PART FOUR
16
Chapter Sixteen – Dispute or misunderstanding
The next day, they completed their schoolwork in a reassuring silence, as if an unspoken agreement held that knowledge would be the protective fence around everything that grew between them.
After dinner, they sat on the balcony, sipping tea in the company of the evening. Autumn had draped Damascus in a veil of golden stillness, broken only by the whisper of withered leaves brushing the asphalt, a soft apology belatedly delivered.
Muna brought her teacup closer to her lips, her eyes heavy with thought, yet questions lingered behind them. She spoke in a voice almost like a whisper:
“Have you thought much about what happened between you and your family… and that friend of yours that day?”
Numan nodded, then said, his voice brushing against an echo that still lingered within him:
“A lot… more than I should. As if the conversation never ended there, but began inside me afterward.”
Muna said nothing, just looked at him long, as if listening to what he would say before he said it.
Numan continued, drawing out what had been locked inside him for years:
“I thought I had moved past that moment… the moment of confusion in the art hall. But after talking with you and your father, I realized I wasn’t entirely honest with myself.”
She tilted her head slightly, then asked gently, like a hand brushing over an old wound:
“In what way, exactly?”
He answered, his voice carrying the weight of truth matured under the pressure of questions:
“I always said I withdrew because I wasn’t ready. But the deeper truth… is that I wasn’t reconciled with myself. I didn’t know how to be free without feeling guilt, nor how to express my talent without faltering in front of a body… a glance… an idea.
I didn’t know how to be a man who sees a woman not as a danger… but as a companion in presence.”
Muna lowered her head for a moment, then spoke, as if addressing the voice that had said more than words ever could:
“Has anything changed now?”
Numan looked at her for a long while, his eyes still carrying traces of a winter gone by, and then said softly, a light of confession mingling with his calm:
“Yes… it has changed. Because I wrote. Because I told the story.
Not because I’ve moved past the embarrassment, but because I gave it a name, and I said to it: Sit. I see you.”
A brief silence followed, broken only by the whisper of a nearby orange tree, rustling its leaves as if in quiet agreement.
Then Muna spoke, her tone warm, edged with the glimmer of a small, tentative test:
“And how do you see now… Muna?
The girl? Or the mystery?”
Numan smiled, then gently reached toward her notebook, his touch like the first line written without fear, and said:
“I see you… as you are. And I don’t want to run away this time.”
She pressed her hand lightly over his, a softness that felt like love surprised, and said:
“And there’s no need to run…
This time, we write together… we are not tested.”
Muna lifted her eyes slowly, smiling with a shy warmth that carried a gentle reproach:
“And me?
I was just watching… learning from you how we can lose the path we love, without losing ourselves.”
Numan gazed outward, where leaves fell silently onto the wet pavement, and said:
“Perhaps… if what happened hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t know you as I do now,
Nor would I have written what I wrote…
Nor would I be me.”
Muna stood up, gathering her scarf from the seat, then spoke, casting a sidelong glance at it:
“Everything that happened… was a prelude to this moment.
So don’t regret it.
Write it, as it befits us.”
Numan rose and moved toward the window. After a moment of silence, watching the clouds, he said:
“A large part of this…
concerns you, and the clothes you’ve started wearing ever since we began our talks… ever since we began sitting together, talking long hours about so many things.”
Muna turned to him, her brows knitting slightly, her gaze sharp yet gentle:
“And my hijab?
Didn’t you like it?”
They had just finished a warm conversation, their souls entwined more than their hands, when Numan surprised her with a question that seemed to herald something deeper:
“I didn’t mean anything improper… but first, I want to ask you: Why did you start wearing these clothes you never wore before?”
Muna raised her eyebrows and whispered, her voice soft but tinged with gentle reproach:
“Don’t you know the answer? Or are you pretending not to?”
Numan lowered his head for a moment, then spoke calmly:
“I do know… but I was trying to find a way into this conversation, without embarrassing you.”
“And then?” she asked, eyes half-closed, as if seeking the truth, not the prelude.
“And then… I ask you: Are you truly convinced by wearing these clothes? Or do you wear them just for me?”
Muna looked at him long, as if searching the depths of his intentions, then spoke with a tone that bore honesty:
” I won’t hide a secret from you… at the beginning, yes, I wore it for you. I wasn’t convinced by it then, but I pushed myself, just to be able to sit with you, to speak with you face to face. I feared you might turn away from me… and over the days, it became a habit.”
Numan nodded slowly, his voice serious:
” The important thing now… are you convinced by it, or do you still wear it for the same reasons?”
Muna gave a small smile, then whispered:
” You could say… I still wear it for both reasons, together.”
” Or is there a third reason?” he asked, staring into her eyes.
” And what would that be? What reason do you think I am hiding?”
Numan drew a deep breath and said:
” I don’t know… but yesterday, I visited one of my close friends. There was a problem between him and his wife that almost led them to divorce.”
Muna gasped softly:
” Oh, my… and what was this problem?”
” When I knocked at his door, they were in the kitchen, and their voices were raised… they argued so fiercely I almost left before the door opened for me.”
” And the cause?”
” When I asked, he said: because of the hijab!… yes, the hijab his wife wears.”
” How is that possible?” Muna asked, genuinely astonished.
Numan stood frozen, as if the ground beneath him had suddenly closed its paths. The sky above frowned like an angry April cloud, leaving him to watch her steps in silence as Muna moved toward her room without looking back.
She had raised her head slowly, disbelief still lingering in her eyes, and her voice cut through the stillness:
“Do you think I wear the hijab because I don’t care about my appearance?!”
A brief pause followed, as though she expected an apology that never came. Then, her voice rose, fierce with the heat of wounded pride:
“Stay away from me! Don’t speak to me again, don’t call me, not even through my father. From this moment… let each of us walk our own path.”
She turned, lifting her scarf in silence, and left the room. Behind her, the autumn balcony lay still, and Numan’s eyes followed the trembling orange leaves, frozen in their readiness to fall.
He remained, a statue of bewilderment, uncertain what had happened, what he had said, or how words meant for farewell had turned into an arrow piercing her heart with anger.
Silence filled the space, blending with the echo of his own thoughts:
“What did I do? Was there insult in my question? Or was there something in my curiosity that hurt her?”
He looked up at the ceiling, then down the corridor, then turned back as though searching for a map to a path he had lost.
“Should I knock on her door? Should I say to her, ‘I didn’t mean it’? Or should I retreat, as cowards do? Or should I return to my family’s house, where I promised I would be by the end of this week?”
Hours passed, yet time seemed frozen before his eyes, as if the moment of her departure had severed a hidden string within him. He could hear nothing but the clamor of his own silence, and see nothing but her shadow receding, eyes alight with something he could not understand.
