The ruins of flowers, what a beautiful and desolate name, she was once the place where delicate flowers or the beautiful Queen Iltemade, who was both a washerwoman and a poet, should live. And history, which has been praised countless times by literati and poets, has turned into a pile of "ruins" that are just piles of rubble. Such "ruins" make people have to wonder: What is history? Did history ever exist? Are historical data just history? Are these desolate ruins history, or are they just the remains of history.... Zhang Chengzhi,A Muslim who firmly believes in the true God Allah and Hell, the author of "The River of the North" who writes infinite passion with infinite silence, a life thinker who starts his quiet night lessons with a cigarette, constantly facing the Medina of Al-Andalus`Zahara (City of Flowers) asked questions about history. Zahara did not answer, maintaining the silence she has maintained for thousands of years. No, it should be said that he answered, but it was not up to him to answer. She used the name of "the ruins of flowers", the accumulation of rubble and ruins that have existed for thousands of years, the long words of the people who have told the story of the romantic king and his beautiful queen from generation to generation, and the thinking of thinkers like him who are asking about history... Yes, she answered, history exists, and it exists in all the past that has continued to this day and even the distant future.
The wind blows away the river water shining like a chain,
If it is uncovered and is as cold as ice, it is an iron coat.
This two-sentence line that has been continuously used, smacked, and worshiped by later translators is the 11th-century Cordoba Caliph Altamid and his man who used the formula in "Arabian Nights" to say that "Allah who gave the beauty of the moon is highly praised, but those who are unlucky enough to fall in love with her go crazy." Queen Iltimad's words of love at first sight are like a pair of poetry-loving scholar ladies in a Chinese drama, exchanging wild geese at the Lantern Festival Lake. It is not a powerful and solemn encounter between a king and his queen, but the king who built the Medina that is now just a "ruin" for his flowery concubine Zahara
Zahara (City of Flowers).
On the outskirts of Cordoba today, there was a lot of traffic here a thousand years ago: countless Carthaginian stones, Roman stone pillars, and food bowlsandThe golden statue of Constantinople and countless craftsmen stayed in this place for twenty years, just so that the "City of Flowers" seemed to remain standing, and for all the arbitrations and calls, canonizations and cheers in this then splendid "City of Flowers", such luxury seemed familiar, as if it was the same as the collection of "Yanzhao". The Epang Palace, managed by Han Wei, the elite of Qi and Chu, and plundered its people for several generations, has the same level of luxury, but the Caliphate painstakingly managed it in the name of love and used the large sums of money left over from the war to redeem slaves. Compared with Qin Shihuang's method of plundering its people for several generations in the name of the emperor, I think the difference in significance is self-evident, and I don't need to elaborate here.
It’s snowing in Cordoba! The crystal-clear Queen Iltimad, who had never experienced learning, was moved by the snow scene. Of course, she was also saddened by the melting of the snow a few days later. She begged the king: "If you have the right given by God, you should let this beautiful scenery repeat every year." For Khalifa, who was well versed in plants, this problem was not a problem at all. With an order, the "City of Flowers" was surrounded by Tamba apricots. A year later, the steps, window sills, olive trees, courtyards, and even the flowing skirts of pedestrians in the "City of Flowers" were covered with a layer of soft and dreamy white. In the Queen's eyes, the constantly falling white petals of Danba apricots were the snow of that year. It was as beautiful as the first snow she saw, or even more beautiful, because it was created exclusively for her by King Khalifa with the power given by God. In China, there seems to be a similar story. Concubine Yang accidentally ate lychees, a tribute from southern Fujian, and suddenly felt salivating in her mouth. She begged Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty: "Why not let this delicious food continue?" So there was a "good story" that "when a red concubine laughs, no one knows it is lychees." Obviously this comparison is ironic, but I'm sorry, but all I can think of is this irony of myself.
I don’t know how many romantic or grand and luxurious stories and legends there are about the "City of Flowers", but now it is just a ruin, just some broken walls. Of course, we cannot see any of the original splendor from these rubbles. We will never see it again. We can smell the original scent of Danba apricots from these weeds, let alone see the stunning beauty of Iltimad and the tender eyes of the Caliph from these beautiful legends. We know realistically and cruelly that these are impossible, so we doubt whether all this is true, or it is just a fantasy. But the beautiful romance or the beauty of romance is that we can't help but believe that these are true. Although it is history, it is the reality that once existed. And this "ruin of flowers" is accompanied by desolate ruins and beautiful legends. As people wander whether they believe it or not, they quietly breathe under the sky of Al-Andalus, which is eternally unchanged but always new.
