Vox Meditantis

Cordoba, Al-Andalus (modern-day Spain), 10th June, 950 AD

The tenth day of June in the year 950 of the Christian calendar found me, Zahra bint Farid, bent over my writing table in the cool shadows of the royal scriptorium, my reed pen dancing across vellum as I copied verses from a treatise on astronomy. The morning light filtered through the mashrabiya screens, casting geometric patterns that shifted with the sun’s passage—a reminder that even in our work, we remained subject to the celestial movements we studied so ardently.

I had been summoned to the Caliph’s private chamber that evening, alongside Tariq ibn Nusayr, the palace engineer, and a mysterious Berber mystic who had arrived at court that very morning. The summons bore the seal of Abd al-Rahman III himself, Commander of the Faithful, whose forty-year reign had transformed Córdoba into the most glittering jewel of the civilised world.

As the muezzin’s call echoed across the marble courtyards and tiled rooftops of the palace complex, I set down my pen and considered the irony of my position. Here, in a court where hundreds of women worked as scribes and calligraphers, I remained hidden behind the fiction that my illuminated manuscripts emerged from masculine hands. The conservatives amongst the courtiers could not conceive that the intricate arabesques adorning their most precious texts flowed from a woman’s brush, yet the Caliph himself had long known the truth.

The evening air carried the scent of orange blossoms and burning incense as I made my way through the palace corridors. Córdoba in this golden age housed more than half a million souls, making it the largest city in all of Europe. Our libraries contained nearly half a million volumes whilst the greatest monastery in Christendom boasted barely a hundred. Yet as I walked these halls of learning and refinement, I pondered whether true luxury lay in such abundance, or in something far more essential.

The Caliph’s private chamber was a marvel of Andalusi craftsmanship, its walls adorned with calligraphy so exquisite it seemed to pulse with divine light. Abd al-Rahman III, now in his sixtieth year, sat upon cushions beneath a lamp of hammered silver, its warm glow casting shadows that danced across his weathered features. Despite his power and prestige, there was a melancholy in his dark eyes that spoke of profound contemplation.

Tariq ibn Nusayr stood to my left, his practical robes a contrast to the mystical Yusuf al-Badri, whose travel-stained cloak suggested long journeys across the desert wastes. Between them rested an object that drew my immediate attention—a lantern unlike any I had ever seen, its crystal panels seeming to hold light even whilst dark, as though it trapped starfire within its faceted walls.

“My trusted servants,” the Caliph began, his voice carrying the weight of decades spent in command, “tonight marks the anniversary of a question that has haunted me since I first grasped the symbols of caliphal power—the sceptre and throne that marked my ascension twenty-one years past. I have ruled over the greatest realm in al-Andalus, commanded the respect of Christian kings and Muslim emirs alike, yet find myself asking: what is the one luxury you cannot live without?”

The silence that followed was pregnant with meaning. Here was a man who possessed everything the world could offer—palaces whose beauty rivalled Constantinople, gardens that were earthly paradises, treasures that kings would wage wars to possess. Yet his famous reflection haunted us all: in fifty years of victory and peace, he had counted only fourteen days of genuine happiness.

“Speak truthfully,” he commanded, “for tonight we shall test our answers against a most curious instrument.”

Yusuf al-Badri stepped forward first, his eyes reflecting the lantern’s mysterious glow. “Your Majesty, I have wandered from the Atlas Mountains to the banks of the Nile, from the souks of Fez to the ruins of ancient Babylon. I have seen men die for gold, women weep for pearls, and kingdoms fall for spices. Yet the one luxury I cannot forsake is illusion itself. For without our cherished deceptions—about love, about purpose, about the meaning of our brief existence—we would see the world as it truly is, and mortal hearts were not fashioned to bear such terrible clarity.”

The mystic’s words sent a chill through the chamber. I understood his meaning too well, for in my work transcribing the great works of philosophy and astronomy, I had glimpsed the vast indifference of the cosmos, the fragility of human achievement against the sweep of eternity.

Tariq spoke next, his engineer’s practicality evident in every syllable. “Commander of the Faithful, I have built your aqueducts and fountains, designed the baths that grace your palaces, and maintained the irrigation systems that feed your gardens. Without clean water, the most magnificent architecture crumbles to dust, the most learned scholars perish of disease, and the most powerful armies cannot campaign. Water is life itself—the luxury that makes all other luxuries possible.”

His answer possessed the stark honesty of stone and mortar, the recognition that beneath all our refinements lay the basic needs of human survival. In a world where Christian Europe often knew neither literacy nor cleanliness, whilst we in al-Andalus enjoyed both in abundance, his words carried particular weight.

When my turn came, I felt the weight of both men’s gazes, the Caliph’s expectant silence, and the strange lantern’s presence. “Your Majesty,” I began, my voice steady despite the magnitude of the moment, “I am blessed to work with that which outlasts bronze and marble, which travels further than armies and endures longer than dynasties. Ink—dark as night, fluid as thought, permanent as truth. It has carried the words of prophets and philosophers across centuries, preserved the wisdom of the ancients through the destruction of empires. Kingdoms rise and fall, but what is written in fine ink remains to instruct future generations.”

The Caliph nodded slowly, his expression unreadable. “Water for survival, illusion for sanity, ink for immortality. Three luxuries, each reflecting the soul of its advocate. Now, let us discover what truths this remarkable instrument might reveal.”

Yusuf lifted the lantern with reverent hands. “This was created in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, fashioned by craftsmen who understood that truth requires its own illumination. Legend claims it reveals not what we wish to see, but what we need to witness. It functions only under the new moon, when natural light cannot interfere with its revelations.”

