Bilkis and Other Stories of the Middle East Ancient and Modern

By Arsalan

The Ethiopian empire ended with Haile Selassie as the last Negus Negesti, descendant of the Lion of Judah, in 1975 when he was arrested and killed by Mengistu Haile Mariam, a Communist dictator who, in turn, was overthrown in 1990 through uprisings in Eritrea and Wollo/Tigre Provinces.

Legend has it that the Queen of Sheba, who the Ethiopian rulers are said to have descended from, was made to promise King Solomon a night of passion if he were able to catch her stealing anything of his, even though she, being a rich ruler, albeit a vassal, had given him so many gifts ( see I Kings ). The myth holds that it was during such a night that the very first ruler of Ethiopia was produced by Solomon and conceived by the Queen of Sheba, whose traditional Arabic name is Bilqis.

This story about an unbridled night of passion fleshes out the Ethiopian myth of three thousand years ago and also explains the origin of Ethiopias notoriously hot curries.

Flavius Josephus, the Judeo-Roman historian, claims that not only were Solomon and the Queen of Sheba a recognized couple but that her empire included, within Northeast Africa, Egypt as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Dec 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499032659

Arsalan

Arsalan, a learned and well-travelled polyglot septuagenarian ecologist, educator and nonlinear historian, writes about places he has been and situations he has known over the years; of European descent, he is a long-time resident of Australia; his pen name derives from an eventually-doomed relationship with a West Asian girl.

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Copyright © 2014 by Arsalan.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014920374

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4990-3263-5

                Softcover        978-1-4990-3264-2

                eBook             978-1-4990-3265-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 11/25/2014

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CONTENTS

One Night of Luso-Arab Friendship

Bilkis—A Night in Jerusalem, a tale by Arsalan, 2014

The Trials and Tribulations of a Sufi Detective, Arsalan 2014

S ome five hundred years ago, the careful training the School of Navigators had undergone in the then-previous century had borne fruit; the stranglehold that the conquest of the Eastern Mediterranean by the Ottoman Empire, begun with the subjection of the Arab nation and concluded by the fall of Constantinople, the present Istambul, had imposed on global trade, was being subverted by the patient discovery of sea routes and the establishment of a Portuguese presence in East Africa, the Arabian Sea, the Malayan Peninsula, Bengal, Southeast Asia and, eventually, China and Japan. One such were the twin fortresses on Hormuzd Island and the Nusandan Peninsula at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, now part of Iran and Oman, respectively.

Portuguese influence persists to this day, visibly so in the ruins of fortresses and other buildings, the love of seafood and the unique dress donned by elderly women.

Both Hormuzd and Nusandan are nowadays largely Arab-inhabited, yet its people feel distinct from anyone else among their respective compatriots to this day.

It is true that the Portuguese seafarers, settlers, traders, officers and monks of the time had to fight their Arab neighbours and competitors, but not always and everywhere..

ONE NIGHT OF LUSO-ARAB FRIENDSHIP

God the Merciful the Compassionate Slow to Anger ready to Forgive…

A melia de Souza sang this line of the Psalter of David while walking on the beach below the cliffs of Nusandan one early evening. The sunset had turned the surface of the Gulf into burnished gold overlaid with a sheen like copper whereas the pink evening sky was slowly turning into the most powerful purple.

The girl had fond memories of the marvelous singing voice of the missionary who had left only a few days ago, to spread the word in South India, Malaya and Japan, never to be seen again west of Gujarat and finally to be buried in Goa.

Ships destined for Serendip—Ceylon—or points further east did not always make landfall on the peninsula; not only did they want to keep up with the trade winds but berthing could be difficult, the cliffs affording few natural harbours.

This one had, for the missionary party had picked up a naval officer, her uncle, Bartolomeo Gonzalvez, needed to report in Damao in Gujarat, thence to take Exiles to Namakaal (East Timor); the missionary was to identify and train local catechists before making for Goa, there to confer with the archbishop.

Girls were not usually given much training, even if they postulated for Holy Orders which Amelia neither intended nor was meant to, being slated for marriage, instead.

She could hear the words of the evening prayer from a local mosque set up in a nearby fishing village: in the name of God the Almighty the Most Merciful and Compassionate..

Portuguese people were getting used to living and working with Islam, Amelia reflected; she had been told that Malacca which had recently been taken over had only just previously decided to embrace Islam, to be protected from Thai pirates.

People all along the African East Coast, especially on their islands, were Muslim as likely as not, as also in Guinea where she had spent some time as a child.

She could not claim to know any Arabic but she liked the cadence of Arab prayer which, she had also been told, owed its sung rhythm to heretic Byzantine religion, as did the dress of many Muslim women being modeled on Eastern nuns whom she had herself seen during a recent voyage to Kufa near Basra. She listened… and I am witness that Mohammad is His prophet… . She inadvertently made the sign of the cross, then remembered that she had seen Muslims use rosaries and been told that Marryam, the Virgin Mary, mother of God, was also revered in Islam.

She enjoyed the fading light as much as the powerful and melodious evening prayer, feeling very safe and at ease; not only could the fortress be seen, heard and, might as well admit it, smelt, even from a distance, but the local fishermen felt as protected by the Portuguese presence as they would have, under the sultan of Muscat.

So she was not frightened at first when she spotted the tall dark man crouched against the cliff but prepared to walk past him. It was only when he reached out for her that she was frightened and ready to run or cry out for help. He grabbed and spun her around, then forced Amelia to sit down.

I shall not harm you, he told her in broken Portuguese,: unless you cry out or try to run away, while holding on to her wrist.

Who are you? Aziz, he then used the word for Negro which local Arabs also employed for slaves and which Amelia was also familiar with, realizing that he might not have heard the Portuguese esclavo. Have you run away from somebody? the girl asked, aware of his firm but measured grip on her wrist. She had to repeat that question in different ways until he understood and nodded. Where are you from? This time, he answered straightaway: Zanzibar, which she knew to be an Arab-held island off East Africa, frequently visited and traded with by her people.

Are you hungry? she wondered and had to