Jaafar of Arabia by Patrick Sean Lee (recommended books to read TXT) π
An administrator to the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad is sent on a mission to establish the arts and sciences in a small city sitting on the banks of the Tigris in 1,000 A.D. He enters a Kaveh Kanes incognito one evening, followed by an assassin...
The modern coffee house took its "modern" form in the Islamic Empire during the reign of the Abbasid Caliphs many centuries after the birth of Christ. Baghdad was the center of civilization at a time when Europe found itself mired in intellectual darkness. Men gathered in the Kaveh Kanes to drink the strong brew, discuss events of the day, and keep the knowledge of the classics--Greek, Roman, and their own--alive. We owe much to these men of culture and learning, not the least of which is the modern coffee house.
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- Author: Patrick Sean Lee
Read book online Β«Jaafar of Arabia by Patrick Sean Lee (recommended books to read TXT) πΒ». Author - Patrick Sean Lee
βMy Lord! What is your pleasure this wondrous of evenings? Coffee? Tea from lands far to the east? Pomegranates or sweet grapes? How may I serve this poet dressed as a prince?β
βIf I dress as a prince, it is to draw forth the smile and sweetest words from the mouth of a princess. Sit with me and allow me to gaze upon the lips that inhabited last eveningβs dreams like music from Allahβs angels, and haunted the hours of this longest day of my life.β
βSir, that is my fondest desire, but I cannot. I blush at your overturesβ¦but do this. At the conclusion of the first dance, remove yourself to the soft breeze outside, and there I shall join youβ¦if for only the shortest of moments. Compose your grandest poem, my Lord. I long to let it take me far away when to me you recite it.β
Rashid was pleased, as a blind man who has suddenly seen sunlight, a man who at last has heard the melodies heretofore denied him by the curse of deafness. He reached up and touched her veiled cheek as every patron watched in silence.
The flautist began. The dancer emerged. Sanna bint Abbas swept herself away to fill anxious orders; to count every note and wish it were ten. Muhammad al-Tafar rose like a swirl of mist off the water moments later and left through the doorway near the secluded kitchen. Nearing the street he drew a knife and waited.
***
The slight tension in Rashidβs arms faded. Sanna bint Abbas' tears fell upon her loverβs face.
A hundred meters up from the peaceful waters of the Tigris, beneath a sky black as an Ethiopian prince and speckled with the white of a hundred million stars; beneath the multi-hued linen canopy that fluttered at its ends in the soft desert breeze, Jaafar al Rashid closed his eyes that a second ago had beheld her loveliness, and he died.
Imprint
Text: (c) Patrick Sean Lee-2011
Publication Date: 11-15-2011
All Rights Reserved
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