Life and death, dreaming and wakefulness: stations for.
It traverses them stage by stage, tak-.
ing signs and hints from things, groping about in the sea.
of darkness, clinging stubbornly to a hope that smilingly.
and mysteriously renews itself. ( Ibn Fattouma 1 ).
Fattouma's journey guides him from place to place in search of the land of Gebel: a legendary paradise, "a closed secret" that all speaks of, but none have ever found (Ibn Fattouma 6). Fattouma is fascinated, "his yearnings aroused to the bursting point", with this world that his teacher, Sheikh Maghada al-Gibeili, often talks of, putting images in his head about how it should be. (Ibn Fattouma 5) "He spoke so liberally that I lived in my imagination the vast lands of the Muslims, and my own homeland seemed to me like a star in a sky crammed with stars" (Ibn Fattouma 5). Fattouma says that he wants what is best for his country, but in reality he wants what is best for him, "I want to learn and to return to my ailing homeland with a remedy to heal her" (Ibn Fattouma 15). So begins the journey for knowledge, divine wisdom, and enlightenment, all in an effort to find that perfect place.
Ibn Fattouma's journey all begins when he gives up and departs his homeland because things do not go his way. When the woman he wants is taken away by another man, "I have been betrayed by religion, betrayed by my mother, betrayed by Halima. God's curse be upon this adulterated land!", he feels like there is nothing left there for him. (Ibn Fattouma 13) He is a compassionate and caring person, but one has to look out for themselves and their best interests. Therefore, although he loves his mother, he leaves her to take off to this great land of perfection. Gebel represents this world of perfection that man wants to obtain; Fattouma also wants to obtain this mystical world. "The dream gained mastery of me and my sense of reality vanished" (Ibn Fattouma 15).