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the world's a big place, but it isn't finite
so many choices!You know who Qindil reminds me of? He’s reminds me of a Dean Moriarty, only operating under the cover of religion for his reasons to be traveling. Qindil breezes through countries, originally under the pretense that “Ten days anywhere is long enough” (Mahfouz 15) in the search for wisdom. His one year plan turns into many years, as he gets absorbed into the culture and lifestyles of each country before escaping (or being run out, or just plain getting bored of the scene).
Granted, Qindil has more legitimate reasons of leaving a country… most of the time. In Mashriq, he was chased out for bringing up his son with Islam. In Haira, he gets arrested for not wanting to hand over his woman to a more powerful man (which seems to be a recurring event, so kudos, I guess, to picking wanted women). The rest usually involved wanderlust, or his incapability to prolong his ten day stays. Still, for all of his morals, Qindil falls in and out of love like a prepubescent teenager, passionate but ultimately short-lived, and he gorges on the feelings, staying still in countries to raise families with the different women he falls for (Halima, Arousa, Samia, Arousa again…). I suppose Qindil has got it in his mind that the grass really is greener on the other side and country hops in an effort to find the land of Gebel, the El Dorado or Shangri-la of the story. The fact that there is no definitive conclusion as to whether or not Gebel is found leaves the story wide open to inferences as to what really happened.
To me, the most likely end to this story involves the endless country-hoppin of Qindil with no resolution of the fabled land of Gebel. Where on this earth is there really an utopia anyways? The thought itself is somewhat laughable, as there are far too many flaws in any country to allow such a country to exist (case in point… the five countries Qindil visits are all different, and while each of them sets a different premium on different moralities, none of them are perfect), so Qindil must forever be doomed to the roaming of the world, picking up lovers, creating families, and ultimately leaving them behind until maybe he finally realizes that utopias are just myths created by a dissatisfied people who want to believe in the best qualities of the world.
Qindil, Sal and Dean
I think Qindil is maybe more like Sal than Dean. Qindil and Dean do have similarities, like the way they both are sort of running away from their original lives and cultures. They are also looking for a destination but can't find it, I think. But there is something about Dean that I think Qindil lacks, namely the reckless, hurtful attitude towards the people he's involved with. I think Qindil is more like Sal than Dean in that he just seems more conscious of everything that happens in his travels.
Now that you said that, I do
Now that you said that, I do not know why I did not think of it in the first place (that Dean and Qindil have a lot in common). They both go around creating new lives with new people and then leaving them. The only difference though, is that I think that Qindil would never have left if his first wife wasn't seized by the Caliph, and other circumstances seemed to be against him, like becoming jailed for raising his son a muslim. I think that Qindil really did spend his life torn between cultures and women, but I also think that, unlike Dean, it was less of an addiction to new places but more just circumstantial and also related to his ultimate goal of traveling all the way to Gebel. So I guess the difference is that whereas Dean didn't really have a destination, Qindil did.