He sat on the steps, then rose. He walked. He paused. He walked again, as though trying to lose himself from himself. With every step, her voice chased him:
” I wore it for you… and then it became a habit.”
Those words were like a sentence concealing a story beneath its surface. Was he the light that had illuminated her path? Or the shadow that slipped into her colors and dimmed them? Was he a clear mirror, or fractured angles that distorted her image?
For the first time since he had known her, Numan picked up his pen and paper—not to write about her, but to write to her. Each letter became a point of light in the darkness of the night.
He wrote:
” I didn’t understand you, but I never meant to hurt you.
If I caused you pain, I inflicted it on myself too, and the silence that now dwells within me is harsher than any sound…”
Then he stopped writing, as if his heart whispered to him:
“Could this be the end of the dream? Or a new chapter… where light emerges once again at its threshold?”
I write to you in prose for the first time… as if I were betraying the poetry I used to write for you. But today the words refuse to obey the rhyme; they will not dance across the seas of verse. They fall, like me… heavy, awkward, confused.
I do not understand what happened,
nor do I claim to be right.
But I acknowledge that in your voice, something in my heart broke,
and in your face, in that moment of leaving… it stripped the world of stillness and left me trembling.
I did not mean to err,
nor to cause you pain.
And if I did, it is because in seasons of closeness, we falter more.
I sought a phrase to please you,
but from me came a foolish word… like an arrow that struck you without my seeing.
At that moment, he wanted it to be a real message…
He did not want it to be just a hastily scribbled sheet of paper, nor a writing exercise in the absence of the one it was meant for. He wanted it to be a genuine apology, a letter that resembled him when he was clear and calm, and resembled her when details weighed heavy upon her heart.
He arranged his words as a gardener arranges the tender shoots of newly sprouted plants, then waited for the precise moment when her father would be free from the weariness of his day.
When they sat together, he explained what had happened, and what he could not bring himself to tell her.
Muna’s father laughed, his dimples catching the soft evening light. He tapped Numan gently on the shoulder, as if indulging him, then took the letter, moving with a lightness that belied his years.
He approached his daughter’s room, tapping on the door three delicate times, just as he had done when she was a little girl. His whisper of permission opened a door in her memory. And when she responded, he was met by a torrent of tears, as though she had never grown up.
She collapsed into his embrace just as she had in childhood, her tears flowing down her cheeks—not for any clear reason, but because she had reclaimed the warmth of a long-lost safety.
He listened to her for a long while, letting the words Numan had shared drift at the edges of the conversation. Then he laughed again, a rich, unrestrained laugh that still carried the same note that had once made her heart lift and feel entirely safe.
When it was over, he rose, placing the letter carefully near her pillow without her noticing, then left the room, closing the door softly behind him.
Outside, he fulfilled the promise he had made to his daughter: he scolded Numan with a stern, affected tone, yet a smile lingered between the words, as if sharing a secret that had yet to be spoken.
Inside, Muna’s fear began to ebb, and she sat, trying to catch her breath. When she turned to rearrange her pillow, her eyes fell upon a paper she had never noticed before.
She reached for it hesitantly, sensing the fold was different… neat, deliberate, unlike anything she had seen him write.
She unfolded it gently, and her gaze rested on the first line:
Muna,
She paused, as if the name had just left his lips rather than his pen. Her fingers traced the letters, as though feeling the pulse hidden within them, and then she read:
“I write to you in prose, for the first time… as if I betray the poetry you have always known me to write,
But today, the words will not obey rhyme,
Nor do they wish to dance upon the meters,
They fall… like me… heavy, hesitant, awkward.”
Here, Muna gasped softly, as though he had captured the exact state of her heart.
She continued, reading with a blend of fear and eagerness:
“I do not understand what happened,
Nor do I claim to be in the right,
But I admit that in your voice, something broke in my heart,
And in your face at the moment of departure… it stole the calm from the world and left me trembling.”
She lifted her eyes from the paper, exhaling as if returning from an inner journey, then continued, slowly:
“I did not mean to err,
Nor did I intend to hurt you,
And if I did, it is because in the seasons of closeness, we falter most.
I sought a sentence that would please you,
But out of me came a foolish word… like an arrow that struck you unseen.”
Her eyes suddenly glimmered, and she glanced around as if fearing that this text had been stolen from her own heart rather than his. Then she read:
“I am sorry that I did not understand,
Because I did not ask you before you left:
‘Are you alright?’
I am sorry that I stood there like a fool on the cold pavement,
And did not catch up with you…
I am sorry, not only because I erred,
But because I was not the most beautiful thing you deserved.”
Here, Muna gasped again, her hand trembling.
She continued, her heartbeat louder than the words:
“Muna,
If what lies between us has closed its door,
I will remain on the threshold,
Listening to the wind,
Befriending the silence,
Arranging my sentences of apology until they resemble you,
Tender, truthful, and distant… just like you.”
The lines ended, but something inside her did not. She pressed the paper to her chest for a moment, as if embracing the warmth that had been lost one evening long ago.
Then she whispered, barely audible, without fear that anyone might be near:
“Finally… he wrote to me, not about me.”
She ran lightly, like a startled bird, toward the door… She opened it quietly, casting a fleeting glance into the corridor outside.
Finding no one standing there, she closed the door behind her with a cold silence, as if sealing a chapter of her life, refusing ever to open it again. Her hesitant shadow crept into the room like a wounded specter, and with a subtle motion, she tossed the letter onto the chair, careless, as if shedding the weight of what had passed between her and “Numan,” a weight embodied in unspoken words and glances that never were.
When she turned toward the window, her gaze caught on the edge of the glass, and something strange appeared… another letter, wrapped in colored paper, waiting like a second chapter of the story.
She took a single tentative step, peering past the glass. Her eyes scanned the garden, trembling with her heartbeat, and found no one… no one except herself reflected in the pane, a question made flesh.
She reached out and took the envelope. She tore it open swiftly, as one opens a wound to see what lies beneath, and with a sudden, soft brilliance, she began to read:
“Walk slowly, and my heart follows behind you,
as if you are the sun, and your rising is my dwelling.
Muna, oh spirit of a dream, you have left my blood
tender with your question, sometimes, and restless at times.
You sailed a sea, leaving sorrow to ask of me,
Do you know if distance has lost me?
You waved, yet the horizons remained silent,
Did you not see the weakness in my eyes?
You left a whisper, yet it hastened
the step of parting, and letters were lost in trials.
Is your attire the same as I once knew,
or have the days deceived me?
If you return, and my heart still burns,
I will ask the spirit: what have you hidden from my time?
