Genesis: The Origins of a Heathen
(a critique of orientalism through an emulation of the bible)
1 In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, there was a hole of a hiding place that escaped God’s reach, decorated with your Father’s janamaz1 and all the gurban’s2 that rotted before consumption. You did not fall onto the earth from this veiled space. You came crawling out from its innards, wasting daylight by hiding the dirt you couldn’t scrape with a sewing needle. You were afraid they would see it: the earth’s layers on your eyelashes, your grandmother’s cooking on a yellowed tongue.3
2 When the first girl’s bed you found solace in says she asked forgiveness for her sins at church this morning, she is talking about you.4 Do not apologize. Do not repent. Your Father taught you that redemption only comes with a promise of regret. You do not know regret yet. And like Judas, she will give you up for thirty pieces of silver.5 Her loyalty lies to her God, and it is your fault for not seeing the signs in her ancestral look of indifference.6
3 You starved under the sun alongside the solar months of Ramadan,7 waiting to break this fast with a sip of water and a date like your Father taught you. But the night’s sky never came. You lived the dry-mouth-stomach-growl hell without relief. There were not enough al-fatihahs8 that you could repeat to banish the jinns looming over every thought of salvation in emaciation.9
4 The Holy Spirit looms over your city with the appetite of a sullen girl.10 But he is not just feeding on your sorrow. He swigs the sap satiating your Father’s bones, alchemizing11 generations of pain into an elixir feeding the Holy Grail. 12Your Father’s hands no longer curve with the calligraphy of his ancestor’s grip,13 and you inherit the same disease. This is what makes you a heathen— wanting justice14. And you will find yourself believing in the word of the LORD15 following your first betrayal.
5 And when the end came, the LORD came like a thief in the night to erase the mankind He had created, but He did not know of the apertures in which the heathens hid. You healed each rupture with Elliott Smitt lyrics and leftover Guinness, masking the scent of scorched flesh16 with incense from your grandmother’s garden. For the heathens, this became the holy grounds of home— found under the rubbles of heaven and on the heat of hell. For you, there was finally a resting place within the in-betweenness, surrounded by the unbelievers who shared your affinity for resentment and barbarianism.
prayer mat.
gurban translates closest to sacrifice in english. or at least, that is the translation a classmate used in his ninth grade rant to describe the terror of muslims in their rituals: a sacrificial lamb to their barbaric deity. the text’s narrator is likely referring to gurban bayram in this verse— a tradition common in turkey and post-ottoman empire countries due to their roots in islam. those with the opportunity are encouraged to share their food, most commonly a farm animal, with their community. founded on the biblical and quranic narrative of abraham and ishmael on mount moriah, this holiday is based on feeding one’s neighbors, especially those that are less fortunate. regardless of one’s religious beliefs, many middle eastern people participate in this holiday due to its cultural significance. according to our translator, gurban cannot be captured in the english language, especially as there are negative connotations associated with “sacrifice” which are not accurate to the west asian connotation with the word gurban.
likely a reference to turmeric.
many scholars have speculated on the narrator’s sexuality given this verse, much like the tales of jonathan and david.
a reference to the story of jesus and judas—one of the twelve apostles. judas betrays jesus with a kiss in matthew 26.
the writer is referencing an incident in which a man in the army made a joke about stealing her country’s oil, and how her people were deserving of it. in response, our speaker yelled and shouted and screamed and pounded her fists into the chest of the white man while he stood there, blank stare, unresponsive to her anger because he did not care. because he didn’t have to care. because it was just a joke to him. because it wasn’t a matter of life and death to the man who volunteers to enter a country he cannot pronounce and leaves with his victim’s meat still dripping blood between his teeth.
ramadan is the ninth month of the lunar calendar in which muslims fast during daylight hours. fasting includes physical avoidances, such as food and water, in addition to emotional ones, such as anger and judgment.
a prayer for guidance and mercy found in the opening lines of the quran. the narrator makes a reference here to a passage found later in the scripture of how her father would have her whisper the arabic words under her breath as she walked up the stairs to her first grade classroom. this was her father’s attempt at protecting her from the teacher who liked to make fun of the narrator’s abnormally-thick glasses and affinity to cry over squashed ants on the playground.
in reference to the ascetism of many prophets and saintly figures.
a reference to fiona apple’s “sullen girl.” the narrator implies a sense of empathy for the holy spirit through this allusion as the song describes an unknown and tragic backstory for fiona’s “sullenness.”
the narrator draws an ironic connection here as alchemy is derived from the arabic “al-kimia.” the catholics expelled and killed the north african, jewish, and arabic peoples living in spain while appropriating their culture as “spanish.” music and architecture were some of the other components of arabic culture inherited by the spanish. following the reconquista, alchemy reached the rest of europe, hence the holy spirit’s knowledge of it.
a symbol of the west’s colonial legacy. see indiana jones and the last crusade, modern calls of “reconquering” istanbul [which they refer to as constantinople] justified by anti-muslim sentiments, and internalized xenaphobia and racism in turkey for more information.
a reference to russia and ataturk’s role in forcibly changing the azerbaijani alphabet, which was previously arabic-based, into cyrillic and latin as one of the many efforts to “europeanize” azerbaijan.
a reference to the irony of western society’s call for democracy and justice.
note the change in the speaker here from the heathen to non-heathen account. the second source is worn down by the white hegemony society in which they live in, giving way to the christian elements of its foundations.
in reference to the narrator’s proximity to hell, to be able to smell the burning skin, but not being one of the souls in eternal damnation.