Qat (1) Living with Ruin: Yemen Was Here

Yemenat

Ahmed Saif Hashed

I did not enter the world of qat until relatively late in my life. Even then, it was not a familiar or ordinary step, but a strange experience unlike what people were accustomed to. At the time, I could not determine where the flaw lay. Was it in me, or in the qat I had bought? I did not yet know that this experience would pull me into paths I had never expected.

I tried qat in an attempt to resist drowsiness, to fight exhaustion, and to summon focus. I did not find harmony with it. Instead, I entered into a long struggle between desire and rejection.

In the end, qat prevailed so completely that it led me to sleep with my head resting on a shoe and to suffer from suffocating nightmares, until I was finally forbidden from using it after my heart sustained serious and lasting damage.

In Sana’a, qat had been declared permissible by religious decree. More than that, scholars ruled it pure, even when it was soaked or fertilized with poisons condemned by those who opposed it.

Qat, almost without exception, became saturated with poison to the point that poison itself became part of its substance.

Some even permitted keeping it in the mouth while reciting the Qur’an during prayer, arguing its purity, with al Shawkani standing as a leading authority behind this ruling.

That fatwa was a license broader than any other, a leniency never granted to any narcotic or stimulant, no matter how devastating its use or how catastrophic its impact on society.

This ruling was neither isolated nor innocent in its consequences. It became a cover for a habit, lifting from it the burden of questioning and opening wide the paths of coexistence with something that should have been resisted or prohibited.

Qat went so far that it became part of life itself, a silent necessity that follows our steps, a shadow that accompanies us and clings to our existence until death or disappearance.

Between the beginning and what things have become lie many details and stories that I will return to later. What matters most here is that the cultivation and consumption of qat in Yemen have grown into a phenomenon of social catastrophe, not only against our families and society, but against the present and future of our people.

The first time I chewed qat was in the 1980s, during my university years. I was suffering from exhausting exam related sleeplessness carried over from the day before.

I felt I could not endure a draining day followed by yet another sleepless night. Fatigue piled upon fatigue, wakefulness upon wakefulness, doubled and compounded. It was the first time I sought help from qat in my battle against sleep and the repeated drifting of attention while preparing for my final exams.

My classmates, those with whom I was accustomed to studying, or at least one of them, rebelled against me. Perhaps it was my excessive selfishness in the way I studied, the manner in which I dominated our sessions and took control of the reading and discussion.

 During the exam period, they left me alone by a decision that allowed neither appeal nor negotiation.

They withdrew from meeting and studying with me at a time that was crucial and decisive for all of us. Perhaps they could no longer afford the cost of accommodating me during such a season, a season whose harvest time was drawing near.

There was no room to waste even a little time, nor tolerance for slackness. Here, the proverb revealed its truth. Time is like a sword. If you do not cut it, it cuts you.

By nature, I was deeply attached to reading aloud, sometimes even loudly. My comprehension through silent reading was weak and limited. 

When my classmates grew weary of revising or studying with me, or chose to break away, silent study became for me a complete and consuming estrangement that left my understanding incapable of carrying me toward excellence.

My sixty year old aunt, Saeeda, was my refuge. I leaned on her patience and sought her out to listen to me while I read aloud. Yet she too began to tire of me. After long stretches of politeness and repeated listening, she would eventually sap my resolve before I even began reading, despite having endured me many times.

Every measure has its limit. Whatever tricks or strategies I had once used to make her listen longer were now exhausted. My aunt’s patience ran dry and her cup overflowed.

No sooner would I begin reading than she would drift into sleep, bringing a great deal of it with her. If she managed to resist for a few minutes, her resistance never lasted. Disappointment would strike me, and sleep would claim me as it had claimed her.

There was no time to lose during exams. I tried gently to force her to stay awake, but even tea and walnuts, her favored stimulants, were no longer enough to summon her alertness or fend off her heavy drowsiness and accumulated boredom.

It was now Thursday, with the exam scheduled for Saturday. They say that on exam day, a person is either honored or humiliated. And the poet said that through effort, greatness is attained, and whoever seeks the heights must keep vigil through the nights.