Peace from me, and if your steps fade tomorrow,
the love between these red ribs has not weakened.
All I sought from your world was dew,
to erase the harsh nights when they hurt me,
But you are the wind, you do not fall in order,
Nor do you return when my ships have drifted with you.”
Then, unusually for her, she placed the poem atop her pillow, as if setting a fragile world upon a fragile world. She pressed it close to her chest, feeling its words thrum against her heart. Her eyes closed, and she surrendered completely to the tides of deep dreams, letting them carry her beyond walls and time. Shadows of memory and flickers of longing wove around her like whispered secrets, and for a moment, she floated where reality and imagination met, suspended in a space that was entirely her own.
Early in the morning, Mr. Ahmad awoke and knocked gently on Numan’s door, inviting him to help prepare breakfast.
Numan completed the verse he was reading, placed the Qur’an carefully back on its shelf, and joined Mr. Ahmad in the kitchen to assist him.
In a soft voice, he called to Muna from near her door, without knocking. She came, and silently helped carry the prepared dishes to the table.
Her father asked her, “Do you prefer your eggs boiled or fried today?”
She paused for a moment, as if gathering a hidden strength. Then she lifted her head and spoke, her voice clear and rising from a deep, long-suppressed place: “I will not wear the hijab anymore… and I will wear whatever clothes I like, for me, not for anyone else!”
His eyes did not waver from her fiery expression, yet no trace of irritation crossed his face. He replied calmly, in a tone that carried both the acceptance of a father and the understanding of a friend: “Very well… no problem. You know my view on this matter.”
They all sat around the breakfast table, and a long silence settled over them, as if every word that had been spoken had opened a door into the wind.
Breakfast remained warm, and the day was just beginning,
and for the first time, she felt as if she were sitting at the table with her back straight.
17
Chapter Seventeen – The High School Graduation Celebration
At Mr. Ahmed’s house—two months into the university term—
the evening had settled into its familiar calm,
and the balcony gathering after dinner had found its warm rhythm:
Mr. Ahmed absorbed in preparing the tea,
Muna moving through small tasks in the open kitchen that led into the living room,
while Numan carried the remaining dishes to the kitchen,
his mind quietly waiting, as if hoping that someone would start a conversation,
or ask a question, or perhaps offer him a moment to share a trouble he had been carrying at university.
Muna noticed his distraction and asked, with a mischievous tone blending curiosity and gentle reproach:
“Why didn’t you tell me about the party you held in Douma after your graduation?”
“Who told you?” Numan replied.
“I heard some details through your earlier conversation with Haj Abu Mahmoud… but you never told me yourself.”
Numan hesitated for a moment, then, shifting his gaze between Muna and her father, he said:
“I thought it might not matter much to you… or that you wouldn’t see in it what I see.”
“And how do you think something like that wouldn’t matter to me?” Muna asked sharply.
“Just before the end of last summer, I had finished a hard job at the iron workshop, and when there wasn’t enough time to start a new one before school began, one of my father’s relatives—who worked at Sadcop, the oil and distribution company in Syria—offered me a temporary daily-contract job.”
“I agreed without hesitation. I didn’t want to spend the rest of the vacation idle at home. There, I met five employees with whom I shared one room and daily tasks. They were of different ages, but something between us erased the distances. They became colleagues, then friends, then almost like brothers.”
In the evenings, we would exchange visits, and during the holidays, we wandered along the banks of Barada or among the orchards of Ghouta. Among them was a young man close to my own age, named Hassan Shtiwey… his voice was sweet, almost like the voice of the singer Abdel Halim Hafez, the kind that silences everything around him when he sings. With him was Adnan Al-Mughayyar, a dignified man in his forties, skilled at playing the oud, and possessing a warm voice worthy of the famous singer Hamza Shukor’s ensemble, of which he had once been a prominent member.
At every gathering, we would prepare the food together, eat, and then listen eagerly to Adnan’s playing and Hassan’s singing, or join in with our modest voices as if we were a small band rehearsing a dream in the shadows.
Our friendship did not end when my work at the company concluded. Visits continued, and the warmth remained, even after I returned to school.
One evening, after the high school results were announced, they came to congratulate me… Hassan, Adnan, and the rest of the friends. Hassan exclaimed with excitement: “Man! We have to throw you a celebration worthy of this success! I’ll sing, Adnan will play, and we’ll take care of the rest!”
I agreed and suggested holding the celebration in my grandfather’s garden. I went to him and asked politely… and, to my astonishment… he agreed! My grandfather, who had long forbidden singing, had agreed! My happiness was indescribable.
I began the preparations: I lit the garden with strings of lights and colorful lamps, rented chairs and tables and arranged them meticulously, and erected a small wooden platform in front of the trees, a stage for my friends’ singing and playing.
I invited everyone: uncles, maternal uncles, neighbors, friends… and my mother crafted desserts as if she were shaping joy with her own hands.
Three hours before the celebration, Hassan arrived… not alone. Two cars, filled with men and musical instruments—more than fifteen guests in total!
He approached me lightly and said: “These are my friends; I used to be one of them in this band not long ago… and you have to feed them first.”
I gasped, barely containing my astonishment, yet welcomed them into my room. Then I rushed to my mother, my grandmother, and the women of the family, pleading for their help in preparing a feast worthy of our unexpected guests.
The women worked with astonishing speed. Together we set the tables in the garden, serving lunch followed by sweets, fruits, and tea. Once the meal was done, we rearranged the space, and after the sun had dipped below the horizon, we stood together for Maghrib prayer.
And then, after the prayer, the celebration began.
One by one, the instruments emerged from the cars: an oud, a flute, a violin, a drum, a tambourine, and small speakers. The band began to play. Joy poured into the garden with every note; faces glowed as if sprinkled with starlight in a warm night.
Close to midnight, my grandfather approached me quietly. “That’s enough, my son… The neighbors have a right to their rest, and it’s time for everyone to sleep.”
I thanked Hassan, bid farewell to the band members, and did not forget to kiss my grandfather’s and grandmother’s hands in gratitude.
The next day, Hassan visited me. His voice carried a hint of hesitation. “The party was amazing… but it cost a lot. I paid three hundred lira, and I need three hundred more.”
I looked at him silently for a moment, then said, “We never agreed on this, Hassan… but it’s alright. Thank you. Here—this is six hundred lira, all yours.” I handed him the money, and he left, satisfied.
Yet, something inside me shifted two weeks later when Adnan came to see me. His sudden words disturbed my calm. Sitting quietly for a moment, he finally said, “Hassan tricked you, Numan. He arranged with the band behind your back and told them you would provide a lavish feast and unparalleled hospitality… He wanted to entertain them and find someone to foot the bill.”
