“Reem Basyouni excelled in blending passion with sweets, weaving letters, words, and sentences that we taste the sweetness of sugar in, emanating the scent of musk, feeling the smoothness of silk, seeing the beauty of the bride, and hearing the neighing of horses, with the bravery of the knights delicately woven into the tales of Uncle Abdul, the madman of the three. I won’t mention the Sicilian, Armenian, and Kurdish, but Sandus, Feron, and Rashida, three beautiful tales.
We can consider it on the margins of history, where facts blend with myths rich in betrayal, injustice, intrigues, and plots, so heroism emerges from the flames of division and defeat, pure and strong like polished crystal captivating the eyes and astonishing the minds.
Historians may be interested in documenting the history of heroes, rulers, and victories, but the story does not concern itself with the sequence of historical events or the decisions of those who sit in palaces. Rather, it’s a human history that concerns ordinary people just like us.
Truth mixes with imagination, with exaggeration of pride, with many details of insignificant incidents that historians do not care about recording, yet it might be the history of those who do not care for someone residing in the palaces of power, but only care for those who believe in loving this country and its people unconditionally, and stand up for those who loved without condition or limitation.
They triumph and falter, make mistakes and achieve success like all humans, but they are sincere and steadfast, dedicating their lives to those they love and who love them. These three heroines are not bound by time and place, but we can say it’s the story of the grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter, separated by decades and centuries, yet united by devotion to love, tenderness in emotions, resilience in facing storms, and steadfastness to a covenant unwritten and unspoken by the tongue, but spoken by hearts, a covenant cherished between lovers.
A series of confectioners melting passion with honey, oil, saffron, and sesame, kneading flour with the arteries of the flowing soul as the sacred river flows, melting sorrows and worries in the fires of the oven, so people taste a spark of paradise’s sweetness made by three houris gifted by God to those deserving, believing, and dedicating intentions to Him alone, pure and sincere without pretense or hypocrisy.
I delighted in the company of the beautiful tales of Reem, tasting with her lines the sugar and honey, perfuming my breath with the fragrance of history, attaching to living characters whom I loved and lived with in beautiful days, listening to them and being amazed by their actions and intelligence, holding my breath with their fears, sorrowing for their defeats, rejoicing in their victories, and marveling at their stubbornness.
I admired the succession of events separated by many decades, yet despite the differences in facts, names, events, places, and times, they are links, handing over to each other like the finely woven golden chain, captivating hearts that sense a part of themselves in it, nothing separate they do not know.
Despite the depth of history that the tale delves into, it narrates to us the struggle between the corrupt and the reformer, a struggle that transcends all boundaries but is present all the time in the soul of every individual and those around him from ancient times until God inherits the earth and whoever is upon it.”
Arabic