Ah… Joy… Ah, Joy!

By Dr. Al-Khidir Haroun

“Joy”—a beloved word with a known meaning: it delights, not saddens; brings happiness, not harm. Even as a mere utterance, it deserves attention, awakening curiosity for what might be added to it. Yet even in its bare form, it soothes the heart and calms the nerves, though it cannot quench the thirst of the good-hearted who rejoice only in glad tidings—except when it is coupled with something more: the joy of Eid, the joy of success, the joy of marriage, the joy of victory over tyrants and usurpers.

We know, of course, that there are those twisted souls who find joy in the sight of corpses, ruin, and flocks of crows, owls, and vultures battling over carcasses. Otherwise, why have wars never ceased, not even for a moment, throughout human history—even as humanity prepares to reach Mars?

We were just schoolboys when the October Revolution of 1964 erupted. We knew nothing of politics. We joined the demonstrators against the government of Ibrahim Abboud simply because we heard a university student had been martyred by police bullets—Ahmed Al-Qurashi Taha from the village of Quraissa in White Nile (though some say he was originally from Kriab in Meroe). That was enough for a proud and stubborn society, still shaped by a deep sense of equality and not yet broken by the cruelty of its own rulers.

When Mohamed Wardi translated the country’s joy into song—while the martyrs’ blood was still fresh—he enchanted our ears with the masterpiece of Mohamed Miftah Al-Faytouri: “The Morning Has Come.” Though the poem was originally meant for Africa at large, Wardi skillfully tailored it to a specific Africa: Sudan. “You will never be humiliated, our Sudan!” He masterfully closed it with a solo musical passage: Ah… Joy… Ah… Joy…

That word pierced our tender souls with a kind of ecstasy that brings tears to the eyes. Our innocent hearts, untainted by prejudice, soared to embrace the sky. The unspoken addition to that joy was the people’s triumph at that moment. This is not the time to analyze the revolution’s motives or aftermath—General Abboud did not orchestrate a coup, but was handed power by an elected prime minister overwhelmed by the burden of governance. He and his fellow generals tried to reform, and they both achieved and erred. May God have mercy on them—such is the nature of mankind.

Joy is a mighty force, impossible for words alone to carry. It needs the support of genuine senses rooted deep in the soul, overflowing to the eyes, shedding warm tears in calm and serenity, tears that carry dignity in their flow. Or, if dignity fails, joy bursts forth in hot sobs—yet in the midst of crying, the lips smile with radiant beauty.

Still, words strive, as best they can, to capture this beautiful feeling—in prose and in poetry.

Fatini Bint Dukhair once pleaded with her son in the Egyptian army:

“Don’t you know how crazy my heart is for you?”
(Oh, what sweet, overwhelming longing!)
“You don’t even send me a letter with just two lines—
That I could receive and stretch out in joy two full spans!”
“My joy would go beyond all bounds!”

And that is the heart of the matter: a joy so immense, the poet could not describe it in conventional words. It was “beyond the bounds of law,” too great for ordinary expression.

Tijani Saeed, in Wardi’s famous song “Arhal” (Leave), described a similar feeling:

“Like the joy of a distant one returning home.”

We all know that joy. Those who have tasted the bitterness of exile—chosen or forced—understand it well. The joy of seeing familiar homes and the trees once climbed in the mischief of childhood—without boredom or fatigue. That beloved sense of belonging.

That’s the joy felt by millions upon Sudan’s victory and return to its green and dusty streets alike.

In the 1970s, I returned from a land of towering buildings and organized green avenues. As the taxi took me from the airport toward Al-Sahafa Street, where mud houses still lined the road (before concrete buildings crept into the neighborhood), I was overwhelmed with joy. Though holding back tears, I felt that same uncontainable delight—beyond all bounds—impossible to describe in words, as if I stood at the threshold of paradise. I thought to myself: This is what homeland means.

I remembered the two little birds in Shuqay’s poem, dwelling in a barren land in Hijaz, tempted by the intrusive wind’s promises of migration to the lush gardens of Aden—like remnants of the kingdom of Dhu Yazan:

“Love is sugar there, and water is honey and milk!”

But one bird, wise and rooted, replied:

“Oh wind, you’re a wanderer—you know nothing of home!
Even if Aden were paradise itself,
Nothing equals the homeland!”

Even the ancient Arabs, in the harsh deserts, carried deep human emotions. When passing their old camps, the mere sight of cooking stones (athafiy) and rainwater streams around tents stirred memories and longing.

Listen to Zuhayr:

“Blackened stones of hearths in a campsite of boiling pots,
And trenches like water troughs, untouched and unbroken.”

Or Labid:

“The ruins of Rayyan speak of days gone by,
Worn and faded like inscriptions revealed by divine revelation.”

These were Bedouins whose humanity was not dulled by the desert’s cruelty, whose yearning was not quenched by cold stone and black birds.

Can any of the marauders, brought in by forces of tyranny from the desert’s edges to kill, plunder, and violate our homes—can they be compared to those noble men of the past?

He called them “warriors”? Warriors against the unarmed, the weak, the women, the elderly, and children—armed with deadly weapons? God have mercy on us.

When Algeria gained independence, its people poured into the streets like floods, shouting after 132 years of brutal French colonialism:

“Oh Muhammad, congratulations to you—
Algeria has returned to you!”

And upon Muhammad be the best of prayers and peace.

And to you, O dark-skinned ones, whose bodies are adorned with the colors of ebony, acacia, and hashab—blessed is your return to your beloved land. Embrace one another, shake hands, show mercy. You—if only you knew—are the last remnants of the good that diminishes with every passing day in this fleeting world. Rely on God, and then on yourselves. Keep this homeland in the pupils of your eyes: preserve it… protect it… for it is vast and wide enough for you all, in love, in brotherhood, and in peace.