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Like Qais ibn Al-Mulawah in that famous tale of the east, Majnun Layla, I think I too became majnun in my youth.

Unlike Qais, however, I was unsuccessful in wooing my Layla, who thought I was a total moron. Still, that didn’t stop me becoming completely besotted with her, much to the disdain of my companions who thought I was insane.

In that old story, Qais eventually finds the courage to ask Layla’s father for her hand in marriage, but he refuses on the grounds that he seems crazy. Instead, she’s forced to marry a wealthy merchant, causing Qais to flee the village heartbroken.

In my case, after months of silent contemplation, I finally plucked up the courage to merely speak to my Layla for the first time. Only that didn’t go to plan either, for just hours after confiding my intentions in a friend, he urgently told me to walk away or else spend the rest of my life a paraplegic.

Thus did Qais and I embark on the same journey into the wilderness. In the legend, Qais spent the rest of his days wandering alone reciting love poems in honour of his beloved. And me? Much the same, penning a hundred-thousand words in homage.

So it was that the two of us became truly majnun — completely crazy. For Qais, it seemed to last a lifetime. For me, much longer than reasonable, as she came to occupy my dreams. Wandering in my own wilderness — that nightly trek back from work to my lonely lodgings, far away from home — I would rebuke myself for listening to a threat at the moment of my greatest resolve.

Such is the madness that enfolds with unrequited love. Ironically, a madness that would simply have wisped away into the ether had I actually spoken of my feelings aloud. Still, all was not lost, for that infatuation eventually morphed into the impetus to pursue inner reform. How so? To seek to cease all of those fictions and lies that I hid behind. Yes, for in my mind I had made those fictions real.

So it was that two years after my alarmed retreat from one I thought so sweet, I set out on the path to reform my heart. To be truthful, if that was possible. To be sincere. To cast aside all of my fictions in pursuit of the truth. Another year after that, I embraced the Muslim faith, making tentative steps along the path, setting all of the words once written to one side.

To those around me, no doubt that was the moment I became crazy in their eyes. But in truth it was the start of my journey back towards sanity. No, there was no instant transformation. It didn’t immediately turn my life around, or turn me into a saint or pious sage. But it did set me in the right direction.

Three patient years after that, I would be introduced by mutual friends to the one who was destined for me. Just to confirm I was still crazy, we were married within three months. Fortunately, over the years since then my family has conceded that we weren’t so crazy to leap into the unknown like that after all. Craziness, it turns out, is really a matter of perception.

Others are less convinced. And they may be right. I may still be majnun, but at least I’m true to myself. Still wandering in the wilderness? Maybe. Only this time it’s in pursuit of the One.