The Woman: a parable

A man was walking through the marketplace one afternoon when, just as the muezzin began the call to prayer, his eye fell on a woman's back. She was strangely attractive, though dressed in fulsome black, a veil over head and face, and she now turned to him as if somehow conscious of his over-lingering regard, and gave him a slight but meaningful nod before she rounded the corner into the lane of silk sellers. As if struck by a bolt from heaven, the man was at once drawn, his heart a prisoner of that look, forever. In vain he struggled with his heart, offering it one sound reason after another to go his way, wasn't it time to pray? but it was finished: there was nothing but to follow.

He hastened after her, turning into the market of silks, breathing from the exertion of catching up with the woman, who had unexpectedly outpaced him and even now lingered for an instant at the far end of the market, many shops ahead. She turned toward him, and he thought he could see a flash of a mischievous smile from beneath the black muslin of her veil, as she was it his imagination? beckoned to him again.

Comments

1) That was so wow. Chasing the Dunya, the key drop - the grave. Wow.
[2) I like how you do the 'Read on' thing - don't know why exactly but i do.]

Jihad of the Nafs (The Struggle of the Soul)

This story - when I first read it - creeped me out. The idea of a woman in a veil taking a man away from prayer times for some reason freaks me out.

 

s.b.f wrote:
This story - when I first read it - creeped me out. The idea of a woman in a veil taking a man away from prayer times for some reason freaks me out.

i agree. It creeped me out a lot too

and i dont know if the stores were metaphors for anything?

Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?