I did not answer immediately. My heart tightened, then eased with a tinge of sorrow. I visited Hassan at his home many times afterward, but he never appeared. He vanished, as some friendships do when shadow touches them. Yet I was not angry. For he had brought joy to our hearts, even unintentionally. And I would rather be wronged a thousand times than wrong anyone even once.
“Why didn’t you invite us to the party? Or at least my father?” Muna asked.
“Because my relationship with you was still new—or perhaps a little strained,” Numan replied. “And the party had a very popular, informal atmosphere. I didn’t feel it was right to invite you or your father alone. Though, every man who attended, many of whom had heard something about my connection with you, asked about the presence of that new gentleman, curious to meet him. My mother also told me about the women sitting behind the windows, listening to the beautiful songs—some even stealing glimpses of the gathering, then returning to ask if Muna would come soon, so they could meet her up close.”
“A cup of tea, Muna… I think it’s time,” her father said, then added with surprise:
18
Chapter Eighteen – Grammar Lectures
“You didn’t say a word all through dinner, and if Muna hadn’t asked about the party, we wouldn’t have heard your voice at all today.”
Numan slowly lifted his gaze, as if he were lifting a heavy veil from his heart, and whispered in a trembling tone, as though passing judgment on himself:
“Yes… perhaps… and yet, you are right, uncle. It’s just that I feel… I feel as though I am standing on the edge of defeat, and I cannot admit it.”
His hands were tightly clasped, as if bound against his will, and Muna looked at him with eyes brimming with astonishment, questioning, her features shifting with curiosity:
“Where did this feeling come from?”
Numan sighed, as if rummaging through a memory that weighed upon him, and then said:
“I always thought of myself as outstanding in Arabic. Especially after you drew my attention to that mark I earned in the general secondary exams… the mark that allowed me—or gave me the chance—to enroll directly in the Arabic department.”
Muna tilted her head gently, as if seeking the delicate thread of truth:
“And you truly are outstanding… but… where did this feeling come from?”
He paused for a moment, then spoke as if surrendering to his own disappointment:
“I don’t want to flatter you with lies… nor deceive myself. Two months have passed since our university studies began, yet… even now, I still attend the morning classes with you, and in the evening… I slip away to Professor Asim Baytar’s lectures.”
Muna raised her eyebrows in surprise, her voice carrying a sharp edge of insight:
““And what brings you to the evening grammar lectures?””
She paused for a moment, then added, her tone tinged with a barely concealed ache:
““Or do you think… I am absent from your thoughts, and someone else has drawn you toward them?””
Numan hesitated, lifting his hands as if swearing an oath:
““God forbid! Don’t let your mind wander so far, Muna! It is nothing but the subject… grammar itself, the lessons of Professor Asim.””
Muna leaned in, her voice softer now, though laced with concern:
““And what about grammar itself?””
In that moment, it was as if Numan had unshackled his hands, or cast off a burden long pressing upon his shoulders. He spoke without prelude:
““I do not understand it at all. Even as I listen to Professor Asim’s explanations, it feels as though I am hearing incantations—words with no connection to me, no sign that they belong to a language I once believed I mastered.””
Muna could do nothing but laugh—long, warm laughter, her eyes sparkling with affectionate mockery. Then she said:
““And why, then, did we register in the Arabic Department, you and I, if not to learn it? To understand it? To master it?””
Numan answered, his voice husky with embarrassment:
““Yes… but you see, you understand, and I find you question, engage, respond. As for me… I fear the gaze of Professor Asim when he poses a question to the students in the hall!””
She asked, her tone measured yet curious:
““And do you attend in the evenings, then, to grasp what you could not comprehend in the morning?””
He nodded slightly, and whispered with sincerity:
“Yes.”
Muna paused for a moment, as if turning his words over in her heart before answering. Then she spoke, her voice carrying a blend of gentleness and firmness:
“Numan, what you lack is not knowledge, but confidence. You fear making a mistake in front of everyone, so you remain silent, retreating into corners. Grammar is no revelation to be received, nor a spell to be unraveled. It is like language itself… it loves those who approach it with a childlike heart, not with the fear of the guilty.”
Numan gestured with his hands across the room, as though embodying the very dread professors instill in students’ hearts, and said, his tone tinged with astonishment and indignation:
“Don’t you see, Muna, that the easiest thing for some university professors is to command, in a harsh, reproachful tone: ‘Out!’… simply because a student mispronounced a word or made a single grammatical mistake while trying to answer in class?”
Then he fell silent, his eyes revealing what language could not… an ancient fear built from silence, vigilance, and doors that close before one is ready.
Muna looked at him long, then replied with calmness that veiled a warm, simmering anger:
“We are learning Arabic, aren’t we?”
“Indeed!” he answered quickly, as one clutching a lifeline in the moment of near drowning.
She continued, her voice now clear as a mirror:
“Then what is the point of learning it, if the teacher cannot hear us as we try, fail, and succeed? Shouldn’t speaking and answering be a practical exercise of what we learn? Or is it knowledge to be stored away, recited only in exams, and folded back into pages afterward?”
Numan was taken aback by her words, and in the wake of them, a brief silence fell—but it was no ordinary silence. It was a silence like an echo resonating within many souls, not just within the walls of the room.
Numan shook his head, as if struck by a sudden, undeniable truth, and spoke with a tone weighted by what he had heard:
“Perhaps… perhaps in every lecture I search for myself, yet find nothing, and return burdened with a new disappointment. And every time I see you raise your hand to ask a question, or correct a meaning, I hear a voice inside whispering: look… there is someone who deserves to be here… and you, you do not.”
Muna stepped closer, placing her hand lightly over his, and he trembled, as if she had touched an old wound. She spoke in a warm, steady voice:
“That voice… it is a liar, afraid like you. And if you listen to it too long, it will become your own, and you will forget how to be yourself.”
Numan held her gaze, something loosening inside him, and whispered:
“Do you know? If every doubt had an adviser like you, hearts would not stray so often.”
Then he laughed softly, a tremulous sound caught between the flutter of unease and the edge of a dream. It was not a laugh of joy, but of one convincing himself to step forward, though trembling.
He spoke again, his voice more a conversation with himself than with her:
“Tomorrow… I will approach the professor after class, and ask a question… to help me find a path to follow. He must have met many like me… students who came with high grades in Arabic, in the scientific track, yet at the beginning, they fumbled.”
A gentle smile spread across Muna’s face, full of calm reassurance, and she laughed softly, as if calling light into a place that wished to remain dim.
