E-TAMAZIGHT

Conte Initiatique: Berber Inborn Stories

Excerpts from THE ARABIAN NIGHT by Tahir shah , a sufi author son of the popular sufi writer Idries Shah:

Tahir Shaha is in Casablanca, at Café Mabrook, where he meets Dr. Mehdi, an old Berber gentleman. He tells Tahir (page 44):

""The Berbers believe that when people are born, they are born with a story inside them, locked in their heart. It looks after them, protects them".
Dr. Mehdi flicked the hood of his jelaba down onto his neck and sipped his coffee.
""Their task is to search for their story"", he said, ""to look for it in everything they do"".

The book is about Tahir's search for his own story, and in the proccess he meets many people, all across Morocco, and he remembers when his faher was alive, his childhood
in Tonbridge Wells, the stories his father told him and his sisters Saira and Safia... All of the stories people in Morocco tell him are versions of the same stories his father
collected and published. Finally he finds his heart's story, and when he does he undergoes a strange experience:

""I felt calm, very calm and, in a way I could not quite fathom, I felt more complete. I just sat there, my mind racing. Then, something happened that I find awkward to explain. My chest began to warm up. It got warmer and warmer until it was no longer warm, but quite hot. My mouth had been closed. It was forced open and a blast of air was sucked in. There was nothing I could do about it. My eyes were wide open, my hands bright red.

And all the while the story worked away. Like a bank robber cracking a safe, it twisted an invisible dial in my chest, until it had gained entrance to my heart. I still do not understand how
it worked or quite what happened. But I felt the story penetrate deep through the layers of tissue and muscle with ingenious ease.

I could feel it in there, safe in its own sanctuary. At the same time I knew the story had always been there, been with me. "" (page 356).

CARAVAN OF MORROCAN DREAMS BY TAHIR SHAH