Classical Arabic Stories

by Salma Khadra Jayyusi

  Absal still had some food with him, which he had brought from the inhabited island, and some of this he offered to Hayy, who did not recognize it, having seen nothing like it before. Absal ate some of the food and invited Hayy to do the same. Hayy pondered his resolve about the food he might permit himself. Then, finally, not recognizing this thing he was offered, and so uncertain whether or not he could accept it, he refused the offer. Absal, though, persisted gently, and Hayy, who had grown fond of Absal by now, feared a continued refusal might give offense. And so Hayy approached and tasted the food, finding it delicious. He realized he had erred in this by breaking his own promise about the kind of food he might eat. Regretting what he had done, he thought he should perhaps part company with Absal and return to his own exalted state. But he was graced with no immediate revelation. And so he decided to remain with Absal in the world of the senses till he had found the truth about this world to his own satisfaction. Then, he thought, he could return to his own state without further distraction.

  He stayed by Absal’s side, and Absal, seeing Hayy silent, found his anxieties about his own faith diminishing. He might, he hoped, teach Hayy to speak, then instruct him in knowledge and religion, and so win favor with God. Absal began to teach Hayy language by pointing to different objects and pronouncing their names, doing this repeatedly and encouraging Hayy to pronounce the name while he himself pointed at it. Finally he had taught him all the names, and, quite quickly, Hayy began to speak. Absal then started to question Hayy about himself, asking how he had come to be on the island. Hayy explained that he had no notion about his birth or his father or mother, only about the Doe who had raised him. He told Absal everything about himself, how he had grown in knowledge till at last he had come to spiritual attainment. When Absal heard Hayy describe these divine truths and essences, which rest not on the world of the senses but on knowledge of the Almighty, and heard his description of the Almighty with His beautiful attributes, and heard him speak as best he could of the delights of spiritual attainment and of the pains of those who are veiled from Him, then he knew beyond all doubt that these things were linked to his own faith concerning the Almighty, His angels, and His scriptures, and messengers, and the Day of Judgment. God’s Paradise and Hell were akin to all that Hayy ibn Yaqzan had witnessed. At that his heart was enlightened, his mind sharpened, and he saw a correspondence between Tradition and Reason. The means of interpretation became clearer to him. No problem of religious law was left without revelation, no ambiguity without explanation, and so he became endowed with understanding.

  Now he began to gaze at Hayy ibn Yaqzan with veneration and wonder. This, he saw, was one of those favored by God who should have no fear, nor should grieve. He took to serving and following Hayy, heeding his advice on queries and doubts about the religious law he had learned among his own people. Hayy, in turn, began to ask Absal about his affairs. And Absal described his own native island, its inhabitants, their condition before they embraced the faith and thereafter. He explained the divine world as related in their religious law, Heaven and Hell, resurrection, judgment, balance, and the straight path. All this Hayy understood, finding nothing different from what he himself had experienced in his exalted state.

  The man describing these things, Hayy ibn Yaqzan realized, was telling no falsehoods; he was speaking the truth, as a messenger from his Lord. And so he believed in him and bore witness to his message. He asked Absal, next, about the obligatory disciplines the Messenger had brought to his people, and about the forms of worship assigned to each discipline. Absal thereupon described the prayers, alms, fasting, pilgrimage, and other external practices. All this Hayy accepted and resolved to practice, on the injunction of the one he accepted as a truthful witness.

  Yet there remained two aspects of religion that left him perplexed and unable to perceive the wisdom that lay behind them. The first was this. Why had the Messenger, when describing the divine world, spoken mostly in symbols, unwilling to give revelation directly? This, it seemed to Hayy, had led people to ascribe unfitting attributes to the essence of Truth, from which He was free. There was, in addition here, the question of crime and punishment. The second query was as follows. Why had the Messenger confined duty to the obligatory prayers and rites? Why had he permitted the amassing of wealth and overindulgence in food, so that people became fixed on vanities and were distracted from the Truth?

  His own view was that a person should eat just enough to sustain him; and, as for money, this had no meaning for him. He studied the judgments of religious law in matters of money—the various types of alms, sales, interests, limitations, and punishments linked to each transaction—and found them strange, marked by fruitless detail. “If people,” he said, “could only grasp the truth of such matters, they would shun all those follies. They would embrace the truth and be satisfied with that. No one would have a private fortune needing to be taxed, or risk the severing of a hand for stealing something, or risk losing his life for seizing it openly.”

