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The doum tree of Wad Hamid
said : 'Wad liamid, in times gone by, used to be the slave of a
wicked man, fie was one of God's holy saints but kept his faith
to himself, not daring to pray openly lest his wicked master
should kill him. When he could no longer bear his life with this
infidel he called upon God to deliver him and a voice told him
to spread his prayer-mat on the water and that when it stopped
by the shore he should descend. The prayer-mat put him down
at the place where the down tree is now and which used to be
waste land. And there be stayed alone, praying the whole day.
At night fall a man came to him with dishes of food, so he ate
and continued his worship till dawn.'
All this happened before the village was built up. It is
as though this village, with its inhabitants, its water-wheels
and buildings, had become split off from the earth. Anyone who
tells you be knows the history of its origin is a liar. Other
places begin by being small and then grow larger, but this
village of ours came . into being at one bound. Its population
neither increases nor decreases, while its appearance remains
unchanged. And ever since our village has existed, so has the
down tree of Wad liam id ; and just as no one remembers how it
originated and grew, so no one remembers how the doum tree
came to grow in a patch of rocky ground by the river, standing
above it like a sentinel.
When I took you to visit the tree, my son, do you remember
the iron railing round it? Do you remember the marble plaque
standing on a stone pedestal with 'The doum tree of Wad
timid' written on it? 1)0 you remember the dotmeiwe with
the gilded crescents above the tomb? They are the only, new
things about the village since God first planted it here, and