to trace the transformation of Rouh’s character and her relationship with the surrounded for example she uses an image from Penelope’s side, the young woman who is waiting for her lover to come despite the horrors of the odyssey, the despite the strong tunes of declaring her love dead! She waits until her lover came back! Unlike Rouh who discovers that she waited for an illusion! Other archetypes are used like Qais and Laila, Zainab and Al Hussein, and Adam and Eve.

Rouh’s journey emphasizes that the mystic one who is always in a search for the home should be on a  journey eternally, each destination is a new point of departure, the journey has no certain destinations, but it a continues road to places only God directs the mystic, it is the moment the map is thrown away as McKennitt stresses in her “The Book of Secrets”! “A  good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intended to arrive!” as McKennitt quoted Lao Tzu in her “The Book of Secrets” booklet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw_zawJzjp8

Rouh may find her security with her husband, may she reach the final step in the experience but that doesn’t mean that she may not experience a new journey in her life!

To sum up, Rouh’s trilogy by Rasha Zidan gave the reader a fresh and vivid look at the inner struggle of people who adopt a mystic road, whose experience and experiments they go through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNIe6yMCzh0

They are harsh and aching, they may feel that it is over their abilities to hold on but they hold on to their faith strongly and tightly. Zidan uses various literary techniques to enrich her stories and links them together harmoniously. The three-part story is catchy, easy to be embraced, pressed the inner hidden pain of love, and touching its scorching scars. Rouh is the story of the rise after being burnout. The only remark could be Rouh's long detachment away from the real world which hurts her later.