She pointed to his chest, rising and falling in quiet, hidden waves beneath a shy breeze, and said, with a voice at once tender and firm:
“Do not be timid with knowledge, be honest… only.”
Time paused for a moment… as if her words were not advice, but a mirror, in which Numan saw himself as he ought to be, not as he feared he might.
The next morning, with steps that trembled between resolve and hesitation, Muna accompanied Numan to Professor Asim Beitar’s office.
A quiet leather chair waited, and books were scattered across the shelves as if whispering secrets of an age-old knowledge. The clock on the wall ticked with a measured tone, reminding every visitor of the passing hours… Everything about the room carried a dignity that could not hide its silent intimidation of the newcomer.
Numan knocked softly. The professor invited them in, and after a polite greeting, they sat before him. In a quiet voice, Numan asked for permission:
“Forgive me, Professor, if I speak in colloquial. Grammar… especially syntax, feels heavier on me than you might imagine.”
Professor Asim’s face softened. There was no surprise in his eyes; he simply lifted his glasses slightly and said calmly,
“We’ve all been there, Numan. Grammar is stubborn at first, but it befriends those patient enough to endure it.”
Numan drew a deep breath and, with sincerity, explained how lost he felt in the classrooms, how he listened to the words of grammar as if they were incantations recited in a language foreign to him.
The professor was silent for a moment, as though turning over similar stories in his memory, then said,
“If you truly want to learn, to excel, I suggest a structured plan… we’ll walk it together, step by step. What matters is not what you achieved in high school, but what you aim for now.”
Numan looked at Muna and found in her eyes a light like morning breaking after a long night. And for the first time, he did not feel the old anxiety… only a genuine desire to begin.
In the days that followed, Numan was no longer the student who hid in the corners of the room, avoiding the professor’s gaze. He sat in the front rows, his heart racing—but with hope this time, not fear.
One day, as Professor Asim reviewed a bold grammatical analysis Numan had submitted, he remarked,
“You write as one who once feared the pen… and has now begun to court it!”
The students laughed, and Numan’s face flushed crimson, yet he did not hide his delight… for this was the first time he had been singled out in the very temple of knowledge, as someone worthy of notice.
After the lecture, Muna appeared, a quiet joy shimmering in her eyes, impossible to conceal.
She walked beside him and said,
“Did you see? All this was in you, and you never saw it.”
Numan exhaled deeply, feeling the weight of effort lift from his chest, and replied,
“It’s as if I’m discovering my language anew… as if I’m learning how to understand myself.”
19
Chapter Nineteen – The Course in Architectural and Engineering Drawing at the Republic Institute
Her father woke early, as was his custom, calling to her in a calm voice to join him for breakfast before she left for the university.
The morning was fresh, carrying the scent of warm bread and the soft trill of birds in the little garden behind the house.
He sat quietly at the table, and as his words coalesced, he leaned toward her with a gentle fondness and said, his voice tinged with distant memories:
” I found an institute in Damascus called the Republic Institute. There’s a professor there—a doctor—who was my colleague when we studied in France. I spoke with him, and he told me that an intensive course would begin tomorrow…
The hours aren’t long, only about three in the evening each day, but there are no breaks for food or rest.
The course lasts only six months, but if you wish for further training, you could enroll in a second, similar session.”
He then inclined his head slightly toward Muna, a gleam of encouragement in his eyes, and asked with a tender smile:
” What do you think?”
Numan responded immediately to her raised, joyful voice, as if she had been summoned from his own thoughts in that very moment.
He looked at Mr. Ahmed and lifted his eyebrows quietly, as one who hides a happy astonishment, then spoke in a warm tone that resembled a smile breaking open a long-wished-for heart:
” No problem at all… In fact, I’ve dreamed of this kind of work and study. I have even spoken with Muna before about this.”
Then he turned to her, asking first with his eyes, as if offering another heart the right to choose before words could even form:
“What’s your opinion, Muna?”
Muna paused for a moment, as if the question had made her aware of the depth of the step she was about to take. Then she lifted her eyes to Numan, a blend of gratitude and caution shining in her gaze, as though silently asking, “Do you understand me this far?”
In a soft voice, yet full of resolve, she spoke:
“I want this opportunity, and I will embrace it in my own way. I do not wish to resemble anyone, nor to please anyone… except myself.”
Then she looked at her father, that light in her face—the light of a young woman taking her first brave steps toward a dream—shining unmistakably in her eyes:
“I will join the course, and I will choose what I want to learn. And if that requires change, then so be it.”
Numan and Mr. Ahmed exchanged a subtle glance, one that held both relief and something else shimmering on the horizon: the point of a new beginning.
“And I agree… with just one condition.”
Her father looked at her, curiosity etched on his face:
“And what is that?”
She teased lightly:
“That you don’t supervise our drawings, like you used to with my school paintings!”
Everyone laughed, and the tension dissolved, replaced by a gentle warmth that softened the formality of their conversation.
Mr. Ahmed pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to Numan.
“Then, you both must be at the institute tomorrow at five in the evening. This is the address, written here, and I will call the professor to inform him of your arrival.”
Numan received the paper with both hands, as one might accept a ticket to a journey whose end he cannot yet fathom. A quiet note of gratitude hovered on his lips, and in his eyes, a spark seemed to emerge, as if a tiny light had risen from the depths of his heart:
“Thank you… I feel as if I am on the threshold of a new experience, one that holds as much art as it does life.”
The next evening…
After attending their morning lectures and resting briefly after lunch, the taxi rumbled along the roads of the Al-Mazra‘a neighborhood, carrying two dreams side by side, as if they had grown from the same soil.
The winter sun, veiled behind heavy clouds, crept softly into the streets of old Damascus, touching them with the tenderness of one bidding farewell to a loved one at dusk.
Numan gazed silently out the window, his expression a curious mixture of anticipation and vitality, as if he were trying to imprint the passing road into memory before stepping into the unknown.
Beside him, Muna flipped through a small notebook, in which she had sketched the night before a rudimentary plan for a two-story house—more like a house from a dream than a building drawn on paper. She pointed to the sketch with a finger and spoke with a playful edge in her voice:
“Do you know, Numan? When I was little, I used to rearrange my room in my imagination ten times before asking my father to move the bed.”
Numan smiled, a quiet empathy softening his words:
“Then… the little engineer inside you has been quietly resisting for a long time.”
Muna laughed softly, a glint of teasing dancing in her voice:
” And you? Who lived inside you?”
Numan let his gaze linger a moment toward the end of the street, then sighed as if unearthing a memory he had never dared to recall:
“Perhaps… a child who dreamed of a house with a balcony overlooking a river… without ever being driven away from it.”
