Habibi Rasak Kharban: The Middle Eastern Story of Forbidden Love
This past week a friend of mine and I went to a film
screening of Habibi Rasak Kharban graciously screened by the class The
Imagining of the Middle East. I walked in not knowing what to expect, and ended
up watching a beautiful film about two young persons in Gaza not being able to
be together because of the unnecessary laws and hindrances of the
Israeli/Palestinian world.
The film begins with its male lover, Qays, in a college
classroom reading Sufi poetry, the poetry from which the original love story
told in Habibi is from. Once Layla, the female lover, hears Qays reading their
relationship begins to form. They realize they share a similar love of literature
and poetry as well as a similar perspective on life and they absolutely must be
with one another at all times. But they leave college in the West Bank and
return to Gaza, the place that will force one another away from each other at
all times. Gaza's traditions and worries imprison them and ultimately disallow
them from being together.
Habibi's content impacted me so largely that I sought out
more information on the film and the storyline on the internet, where I learned
that the film is a modern adaptation of the ancient Sufi poem about the lovers
Layla and Qays, Majnun Layla, “Possessed by Madness for Layla”. The poem’s
origin traces back to a short, anecdotal poem in ancient Arabia which was later
expanded by the Iranian poet Nizami Ganjavi as the third of his five narrative
poems, Khamsa.
In the Iranian poem Majnun falls in love with Layla and
composes poems about his feeling for her, poems that are obviously speaking
about her. In the film he tags Gaza’s walls with these poems that mention her
name. In both works Qays becomes known as Majnun because he has been possessed
by the love he feels for Layla. Qays asks Layla’s father for her hand but he is
rejected because he is considered a madman in the community. It would be a
scandal for Layla’s father to allow for the marriage when Qays is reputed to be
mentally unbalanced.
Soon after Layla must marry another man, against her will,
and both are plunged into sadness. Qays runs away into the desert where he is seen
reciting poetry to himself and writing in the sand with a stick. Layla moves to Northern Arabia with her
husband where she soon dies, perhaps out of heartbreak. Majnun is later found
dead near Layla’s grave where one can find carved on a nearby rock three verses
of poetry dedicated to Layla,
” I pass by these walls, the walls
of Layla
And I kiss this wall and that wall
It’s not Love of the houses that
has taken my heart
But of the One who dwells in those
houses”
I especially enjoyed watching Habibi Rasak Kharban because it introduced
me to the Middle Eastern equivalent of the
Western world’s, Romeo and Juliet, the narrative poem that also discusses tragic,
youthful love.
http://www.habibithefilm.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Layla_and_Majnun
