To Al-Bayzin

Lehar Zaidi, MPH, Class of 2006
School of Public Health, The University of Alabama at Birmingham

An Al-Bayzin street: The Old Jewish quarter of Andalus, or Arab Spain
(Courtesy: Wikipedia)
(Where you can taste typical Arab food, especially teas and desserts from North Africa)

To Al- Bayzin/ The Light on Dawn's Face
(The Light on the Rock.. I think of Jerusalam)

Somehow every time I think of it, my mind goes to the Al Aqsa and Jerusalem..
I think for me healing begins and ends there.

On the rising dawn by the Rocks* face..
Spilling light for Jews and Christians and Mosques to see by..
(* The Dome of the Rock, the most sacred spot in Jerusalem)
My heart heaves a sigh…
Each time I think of Jerusalem.
Of dawns light and scarred faces
Of life and light in mosques and Palestinians..
Where Jews and Muslim rode once together..

Somehow cant help but think of al Andalus..
'The ornament of the world
Where Muslims, Jews, and Christians created a culture of tolerance'
Where the first bimaristans or hospitals were made…
Incredible…
Tended by Jews and Nestorian Christians…

How we hide the face of history under a boot of silence…
Silence raided the camps of genocide in Nazi Germany
Silence ravages the world today…
Who would know that
Ibn Nafs the first to describe the circulation of blood.
For which a Christian disciple names Servetus was burnt at the stake…
(centuries before Harvey)

Who would know the algorithm comes from Al Khwarizimi… of the town of Baghdad…

So, I will take myself to Jerusalem
where Maimonides still tends to the Sultan..
The most trusted Jew in the entire Muslim world

I can still smell the pilafs the Sephardim (Spanish Jews) made for the moors…
The smell of saffron and mint mingling…
In Jerusalem…

They sing of Al Aqsa
Built by a Muslim, designed by Jew and tended by Christians..
I think of the golden age of Jews.. known as 'the Golden Age of Arab Rule in Spain'…
What an irony…
And today silence abides…
Like a boot on the face…

And I think of Jerusalem…

The light on dawn's face
When Ibn Mamoon walks past the church to tend to the Sultan,
I think of Jerusalem…
The Jew's face as he watched the light spill
On to Al Aqsa
For the first time in 800 years
When Saladin rode in
to open its gates for his persecuted race.

I read the quotes from the National Library of Medicine:
'The development and indeed the very creation of European medicine is unthinkable without the Arabs and Jewish contribution.'

And I think of Jerusalem
And the light on dawns face
When she spills over the Rock.