Muna was silent for a heartbeat, as if reading what had never been spoken. Then, brushing her hand lightly over his, her voice carried the pulse of a promise:
” We will draw you a balcony… one worthy of your dream.”
The car came to a stop before the old white building of the “Republic Institute,” its cypress trees standing around it with a quiet dignity.
At the entrance, a wooden sign bore elegant letters:
“Republic Institute.”
They entered together, their steps a mingling of caution and anticipation.
At the registration desk, a smiling man flipped through some files and said:
” You must be the new students Professor Ahmed sent, right?”
Numan nodded quickly, introducing them both:
” Yes. This is Muna, and I’m Numan.”
After the formalities, the man pressed a small bell on his desk.
Muna looked at Numan and whispered with a wink:
” So… no drawing hearts in the margins!”
He laughed lightly, then added with a confident tone:
” Not even balconies shaped like bird wings.”
A young man in the institute’s uniform appeared, asking to escort them to their assigned lecture hall.
They climbed the stairs together. The corridor smelled of old chalk mingled with the scent of wooden drafting boards. Students and staff moved silently, in a manner almost ceremonial, and the quiet felt like that of a library hall.
In the lecture room, they sat close to each other. Muna placed her notebook on the table, and Numan drew a dark pencil from his bag, as if signaling the start of a new chapter.
Dr. Riyad entered, clad in his gray suit and metallic-framed glasses. He stood before the board, surveying the students, then said in a resonant voice:
” Welcome to your intensive course in architectural design. Here, we do not merely draw walls; we reshape meaning between light and shadow, between concept and deliberate deviation.”
Muna and Numan exchanged a quick glance, as if something in his words had struck a deep chord within them.
Numan whispered:
” I feel I’ve finally arrived at a workshop where I will learn to engineer my dreams.”
Muna’s eyes gleamed as she whispered back:
” And we will be a team… won’t we?”
He smiled:
” Yes, a team… drawing, and living.”
A full month had passed since Numan and Muna had begun their course in architectural and engineering drawing. Mr. Ahmed had allotted Numan a separate wing in the house—a simple bedroom furnished with a modest library, a study desk, and a dedicated table for executing the architectural sketches Mr. Ahmed entrusted him with. A bed for rest, a wooden wardrobe, a small adjoining bathroom, and a kitchenette completed the space. Here, Numan found everything that could ease his work and studies, offering him moments for reading and for retreating into solitude.
Day by day, they pursued their learning with fervor, under the roof of the “Republic Institute,” in a hall brimming with architectural rulers and models of buildings that had first been born on blank sheets before coming alive in reality.
As the days swept past, turning the calendar with the first delicate fingers of spring, the university reopened its doors. Classrooms, lecture notebooks, and the corridors that had longed for students’ footsteps pulsed once again with life.
One evening, while sitting together in their usual corner of her father’s library, Muna lifted her eyes from her notebook and spoke softly, as if addressing a thought she had pondered for a long time:
“Numan… what if you continue the course alone, and I return to attending university lectures?”
Numan blinked in surprise, studying her for a moment, before setting his pencil aside and replying in a quiet voice:
“You’re giving up the course? Why? Didn’t you say it stirred something in you you hadn’t known before?”
She traced her fingers along the edge of a page that held a spiral staircase sketch and said:
“Yes… and I still love it. But the institute’s hours are long and exhausting, and college lectures are growing more demanding. I don’t want to neglect one for the other. You enjoy this kind of study more, and perhaps you need it more than I do right now… What do you think?”
Numan fell silent for a moment, contemplating her calm expression. Then, in a tone closer to gratitude than agreement, he said:
“I fear I might be keeping something beautiful from you… but you’re right. I can continue, and I’ll bring you what I can in the evenings. And perhaps we can try designing some exercises together here, as if we were still sitting side by side.”
She smiled, jotting a note in the margin of the page:
” “This is the best arrangement possible… and I will rely on you as my trusted source!” ”
Numan chuckled softly, then added,
” “But I have a condition.” ”
Muna lifted an eyebrow, amused and curious:
” “A condition? What is it?” ”
He smiled, listening to the October wind stirring the curtains of the window:
” “That when we redraw every detail, you allow me to place a small window that opens onto your heart… so I never miss the beautiful details.” ”
Muna laughed, then whispered,
” “Agreed… to your condition, and to being the window of light in your lessons.” ”
From that night, a new rhythm began:
In the mornings, they would go together to the university amphitheaters, listening to lectures, recording what they could of “Islamic Literature,” “Rhetoric,” “Grammar,” and all the other courses.
Numan would continue the architectural and engineering course in the evenings, devoted, taking notes, capturing sketches, and gathering as many examples as he could.
And she…
In the evenings, they would return to their usual corner… at the worn wooden table, under the soft yellow lamp, where knowledge met art, words merged with lines, and learning was reshaped as if a canvas were being painted by two hearts at once.
On a gray-shaded Saturday morning, Numan stepped out of his home early, accompanied by the silence of dew-wet alleys and the warmth of the cup of coffee his mother had prepared, whispering her usual prayer:
” “May God open the way for you, my son…” ”
At exactly eight o’clock, he sat on the wooden bench, Muna beside him, in the fourth hall of the Faculty of Arts.
By five in the afternoon, he was seated alone on the wooden bench in the grand drawing hall of the “Republic Institute,” surrounded by the sounds of pencils carving their first lines on thick sheets of paper, and the murmur of students flipping through rulers and measurements.
He lifted his head suddenly when the professor, with a heavy accent, asked:
” “Numan… quel est le centre visuel dans cette élévation?” ”
After a brief silence, Numan answered confidently:
” “The visual center is the arched gateway at the middle of the front wall, and I maintained its balance with the shadow line on the right corner façade.” ”
The professor nodded, impressed, and said:
” “Très bien, continuez.” ”
At eight in the evening, as darkness began stretching over the streets of Damascus, Numan closed his notebook and left the institute, heading toward Mr. Ahmed’s home.
In the warm library room, Muna was waiting for him, having just finished preparing a pot of green tea with mint.
She pointed to her open notebook and said:
” “In today’s lecture, we discussed the shift in the construction of the Islamic poem… from ruins to wisdom. And we asked the professor about Zuhayr ibn Abi Sulma’s verse:
‘And whoever does not feign in many matters… will be bitten by fangs and trampled underfoot.’
