In the potter's village: Chapter - 7

Rahman was produced in court soon after, where Masood, the oldest judge in the land had been called upon to preside over this rather exceptional case. His exemplary record and experience notwithstanding, the fact that he was a staunch believer in the written word of God made him a clear choice for the priests.

Masood had been born to the second wife of an aging clerk in the sheikh's court. The fact that his father died when he was just 11, leaving behind two wives and four children, and that he was the youngest of the lot, born to the considerably younger wife, meant that his childhood thereafter was a continuous stream of challenges. In fact, had his sharp academic drive not been noticed by an affluent trader named Jamaal, just returning from the high seas, he would probably not have received any formal education. The grapewine would tell one that the education and nurturing he was provided with was more a result of his mother being prepared to go to any lengths to ensure her son's future. By the time Masood was 17, his mother had formally become the fourth wife to the trader, even in the midst of considerable hue and cry in social circles. However Jamaal with his considerable clout ensured that the union was blessed by none other than the sheikh himself, thus silencing any voices that had even considered dissenting. Even though biologically not his parent, Masood was Jamaal's favourite. By the age of 26, the young man had been a part of several of his patriarch's travels, and had seen much of the known world. In his travels, he was struck by a sense of oneness among all the disparate races and societies he had interacted with; something which showed him an underlying layer of what may today be referred to as 'humanity', beneath the superficials which differentiated these peoples.

Overcome by this feeling, he felt stifled in the trade business he seemed set to inherit from Jamaal. Thus during one of the trips to the Orient, he fled the ship, handing it over to the able captain to reach back home. From there, the next 9 years were spent in traveling and studying at universities across the world, subjects ranging from philosophy and literature to astronomy and mathematics. When he felt he had had enough of this world, the much learned Masood returned to his homeland. Initially greeted with skepticism, he soon proved the veracity of his claims, made easier by the presence of the ship captain who had last seen him. Jamaal had since handed over the business to the captain, who always had been the most capable, and innately talented to take up such a responsibility. Masood knew that his father had given the business to deserving hands. And yes, he did refer to Jamaal now as his father.

Within 4 years of Masood's return, Jamaal died in a freak accident during the loading of a ship bound to Africa. And with that, Masood's life took another critical turn. Unable to reconcile with the loss dealt to his mother and himself for the second time in their lives, and now increasingly conscious in retrospect, of how his father had never completely approved of his academic explorations, wanting instead for him to take forward the family business, he found himself coiling up into a shell. Desperately seeking any semblance of relief and anchorage, he chanced on one of the imams at the local mosque which he would visit regularly. The words he heard during one of the readings of namaaz seemed to resonate with his state of being, "Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream; for the answer shall come to you in the Word of the Lord". Intrigued by this line, and unable to comprehend its full meaning, yet knowing completely that it was key to him regaining his peace, he met the imam later that evening. He was Maqbool Hasan, known to be radical and rigid in his beliefs, and a purist when it came to following the Word.
Over the course of the next 12 months, Masood would meet him and spend hours discussing several diverse issues at least twice each week. At the end of this period, he was a changed man - more orthodox, bordering on radical, and soon entered the judicial system, where he created quite a fan following, by virtue of the strictness and fairness of his judgement, sometimes laced with a touch of the philosophies and thought he had chanced on in what now seemed like a previous life, but always agreed upon as just.

It had been 21 years since then, and he now proceeded towards the court to hear the curious case of Rahman, a potter from an alien land, who had been witnessed indulging in blasphemous practices, and even cited as spreading ideas and thoughts that were labelled 'anti-social' and 'seditionary' in nature. Several of the quotes attributed to him reminded him of his traveling years. The proximity that the potter exhibited to those ideals of yore interested Masood greatly, and perhaps even made him a tad uncomfortable, as he walked into the court that bright spring morning.