  What had misled him here was his assumption that all men had inborn higher natures, acute minds, and lofty aspirations. He had no notion of how dull and inadequate they were, how poor in insight and weak in resolve— that they were like cattle, or worse still, that they had gone astray.

  4. The Failure of Preaching on Absal’s Island

  The head of this island, whose name was Salaman, was a friend of Absal’s, and he believed in life within the community, proscribing isolation. Now Hayy ibn Yaqzan set out to instruct these islanders and reveal to them the secrets of wisdom. After a time he was able to pass beyond the literal, to make clear what they had wrongly understood before. However, they began to feel uneasy at this, displeased and disturbed by what he was saying, harboring ill will toward him—even if they did appear pleased to his face, given that he was a guest among them, and out of respect for Absal as a leading figure.

  Day and night, Hayy ibn Yaqzan remained patient and courteous to these people, setting out the truth openly or by implication. But all this only increased their hostility. They did indeed love the good and desire truth. But, deficient as they were by nature, they did not seek truth in the proper fashion, or follow the right path to realize it, or pass through the door that led to it. Nor did they wish to learn the truth from those endowed with it. And so, finally, he despaired of reforming them, losing all hope of teaching a way of life of which they were plainly incapable.

  Reflecting on the various classes of people there, he realized each person was content with his present state. Passion was their god, desire their worship. Still they strove to amass worldly goods, till, sunk in this course, they went to their graves. No advice could win through to them, no good word found acceptance with them, no discussion led to anything but more obduracy still. Wisdom they had no way of attaining; they could not conceive even a part of it. They were plunged in ignorance, and their gains weighed heavy on their hearts. “Allah has set a seal on their hearts and on their hearing, and a veil on their eyes; great is the penalty they [incur].” He saw them canopied with torment and draped in darkness. Few only had thought of their religion beyond its worldly aspects. Good deeds, however light and easy, they disregarded and reckoned of small importance; they were turned aside from all thoughts of God by trade and sale, having no fear of the day when hearts and sights would be transformed. Hayy knew clearly now that he could find no direct way through to them and should not tax them beyond their limits. Most of them, he found, simply took from religion those things that aided them in their worldly lives and protected them against wrongdoing by others. Only a handful had the means to find the bliss of that other world—were among those “who desire the tilth of the hereafter and strive for it with genuine faith.” As for those who transgressed, setting greater store by the life of this world, they would abide in Hell. What greater hardship could there be, and what misery more wretched, than the one suffered by those whose deeds, from the instant of waking to the moment of retirement to sleep, proclaimed only way
s to some gain in base matters of the senses: wealth to amass, a pleasure to gain, a desire to fulfill, an act of spite to relish, a position to win, a religious deed to use for ornament or protection? All these were “layers of darkness on top of one another,” on a perilous sea. “Not one of you but will pass over it: this is with your Lord a decree that must be accomplished.” When he realized the state of these people, that most were like dumb animals, he became sure that all wisdom, all guidance, all fulfillment were to be found in the words of the messengers and the tenets of religion, which were perfect and complete. Deeds were attached to the person. Each was destined to that for which he was created. “[Such was] the practice [approved] of Allah among those who lived aforetime: no change will you find in the practice [approved] of Allah.”

  Hayy therefore went to Salaman and his companions, saying he now regretted the things he had explained to them. He was, he said, of their mind after all, guided in the same fashion; and he advised them to keep to the ways they were following, within the limits of religious law and common tradition, disregarding what did not concern them, shunning heresies and whims, following in the footsteps of their pious forefathers, avoiding anything that was new. Only, they should not imitate base people in setting aside religious law and coveting worldly gain; such behavior, he warned, they should shun utterly. He realized, as did his companion Absal, that this frail, unseasoned set of people could find no salvation outside the path he described. Removed from that path, they would lose their bearings, fall short of the progress of the blessed, stray this way and that, before falling back and meeting a woeful end at last. If, though, they held to their own ways until graced with faith, they would find safety and bliss in due time— even if those who reached the goal first were closer to salvation.

  Accordingly, Hayy and Absal took leave of the islanders and prepared to return to their own island; and, in due course, the Almighty granted them the means to cross over. There Hayy ibn Yaqzan resumed the pious path he had embarked upon. Absal did the same, until his progress fell little short of Hayy’s. And so they went on in their worship of the Almighty, on that island, until they met their destiny.

  Translated by ʿAbd al-Wahid Luʾluʾa and Christopher Tingley

  82

  From Al-Jahiz, Al-Bukhalaʾ (Book of Misers)

  1. The Attenders at a Mosque in Basra

  A group of men would meet regularly at a mosque in Basra. They were known for their frugality and for their eagerness to amass wealth while denying such wealth to others—a trait that made for a kind of bond of mutual affection, or covenant for mutual support. Whenever these men met in their circles, they would indulge the trait, relishing any appropriate news in a spirit of enjoyment and emulation.