We spoke of political cunning in poetry… have you read anything about this?” ”
Numan sat on the chair opposite her, set his bag aside, and replied:
” “It happened that today we talked about the design of government buildings, and how to convey authority through visual composition… and those lines came to mind while I was explaining.” ”
Muna nodded, laughing:
” “So… Numan merges Zuhayr with Ibn Junni, and Abu Tammam with the building’s façade! That’s an achievement!” ”
He smiled and said:
” “Do you know? Every time I draw a façade, I remember a Mu‘allaqa… and every time I read a poem, I see a window opening onto the world.” ”
They sat together, reviewing the day’s exercises. Muna wrote down his words, asking about the appropriate shadows for the angles of light in the drawing, while he asked her about the concept of thematic transition in the prelude to the ruins.
At the end of the session, a quiet settled between them, and Numan spoke softly:
” “Muna… I don’t know if you feel what I feel… but I discover something new about myself every time we sit here.” ”
She looked into her notebook and answered:
” “I do feel, Numan… and I think that together… we are not merely studying, we are rearranging life itself.” ”
One of the last evenings of the week, Numan returned, weary, clutching in his hand a long roll of papers scribbled over with pencil marks. In his eyes, a glimmer of light danced—like a premonition of a coming dawn.
Muna met him in the study, a room that Mr. Ahmed had set aside just for the two of them. The space smelled of old books and steaming coffee, and from its ceiling hung a brass lamp that scattered its warm glow across the broad desk.
Numan unfurled the plans over the table and said, “Look, this is the project the engineer asked of us at the institute… He wanted us to design a model of a public library, one that blends function with beauty. I started with the interior spaces—spaces that resemble this very room where we sit now.”
Muna leaned closer, studying the blueprint with keen interest. She pointed to a series of narrow corridors. “And these tight passageways? Don’t you think they might make it difficult for visitors to move around?”
He answered with calm confidence, “No, they are intentional… I want every visitor to experience a sort of solitude, to drift toward the strands of knowledge, as if wandering through their own memory.”
Muna laughed softly, resting her elbow on the edge of the chair. “I had been thinking of a long row of windows opening onto a garden… so that the light becomes part of the text of the place, not just illumination.”
“Beautiful… Then we must blend our texts—your text and mine… and become two writers for a building that resembles a dream.”
They fell silent for a moment, as if the quiet itself had become part of their craft. Then Muna spoke again: “Numan… this experience has changed us. I’m not talking merely about the profession, but something deeper… we now see space as a state of mind, and drawing as a language.”
“Yes… and it is good that I understand you more now, when you speak of a dimension of beauty, or place a word where it doesn’t belong on purpose… to create wonder.”
Muna reached out to straighten Numan’s papers, whispering softly:
““We have to finish the project on time… let’s make your French professor smile, and show the institute that in such collaboration… the birth of texts of beauty beyond measure is possible.””
The studio was bathed in a gentle, white glow, spilling from the metal-hung lights above, washing the drawing boards and long tables in the clarity of a crisp winter moon. Numan stood beside Muna, adjusting his shirt collar with a faint edge of tension, while she wiped a stubborn speck of dust from the glass covering their miniature model with another piece of cotton cloth.
The model before them—their joint project—captured the idea of “mobile space within the home,” where classical architectural lines intertwined with modern concepts of openness, flowing seamlessly through arched corridors into sitting rooms that opened onto the inner garden’s light.
Professor Lucien Vié entered, a man in his sixties, elegant and deliberate in his steps, carrying a small booklet and wearing half-rimmed spectacles. An old friend of Mr. Ahmed, he had been invited today to evaluate the course projects, thanks to his long experience teaching modern architecture at Parisian universities.
He approached the project table slowly, casting a first, silent glance, then spoke in a French accent tinged with Arabic:
““Who are the authors of this project?””
Numan raised his hand and replied quietly:
““We are, Professor… Muna and I.””
Lucien smiled lightly, adjusted his glasses, then tilted his head toward Mr. Ahmed, who was observing from the corner, and teased:
““Have you been hiding students of this talent from us, Ahmed?””
Mr. Ahmed laughed and replied,
““They’re not my students… yet, but I keep a close eye on them.””
The French professor leaned over the model, scrutinizing every angle and detail, his gaze shifting between the drawing lines, the proportions, and the flow of light across the lighting plan.
Then he straightened, raising his left eyebrow, and said,
““The idea of layered depth in this project… remarkable. Who suggested it?””
Numan and Muna exchanged a quick glance, and Muna smiled as she spoke,
““It was a shared idea, but Numan insisted on exploring the concept of extended open space within the home.””
The professor nodded with appreciation,
““Clever… space in architecture is not just what is built, but what is felt… and you have succeeded in making this model something that can be felt.””
He then addressed Numan directly,
““Have you ever formally studied architecture?””
Numan hesitated briefly, then answered,
““I used to dream of it, but my path shifted toward literature… yet now I’m trying to reclaim a part of that dream, alongside Muna.””
Professor Vié fixed Muna with a long, measured look, then said,
““When dream meets design, and knowledge meets taste, something akin to art is born… This work, Ahmed, is not an ordinary course project, but the draft of a talent that can be honed.””
Mr. Ahmed cleared his throat and said,
““Do you see, Numan? This is a certificate from one of my senior professors… take pride in it.””
Numan smiled shyly, and whispered, turning his gaze to Muna,
““Without it… I would never have dared to open a box of colors, nor to sketch a single idea on paper.””
Muna replied, her voice steady and certain,
““And without you… I would never have committed to a single detail here, nor learned how a dream can be translated into something tangible.””
20
Chapter Twenty – Follow-ups in Grammar
One day, after the grammar lecture had ended, Numan lingered in his seat, as if a question in his chest refused to remain in the shadows.
He did not leave with the other students. Instead, he turned toward Professor Asim and said in a quiet voice, yet charged with a deep resolve,
““Professor, may I… may I ask you a question beyond the syllabus?””
The professor lifted his gaze, reading in Numan’s face an expectation no word could miss, and said,
““In knowledge, nothing lies beyond the syllabus if the question is sincere.””
Numan spoke again,
““I’ve been wondering… is grammar merely a set of rules for writing correctly? Or is it something greater? Something like a map of ourselves, we Arabs?””
The professor fell silent for a moment, as though he had heard exactly what he had long hoped to hear, then said,
““Numan, grammar is not just language… it is the mirror of the mind and the map of thought. If you learn to arrange a sentence, you learn to arrange your thinking. And if you master understanding its cases, you understand how a word stands in its place, just as a person must stand rightly in their time.””
Muna listened, leaning her back against the side of the table, her eyes shining with pride, as if witnessing Numan being born anew.
Numan asked,
““Then why aren’t we told this from the start? Why do we treat grammar as a punishment?””
The professor answered,
““Because many teach language as one teaches a body without a soul. But you… you have begun to hear its pulse.””
