Al Azhar Dream

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

This was written down the minute after leaving the dream. December 19, 2011. So bear with the short language:

“Allah” and “Rahim” while holding two candlelights in my hands. Slow burning like a yahrzeit candle (this is a slow burning candle used in Judaism; you light it on the day of the death of a family member). One was like an oil lamp and had the image of a scholar on it. He wore a white turban, white galabaya and his hair was white. He had long white beard, piercing black eyes, and a Yemeni striped shawl around him all the time. It was a well-made shawl, wide dark blue stripes and pure linen.

I was dressed in sackcloth. My hair was covered like a “Spanish wrap” or how they call it a “Jerusalem style”.

Before, I had been walking in a big courtyard, marble floor and huge halls around it, with pillars. It looked like Al Azhar. I was walking there with a colleague of mine. We worked there. We were women. We were dressed in long, cream colored Aab-style dresses and wore matching headscarves wrapped over our turbans. We were adorned with pearls and perfume. We held books.

Then I overheard men speaking about what will happen to the Jews. They were worried. I told my colleague that if the men can speak like this then it surely is serious and there might be that we will experience hard times soon.  She got upset and said that this is not the case. She said that my speaking of it will bring it though and that I should stop being negative. I continued; if the men can gather and talk about it, then it is not my imagination.

People ran, children ran. Water came from under the ground. I saw my daughter and a boy, Sephardi (Middle Eastern Jewish) boy. They thought it was a game, they were laughing. I told them to stop immediately. They started to sulk and said I was old and strict. I saw a myriad of wooden stairs going down and out of the hallways I was walking in. Red wood like in Egypt. My daughter  and her friend bounced on the steps and they started softening from the water; iron hinges kept them together but now they were coming off like crockpot boiled meat flakes. The children continue to jump, jump jump. I ask them, beg them please no, I showed them why and what will happen. I told them to calmly and light-footedly leave the house. They did. I never saw them again.

I went out but I took two oil lamps – one looked like an urn the other like a yahrzeit candle – and left quickly. The water overtook the world I was in. I blacked out.

Then as the water had stopped, I returned to the grounds. It was a swamp. I saw glimpses of people’s rooms standing outside but the ground was a green gray swamp. The sun was not there anymore.

The men, whom I had heard before, were sitting on an “island” in the swamp. Speaking. Telling each other that this is the beginning. That we need God. None of them addressed me. It was as if I had no say. But the men looked like they came from another world. A modern world. They looked Modern Orthodox but to me in the dream, they seemed odd. I was dressed to suit this world.

When I heard them, I started running quickly. I ran to a high point in the place I was in. It was dark outside, night. I felt chills down my back, being scared of the dark. I was high up, on a hilltop. Sand everywhere; I knew I was far from the city. It looked like I was in the desert outside Cairo, looking down at the city. I sat down and started praying, using the name “Rahim” to plead with God. In Arabic, it means “Merciful.” I must have said it for hours. My clothes turned into sackcloth and my headcovering became brown and simple like a cleaning lady. But my lamps, their wicks got fire and lit up. I saw the image of my teacher. He was very serious. Sad. I saw his face go up into the flame, and the flame grew and went into the sky. The black night sky then turned into a vertical firework, bright white sparkling light filled with dazzling stars, millions of them, that seemed to tunnel into another world. It was amazing. I watched it as I kept praying.

At the foot of the hilltop was a little cave. It got cold so I went inside to continue praying. Holding one light in each hand. A man and a woman were sleeping in a bed there. The couple seemed to be from Upper Egypt. I sat at their feet and prayed. It woke them up. The woman stood up, also in sackcloth. But she was not from Egypt. Her skin was too fair. But she spoke Arabic. Her husband looked upset and tired. We all spoke Arabic. He said, that we need to find a place for me to live in so that I could pray without waking him up. He got up. Walked out of the cave and the wife accompanied him. They saw the pillar of white fireworks and stars. The wife was amazed and wanted me to stay. I said to her, in Arabic: “Tell your husband that I will pray for the both of you and I will not stay here. I am going to go home. Don’t be sad.” She started to cry and wanted me to stay. I told her once more that I can pray for her but that more importantly I must plead with God because our whole people are near destruction.

I was from the city, they were from the countryside. I sat down with the lights in my hands, especially the light from my teacher, and I started saying “Allah” twice at a time, using my breath to meditate. The sky became more energetic and full of a force I had never seen. It made the blackness around us look blue.

My lamps were flickering; they were about to extinguish. I kept praying and I closed my eyes, laid down on the earth floor in their cave and prayed. The woman wept, the man tried to look for something to do.

Then I woke up. I can draw the pillars, the hallways, the courtyard, the staircase, and my clothes. It was all too real.

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~ by shuruq on January 12, 2012.