Opinion: The Love That Was... (Part I)
I believe that when everything else disappears, only Love remains. Is it not true that love always wants to be near the one loved and to linger there? The Fourteenth of February opens and re-opens all about love. Surely, the passing of Valentine, re-writes what it’s all about. Love always wants to be near the one loved. Love is never content 0to remain at a distance. What love is, indeed cannot be described nor defined in words, yet full of stories.
Love touches relationships, companionship and even friendship. Love is power. It is all about faithfulness. Is it really true that love is blind? I lovingly submit three stories pregnant with what Love is all about - The Ant in Love, A tale of women in Weinsberg, Germany, and a story titled One and Half Followers.
Farid al-Din Attar, a Persian mystic poet who died in 1230, told a story called “The Ant in Love.” This account appears in `The Wisdom of Islam’, compiled by Nacer Khemir:
“Walking one day in a lonely place, King Solomon chanced upon an ant hill. All the ants immediately came out by the thousands to hail the king. Only one of their number took no notice of him, for it was busy carrying off grain by grain the enormous pile of sand rising before it. King Solomon called the insect before him and said: `O tiny ant, even with the longevity of Noah and the patience of Job, you will never make this mountain of sand disappear!’
‘O great King,’ said the ant, ‘do not regard my size alone... but take heed of my ardor as well. Behind this mound stands my beloved. Nothing shall stop me from levelling it. And if I must lose my life, at least I shall die in the hope of reaching her.’
‘O great King, learn from an ant what the power of love is, learn from a blind man the secret of vision.’”
A tale is told in the city of Weinsberg, Germany. When you visit the city on a tour, you climb high above the town to a fortress that is half a millennium old. There overlooking the city, a guide tells you what happened here back in the fifteenth century: “Once upon a time, the city was under siege, being starved out. No one entered and no one left, except to be buried. Sickness and near-starvation were rife in the city. Finally, the commander of the enemy troops decided to launch an all-out attack and destroy the entire city. But he was advised by his counsellors to have some pity before attacking and allow all the women and children to leave.
After all, what glory was gained from slaughtering the helpless? Word was sent down to the city. There were negotiations back and forth. But before the city would agree to let all the women and children go free and unharmed though the soldiers’ line into safety, they bargained for one more thing. Each woman would be allowed to carry with her one personal possession, whatever she deemed most valuable. The bargain was struck.
The soldiers stepped back and the gates of the city were thrown open. First came all the children tightly holding whatever was their prized possession, a doll, toy, basket, blanket, or picture, whatever they could carry with them. And behind them came the women. The commander and all the troops waiting to attack watched while every woman carried her one possession: her husband slang over her shoulder like a potato sack!
They say, when they tell the story, that the enemy commander kept his word and retreated, but not until he met with the woman who set up the negotiations in the city, engineering the battle from behind the scenes. Some people claim he married her since she was widowed...”*(to be continued)
