Appendix 10, Part 4: Mourning Rushdi al-Kikhya: Issam al-Attar's Letter of Condolence

And Issam al-Attar, Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, wrote the following in the magazine al-Ra'id, issue 112, dated Safar 1409 AH:

A Letter of Condolence.. or a Chapter of a Tragedy

Rushdi al-Kikhya has died.

He died a stranger, and sick, in Cyprus!!

In his Arab homeland, from the Ocean to the Gulf, he found neither a bed to lie on nor a grave to be buried in!!

I heard of his death long after it had happened.

Our generation was not of his generation, nor our thinking of his thinking, nor our way of his way, but he was a great man, whose enemies and friends alike bore witness to his integrity, and bore witness to the way he rose above petty things.

Had Rushdi al-Kikhya agreed, under one regime or another, to be President of the Syrian Arab Republic, he would have been, for the presidency was offered to him more than once; and had he wished to be a star in the Arab sky, he would have been, for most of the Arab regimes courted his friendship and were keen to keep his goodwill.

I was saddened when the news of this great man's death reached me; saddened by his old age and his illness, and by his suffering in his loneliness and his exile from "Syria" and from his Arab homeland, and saddened far more by the death of chivalry, humanity and loyalty in the land of the Arabs.

And I asked myself:

Whom shall I console, and how shall I console, for this painful loss?

And my soul answered:

The person most deserving of condolence for him is his close and dearest friend, the companion of his life and his path, Dr. Nazim al-Qudsi.

But where is Nazim al-Qudsi?

Where are you, noble friend, that I may bring my condolences to you?

You, alas, are a wanderer like your friend Rushdi, and like other friends I do not know where you live so that I might write to you, nor do I know anyone who knows.. There was a time when hardly a day passed for us without a meeting, and without fresh evidence of your sincere affection, your great courtesy and your noble character, in spite of the differences between us.

Where are you now, in your venerable old age? And how are you, wherever you are living?

Has your journey ended in a suitable country that gives you shelter? Have you found a settled place where you can rest your side? Have you met with care and loyalty, or with neglect and hostility? Are you sound in body, or has sickness crept into it? And has the insistent longing you told me about in Geneva in 1967 grown quiet in your soul, the longing for your country, your companions and your farm with its dusty, sandy road in Aleppo, or does that longing for the meadows of your boyhood, the stages of your youth, the fields of your struggle and the gatherings of your old companions still melt your great heart and keep your sad nights sleepless.

Is the grove forbidden to its own nightingales,
yet lawful to birds of every kind?
Every home belongs more rightly to its people,
except under some vile and filthy creed.

I send to you from the lands of exile and of the West, where I live.. I send to you from the city of Aachen, which witnessed our disasters and our griefs, and the martyrdom of "Banan" (his wife, Banan al-Tantawi, killed there in 1981).. I send to you wherever you live on God's earth.. I send you the condolences of one wanderer to another, one stranger to another, one mourner to another.

I did not know your brother and friend Rushdi a tenth of a tenth as well as you did; I only came to know him directly late in our time in Syria, and while we were living in Lebanon, before I was expelled from Lebanon. Even so, a bond and a pure affection grew between us whose mark has stayed in my soul until now, and in our companionship I saw qualities in him that deserve to be preserved and told; so how much more must this be true of you, after your long companionship, your deep brotherhood and friendship, and the oneness of your path, your aim and your work over the years?

And then, I will not hide from you what is in my heart: I see in Rushdi's fate, in his old age, illness and exile, features of our own fates, and I see in these fates a tragic chapter of the tragedy of the Arabs and the Muslims in this age.

Yet in spite of all this, I shall go on, and those who are with me, on our appointed path with God, carrying out our duty and the role that pleases Him, fearing no one and hoping in no one but Him.

We go on with God, moving forward; nothing holds us back
from going on, however great our tragedies.
We go on with God, and Islam guides us;
God holds us steady and God drives us on.
We go on with God, and great deeds call to us,
content, content with whatever He chooses, content are we.

* * *

We go on toward the great goal with confidence,
with iron resolve and a path that is never obscure,
and souls that God has bought, true souls,
stronger than death and exile and pain,
that never bowed their heads in submission to the tyrant
out of fear or weakness, nor held out the hand of surrender.

* * *

May God keep you, my noble brother, and grant you health and well-being.. And may He keep all our friends and all the exiles, and give them ease after hardship, and relief after distress.. Indeed, to God we belong, and to Him we return.

And you, brothers who read these words, I ask that whoever among you is able to do so will carry them to Dr. Nazim al-Qudsi, to the family of Rushdi al-Kikhya, and to what remains of his friends and ours everywhere. Nor is there any harm in their reaching the holders of authority and power as well, who knew the departed as a young man, or as a strong and respected man in his prime in his own country, and then saw him a weak old man in exile, breathing his last in a foreign land that does not count itself as either Arab or Muslim, and no vein of mercy, chivalry or loyalty pulsed in their breasts!

Issam al-Attar