The classroom was half-full. Professor Asim arranged his papers on the desk, and just before leaving, he looked at the students and said in a voice that balanced gravity with a touch of humor:
“Today, we will try a small experiment… I will give you a sentence from life, not from a book, and whoever interprets it deeply will earn a pen from me.”
Some laughed, and a murmur spread through the room.
The sentence was written on the board:
“Sometimes, the truth is silent, so as not to burden the weak heart.”
Numan stared at it as one might stare at a secret cipher of emotion. Muna, however, held her pen tightly, restrained a smile, and gently raised her hand.
Professor Asim said,
“Go ahead, Muna. Rescue us from this exhausting sentence.”
She began:
“Sometimes: an adverb of time, indicating the flux of moments, the betrayal of an instant.
The truth: the subject, conscious and silent, not the one kept from speech.
Is silent: present tense verb, with its grammatical marker of the active mood.
So as not to: the particle of cause, signaling reason gently, not harshly.
Burdens: present tense verb governed by the cause, marked by the appropriate sign.
The heart: the first object.
Weak: an adjective, describing the object.”
She paused, then added:
“And all of it can be summed up: the truth favors mercy over revelation.”
The students applauded, and Numan whispered to himself:
“How extraordinary… it does not parse words, it unveils a soul.”
Evening cast its shadows over the windows of Muna’s house, and in that quiet corner, a small lamp glowed, illuminating language books and sheets of exercises, alive with colors and scribbled notes.
Numan sat across from her, sipping his tea cautiously, as if afraid a single word might fall incorrectly in her presence.
She flipped through her notebook and said:
“Today’s exercise will be different… I’ll give you a sentence, and together we’ll remove a word, then rebuild it—both grammatically and in meaning… as if we were restoring a fractured poem.”
Numan considered the idea, hesitating gently:
“And what if I ruin the whole poem?”
She laughed and replied:
“I’ll rebuild it with you… you are not alone in this language.”
She wrote on a piece of paper:
“Man builds his glory through patience and knowledge.”
She said:
“Let’s remove (knowledge)… what happens then?”
Numan fell silent, then said:
“The glory belongs to the one who endures, not to the one who knows, and here we could say: ‘Man builds his glory through patience and insight’… a gentle, subtle transformation.”
Her eyes sparkled with admiration as she said,
“Extremely clever… You do not merely master grammar; you think like a living linguist.”
Numan touched his chest and half-jokingly, half-seriously replied,
“Then… it seems there’s no harm in letting you feel assured, Professor Muna.”
She handed him a fresh cup of tea and answered,
“Only if you promise to serve me the coffee of grammar after the next lecture.”
They laughed… and the light lingered with them, in that night of learning and knowledge.
On a warm morning at the university, Numan and Muna entered the fourth lecture hall. But this time, he did not creep in the shadows as he usually did. There was something new in his step… something unlike yesterday’s strides.
They sat in the front row, as always, and with a fleeting glance toward him, her eyes seemed to whisper,
“Show them who you are.”
Professor Asim Baytar entered, scattering his gaze across the students’ faces as usual, then stood behind the podium and spoke in his deep, commanding voice:
“Who among you will volunteer to parse this sentence today?”
He wrote on the board:
“Success is not given; it is seized by force.”
Silence fell… heads drooped, eyes sank into notebooks, as if the words themselves were arrows.
But Numan… raised his hand.
The professor’s eyebrow lifted, and he gestured toward him without a word. Numan rose slowly, each step toward the board echoing the sound of his own heart parsing its nervousness… but he remembered Muna’s words:
“Be true to knowledge…”
He stood firm before the sentence and said,
“‘Indeed’ is a particle of affirmation and a marker of the accusative.”
Then he turned to the professor, as if seeking permission to continue. The professor nodded, allowing him to proceed.
“Success: the noun governed by ‘inna,’ in the accusative, marked by the fatha.”
“‘La’: a particle of negation.”
“‘Yuhda’: a present passive verb, its subject implied as ‘he.’”
Some heads began to turn toward him… He was no longer the hesitant student, the one who dodged every question.
“‘Bal’: a particle of contrast and emphasis.”
“‘Yuntaza’: a present passive verb, marked as nominative.”
“‘Intiza’an’: the absolute object, reinforcing the action, derived from a verbal noun, and marked with a fatha.”
He finished, and silence fell. The professor’s gaze lingered long on him. Then, slowly, he said:
“Well done, Numan… even better than before.”
A soft laugh escaped Muna, hidden behind her notebook.
Numan returned to his seat, feeling as if he walked not on the floor but on a line of triumph etched in verses of victory.
A classmate leaned close and whispered:
“Who trained you?”
Numan glanced toward Muna’s seat and replied:
“Grammar… when it is taught by the most skillful teachers, it becomes clear.”
After six months of relentless dedication, Muna and Numan had pursued their studies day and night, fully committed to executing the plan outlined by their grammar professor.
On the board, the professor had written a verse of poetry, instructing each student to analyze it—every word, every phrase—on a separate sheet of paper. He demanded precision, detail, and completeness, with each rule of grammar exemplified, either in the verse itself, in classical Arabic poetry, or even in the Holy Qur’an.
“Write your name at the top,” he had emphasized, “for from this day onward, the correct, precise, and complete analysis of any one of these papers will earn its author a single mark out of twenty for this year’s research seminar: the parsing of the verse—word by word, phrase by phrase.”
The verse to be analyzed read:
“Qifā nabki min dhikrá ḥabībin wa-manzil
Bi-saqṭi al-liwā bayna al-dukhūl fa-ḥumal.”
Everyone wrote, and after some time, they handed in their sheets. As they exited the lecture hall, conversations and questions began to circulate.
One student said, “Qifā: an imperative verb built on the sukoon, and the wāw is a hidden pronoun acting as a subject. It means ‘stand’.” Another corrected him: “Qifā is an imperative with the nūn dropped.”
Meanwhile, a girl asked, “How did you parse bayna?” Her classmate replied, “Bayna is a preposition, governing the noun that follows it.” She countered, “No, it is an accusative adverb of place.”
And so the debate continued—long, detailed, and lively—between supporters and challengers alike, until Professor ‘Āsim arrived on the day of the next lecture. He carried all the papers, having read each one carefully.
Students raised their hands, eager to ask questions and seek clarifications, but the professor held up a single sheet. Slowly, he read it aloud, after asking everyone to copy it verbatim.
When he finished, he added:
” I will not reveal the name of the student whose paper alone contains the answer I have been waiting for. Let no one become arrogant. This is only the first mark out of twenty.”
Faces turned toward one another, silently wondering who could have produced such an answer. But the author remained silent, known only to the professor and to the peers with whom they had discussed their written work.