As he spoke, the lantern began to glow with an inner radiance that seemed to pulse with the rhythm of a heartbeat. The light it cast was unlike anything I had ever experienced—not harsh like sunlight or warm like flame, but cool and penetrating, as though it could see through flesh to the spirit beneath.

In that ethereal illumination, transformations began to occur. Tariq’s practical robes dissolved to reveal the threadbare garments of a man who had given his personal wealth to fund aqueducts for the poorest quarters of Córdoba. His luxury was not merely water for survival, but water for all—the dream of a city where every citizen might drink clean water regardless of station.

Yusuf’s mystical demeanour shifted, revealing glimpses of a younger man fleeing a burning library, carrying precious manuscripts across desert sands whilst raiders destroyed the accumulated wisdom of generations. His embrace of illusion was not philosophical cowardice, but a refugee’s necessary adaptation to loss—the protective fiction that allowed him to continue seeking truth despite witnessing its repeated destruction.

And I—Allah preserve me—I saw myself as I truly was. Not merely a scribe hiding her gender behind masculine attributions, but a woman who had chosen to preserve her freedom through deception. My luxury was not ink itself, but the power it granted me to exist in a world that would otherwise confine me to domesticity. Each manuscript I illuminated was an act of rebellion, each word I copied a claim to intellectual equality.

But the lantern’s most startling revelation concerned our Caliph. In its light, Abd al-Rahman III appeared not as the powerful ruler who had unified al-Andalus and humbled Christian kings, but as a man profoundly isolated by his own success. The fourteen days of happiness he had counted were not scattered across fifty years of triumph, but clustered in brief moments when he had forgotten his rank—conversations with scholars in the library, evenings spent listening to poetry, quiet hours spent in his private garden without the weight of crown or sceptre.

His luxury, I realised, was not power or wealth or even the respect of his subjects. It was the fleeting possibility of being simply human, unburdened by the necessity of embodying the state itself.

“Do you see now,” he asked quietly, “why I posed my question? A ruler who possesses everything discovers that his greatest luxury is the dream of possessing nothing—or rather, of being free to choose what he might possess.”

The lantern’s glow began to fade as the new moon reached its zenith. In the returning shadows, we four remained changed by what we had witnessed. The mystic’s illusions had been revealed as compassionate necessities, the engineer’s practicality as profound generosity, my own deceptions as acts of intellectual courage, and the Caliph’s power as a golden prison.

“I have been considering abdication,” Abd al-Rahman III continued, his words falling like stones into still water. “Not from weakness or defeat, but from the recognition that true luxury lies not in commanding others, but in commanding oneself. Tonight, you have each shown me different aspects of this truth.”

Tariq bowed deeply. “Your Majesty, if you step down, who will ensure that the aqueducts continue to flow for the poor as well as the rich?”

“One who understands that luxury shared becomes justice,” the Caliph replied. “One who knows that the greatest irrigation systems are useless if they serve only palaces.”

Yusuf spread his hands. “Commander of the Faithful, if you abandon the throne, what will become of the illusions that hold your realm together—the belief in your divine appointment, the certainty of Umayyad legitimacy?”

“Perhaps,” the Caliph mused, “it is time for our people to embrace more honest illusions—the belief that learning matters more than conquest, that diversity strengthens rather than weakens a kingdom, that tomorrow might indeed be better than today.”

I found my voice trembling as I spoke. “Your Majesty, if you abdicate, what becomes of those who have found freedom in the shadows of your reign? What of the women scribes, the Jewish merchants, the Christian scholars who have flourished under your protection?”

Abd al-Rahman III smiled, and for a moment, I glimpsed the young man who had inherited a fragmenting emirate and forged it into a caliphate that commanded the respect of the world. “Perhaps, dear Zahra, it is time for such freedoms to exist in daylight rather than shadow. Perhaps the greatest luxury I can bequeath to my people is the knowledge that their worth does not depend upon my sufferance.”

As we prepared to leave the chamber, the Caliph made one final request. “Keep the lantern, Yusuf. Use it wisely, and remember that truth—even uncomfortable truth—is itself a luxury. We live in an age when many kingdoms prefer the darkness of ignorance to the difficult light of knowledge.”

Walking back through the moonlit corridors, I reflected on the evening’s revelations. In a court renowned for its learning and refinement, we had discovered that our deepest luxuries were not possessions at all, but freedoms—the freedom to serve others, to acknowledge our vulnerabilities, to claim our rightful place in the world of ideas, and yes, even the freedom to choose our own constraints.

The next morning brought news that would reshape the caliphate: Abd al-Rahman III had announced his intention to establish a council of advisors that would include, for the first time, women scholars and representatives from all communities within al-Andalus. The age of absolute monarchy was ending, replaced by something unprecedented—a realm where intellectual merit might matter more than birth or gender.

I returned to my scriptorium with renewed purpose, my reed pen dancing across fresh vellum as I began to record not just the wisdom of the ancients, but the emerging truths of our own extraordinary age. Outside my window, the fountains of Córdoba continued their eternal song, carrying clean water to rich and poor alike, whilst in the libraries and schools of our great city, the light of learning burned brighter than any mystical lantern.

The one luxury I could not live without was indeed ink—but ink in service of truth, justice, and the radical possibility that human beings might transcend the limitations of their birth to create something beautiful together. In the end, that may be the greatest luxury of all.

The End

Bob Lynn | © 2025 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved.

Photo by Andres Garcia on Unsplash