Kassala.. In the Bliss of Beauty

Hatem Al-Kinani

My displacement from the April war allowed me to familiarize myself with the cities I moved to, offering me a chance that the daily small wars in Khartoum for livelihood before its major war didnt allow me. The major war that awakened the people of Khartoum to the vastness and diversity of the country, in terms of nature, culture, and society. In normal conditions, life choices in a country like Sudan are as vast as its geographical area.

I wonder: What was preventing me from living in other cities besides Khartoum? A thought within me would answer: Khartoum has remained a beautiful but false legend. Its like a deceitful woman who lures you into her mirage, and you follow your beautiful illusions until you wake up when she decides to destroy herself due to the excessive love of the illusion holders. They turned her body into a battlefield for war, looting, and rape.

Every time I set foot in a city, I find myself searching for the four directions. Humans contrive the illusion of directions in this vast world to neutralize the infinite extension of the world and to be able to conceive it in their minds, which contain the greater world.

The Taka, Totil, Ulus, and Uitel mountain ranges appeared as we entered the city. These mountains have been vividly depicted by artists to the point that they have become ingrained in the imagination of Sudanese who havent visited Kassala. I determined the location of the small range in my intuition to be in the southeast of the city, and it became my compass during the entire month I spent in the Al-Ameriya neighborhood, situated between two core neighborhoods of the city: Al-Khatmiya and Al-Mirghaniya. The house provided shelter for the thousands who passed through this border city to the vast lands of God and never ran out of room for them.

From the house of Mohammed Daoud, who left with his small family to the northern part of the city, Al-Halanga, seeking to host travelers and those fleeing the Khartoum war, under the comprehensive and compassionate care of his cousin, Abdullah Adam Al-Shawali, you can look as far as you want, morning and night. In the mornings, the mountains are adorned with the sunrise and clouds. On moonlit nights, they outline the horizon upwards with their edges, inspiring whatever imagination a poet, artist, or seeker of beauty for beautys sake might have.

The Al-Khatmiya neighborhood is immersed in sand pools resulting from the erosion of the mountains that cast their shadow over it at sunrise. All its streets lead to the tomb of Sayyid Hassan, may Allah be pleased with him, where the hearts of those seeking blessings, the distressed, those with needs, lovers of the Khatmiya way and Sheikh Abu Jalabiya turn, seeking prayer, response, blessing, and extensive benefit.

After the Isha prayer, and after every prayer, a prayer is raised to the Lord of Glory to stop the war, and the successors begin reciting the litany. The hour does not end until they are in the grove of remembrance and prayers for the Beloved of Allah, may Allahs peace and blessings be upon him and his family.

God granted me the opportunity to visit the blessed tomb several times. For the first time, I felt a sense of awe upon entering and tranquility upon exiting. People here, near the tomb, are extremely comfortable and at ease. Souls are then prepared for the birth of the Master of creation, upon him be the best of prayers and the most complete submission.

Those familiar with the inner aspects of the city and its history say that Qoz Rajab, near the Kassala mountains, was a meeting point for trade caravans. It was the first recorded human meeting point from which the city started its life, according to researcher Dr. Osama Khalil, answering my inquiry about the history of the mosques construction, which is believed to have been built in the beginning of the second half of the 19th century.

And he adds that the mosque was a shelter for the inhabitants of the region during the raids of the Italo-Ethiopian war in 1895, and during the Mahdist campaigns led by Osman Digna in eastern Sudan.

There is no barrier between the mosque and the adjacent shrine and the sky, as the mosque was originally not roofed for a wisdom that the people of the Al-Khatmiya neighborhood keep to themselves, or because its roof, according to other mysterious accounts, was destroyed during the wars that affected the area. Moreover, the dome itself took the shape of the Taka mountain located right behind it, and its summit is open as if it overlooks the sky, with no barrier to block the prayers that rise from the depths of the shrine, invoking its owner for acceptance and response.

The mosques enormity and its construction with red bricks mixed with a solid mixture of sand and lime, as it appeared to me, and the erection of its pillars, confer a sense of awe upon the visitors and tourists of the citys landmarks. On the northeast side of the city stands Mount Makram and its neighborhood beside it, as if its a counterpart to the Taka and Totil range.

The citys scent is fragrant with fruits, and its market is huge and crowded with goods and people. Its variously colored markets and goods are abundant, coffee is delicious everywhere, and life is easygoing, not yet marred by the ills of major displacement cities like Madani, Atbara, and Port Sudan. In Kassala, the displaced knock on the doors of livelihood and they open, they ask for security and they find it.

On the western side of the seasonal river Al-Qash, there is a different character, with gardens stretching out and people living nearby. From the southern canals, on the banks of the Al-Qash, the city draws oxygen from the dense greenery and sustenance from mango, orange trees, vegetables, and other plants and fruits as Allah wills.

Now, the worlds that inhabit the creators of Kassala city have become clear to me. This city that once embraced its poet Mohammed Osman Kajray and the Olus literary group. It inspires the poems of Anas Mustafa, the paintings of Moataz Al-Imam, the narratives of Ahmed Al-Mubarak Adam, and Monjid Al-Mustafa. The pursuit of beauty is not beyond its inhabitants.

I spent a month of sweet companionship at the house of Mohammed Daoud, where various people gathered, residents and passersby, who were brought together by the public work sphere. In the evenings, everyone would return from their places in the city, and then conversations, scenes, memories, hopes, songs, and poetry would erupt spontaneously, as if it were a life to be lived, and the images of beloved ones, and the long, long nights that were enlivened by the poet Mohammed Mahmoud Al-Sheikh, Wad Al-Rif, Afro, Wad Al-Amir, Manaf, Fawal, and Mohammed Sulaiman who lives nearby in Al-Khatmiya. They seek the truth in the murkiest nights the country goes through, interpret reality and the future, and forgive the past. They are transient, as if they are witnessing the last night before the end of the world, and when they wake up, its as if its the first day of creation.

My companion in stillness and displacement, the storyteller, the son of Omdurman, and the gentle leftist, Omar Dafallah, says, as we stroll through the scenic Kassala market, which indeed is as he described, our minds drowned in the intoxications of Kassalas coffee and its sun. Omar says: We were born anew after the outbreak of the war, and now we are learning to live in another way.

I say to Abdullah Al-Shawali: We are living a long story suitable for cinematic adaptation, since the first moment the war broke out, and it is still ongoing. The war left no room for imagination, as it went on in its brutality as if it wanted to be a model for hell. So is it time to start writing about it yet?