This time, I tried to rely on myself, to read alone. Yet every time I attempted to read, sleep would pass sweetly and softly over my eyes, laden with pleasure, expressing how deeply I desired and needed it. Then the moment would rain down upon me a deep and overwhelming slumber.

I would try to concentrate, only to drift far away, returning either sunk in deep sleep or jolted awake under the weight of heavy drowsiness. I would startle myself by remembering the approaching Saturday exam, but my wakefulness would not last more than a few minutes before sleep ambushed me once again.

I jolted awake in rebellion against my need for sleep and rushed out in agitation and haste, as if bearing a vendetta against drowsiness itself.

But where to go? I went out without a plan, driven by a survival instinct against sleep, searching for borrowed wakefulness, for anything that could drive away this sticky drowsiness clinging to me.

I did not hesitate long. My feet led me, as if they knew the way on their own, to the qat market in Al Maalla. It was Thursday and Friday as well, days when qat consumption was permitted, unlike the rest of the week.

I bought my qat from the first vendor I encountered, without bargaining or scrutiny. I had no experience or knowledge of qat, its types or names. All I knew was that it resisted sleep, stirred determination, and helped one stay awake.

I wanted to fill the void my classmates had left behind and confront the advancing armies of sleep crashing into one another like a raging flood.

I returned home and leaned back against a cushion, most likely stuffed with sawdust. I asked my aunt to prepare tea with walnuts, cloves, and mint.

I began chewing the qat and drank cups of tea brimming with freshness. For a brief moment, I felt a sense of indulgence and grandeur. I opened my textbook to read and review.

Instead, I found myself more distracted and scattered than before. Absent mindedness pursued me insistently until I was reading without understanding a single word. I tried to gather my wandering thoughts, to retrieve my scattered mind from some distant place, but I failed completely.

Disappointment crept into my soul, and regret thickened over time wasted to no avail. Time’s sword was no longer cutting me. It had become a saw, tearing into me and tormenting me.

I assumed that reading during this qat session required more time before focus and comprehension might improve. I consumed more qat, fighting its bitterness with more tea. The tea hurried the qat into my stomach, which kept widening and filling.

I tried to stuff my cheek with more qat, including the broad leaves meant to be discarded as waste. Each attempt made me feel I was failing twice, failing at reading and failing at shaping the bulge in my cheek.

The qat would not settle. It slid quickly into my throat and stomach. I felt like a grazing animal. After two thirds of the qat had collapsed into my belly, I realized without illusion that I was failing again.

I spent two hours reading without understanding anything. I lingered on a single page far longer than usual, rereading it twice. Each time I tried to listen to myself, I found my mind confused and my thoughts unsettled.

Worse than all of this, sleep ambushed me suddenly. I shifted my body slightly and relaxed without resistance. Abu Hanifa stretched out his legs without caution or concern.

I closed my eyes for a moment, my eyelids heavy with drowsiness, and slid swiftly into a deep and unexpected sleep. Some of the chewed qat remained in my mouth, my jaws too tired to expel it, while sleep carried me into its world without warning or permission.

On Friday morning, I woke from a deep and delicious sleep and threw away the remnants of Thursday’s qat that had slept with me and hardened in my mouth until dawn.

What overtook my body was not merely a personal experience. It was the echo of a wider slumber, a country groaning under long exhaustion and a people moving forward in silent coexistence with enduring ruin.

The slumber overtook an entire people and led them to graves and burial grounds. Elites fell and their lofty titles plunged into the abyss. A few awakened after a stumble, but most have yet to awaken.

Some sway in drowsiness. Some suffer disorientation and sleepwalking. Others remain indifferent. And some awoke only to another reality that declares that Yemen was here.

How desperately we need a resurrection, or a storm, or a decree that finally says enough. This is the final word.

Record this, O history.

None of us are those who tear apart.

None of us are those who divide.

None of us are those who pour fire upon our flowers so they may burn.

From my forthcoming book project

To be continued …….