And when Moses came to Our appointed time and his Lord spoke with him, he said, “Oh my Lord, show me, that I may behold Thee! Said He, “Thou shalt not see Me, but behold the mountain- if it stays fast in its place, then thou shalt see Me.” And when his Lord revealed Him to the mountain, He made it crumble to dust, and Moses fell down swooning.
-Quran, Surah VII, (Arberry trans.)
Desert mountains glow and shimmer at dawn. But do they stay fast in their places? The answer depends on how good are your eyes, and how strong is your belief, and your sense of reality and your willingness to be awed by paradox. If you say to me, Look at that mountain, it’s name is Father of the Ax, and just then the Father of the Ax crumbles to dust, what do you say next? You tricked me, there was never a mountain? Or, Where did that mountain go? Or, How did you make that mountain crumble?
I have long been curious about this verse. If God says, My mountain’s majesty is proof of My own majesty, why would He play with man by making it less than majestic? By making it crumble? As proof of His unknowingness, as a Job-like test, as a mockery of man’s constancy despite all that he sees in this world?
I was told to believe certain things on the trail which turned out to be untrue. As in, We will soon be drinking from a sweet water well, and the well turned out to be sulphurous. Or, there is a bakery in the next village we pass, and then finding there is not. Or, we will arrive in two days, and then it taking us five of the longest days we had ridden so far. So I learned soon enough to accept the unknowingness of the trail. I was in the company of people who did know. That at least is what I believed. And I was not wrong, for after forty three days on a trail called the Way of the Forty we arrived in Cairo.