  1. One day an old man in the group addressed the others as follows:

  “My dear old comrades, never underestimate little things. After all, everything that’s big was small to start with. When the Almighty wills it, He can make a trifling object into a large one, He can turn scantiness into plenty. What is it that makes treasure, finally, but one dirham added to another one? And what’s a dirham but one qirat added to another one? It’s no different from the sands of Arabia or the water in the sea! How does the money build up in the treasury if it’s not from a dirham here, a dirham there? I know a petty trader who came to own a thousand acres in Arabia. I’d seen him selling peppercorns and chickpeas, for the tiniest of profits. But still he went on, building up those small gains, till he was able to buy his thousand acres.

  “Once, I remember, I was racked for several days with pains in my chest from a cough I had. One person suggested frosted sweets as a cure, another one recommended a bran porridge, with starch, and sugar, and almond oil, and so on. I wasn’t going to pay out all that money! I just hoped it would clear up by itself. As I was soldiering on like that, this rich fellow said to me: ‘Just try boiling bran and drinking the liquid hot.’ So I did, and very tasty it was, too. What’s more, I found I wasn’t hungry afterwards. My appetite didn’t come back before midday, and when I did finally finish my lunch and wash my hands, it was already late afternoon—so close to my suppertime I decided to do without supper altogether.

  “ ‘Why,’ I said to that wife of mine, ‘don’t you boil up bran every day for our children? The broth clears the chest, it’s good, wholesome food, and it stops you feeling hungry. And when we’ve finished, you can dry out the bran itself to the way it was at the beginning. Then, when you’ve collected enough, you can sell it for the same price we paid to start with. That way we’ll double our money.’

  “ ‘May God,’ she said, ‘bless you a hundred times for that cough you had. The bran’s done your body good and your pocket as well.’

  “Now, wasn’t that a lucky piece of advice?”

  “You’re right,” his comrades agreed. “You can only get rich if you’re thinking straight, and that’s a gift from Heaven sure enough!”

  2. Another old man came forward.

  “I’ve never,” he said, “known anyone do things properly, think everything through just right, like Maʿada al-Anbariyya.”

  “What about this Maʿada?” one of the group asked.

  “Last year,” the old man said, “a cousin of hers gave her a ewe for the sacrifice. But I found her gloomy, in a total quandary.

  “ ‘What’s the matter, Maʿada?’ I asked.

  “ ‘I’m a widow,’ she said, ‘all on my own. There’s no one to guide me, no one to tell me how to manage sacrificial meat. The ones who did know are all gone. I’m afraid some of this mutton might be wasted because I don’t know how to use the different parts. And yet I know God didn’t create anything in this ewe, or in any other animal come to that, without its proper use. What am I to do? My fear is, if I waste the tiniest part, it might lead on to wasting a bigger part.

  “ ‘Now the horn,’ she went on, ‘that’s no problem. I can nail it to one of the beams on the ceiling, and it’ll make a hook for hanging baskets and leather bags—for anything that needs to be kept clear from mice, ants, cats, cockroaches, snakes, things like that. The guts can be used as cords for a teasing bow—we need one badly. As for the head, the jaws, and all the other bones, they can be scraped, chopped up, and then boiled. Any grease that comes to the top I’ll use for the lantern, spreading on bread, making broth, and so on. After that the bones can be used to light the fire. There’s nothing like bones for making a good, blazing fire. It brings the pot to the boil quicker as well—bones make hardly any smoke when they burn. As for the hide, the skin makes a sack all by itself, and there are endless ways to use the wool. And you can make a wonderful fuel by drying the dung and the droppings.

  “ ‘But now we come to the blood. The Almighty, I know, only forbade the eating or drinking of shed blood. There are ways we’re actually allowed to use it. If I don’t find some way of using the blood, it will be like a canker in my heart and eyes. I’ll never be able to stop thinking and worrying about it.’

  “Then, after a while” (the old man went on), “I saw her face light up in a beaming smile.

  “ ‘So,’ I said, ‘you’ve hit on some way, have you, how you can use the blood?’

  “ ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’ve just remembered, I have some new cooking ware from Damascus. There’s nothing, so people say, that tans and strengthens them better than smearing them with hot greasy blood. I can relax now. Everything’s fallen right, in its proper place.’

  “Six months later, I came across her again.

  “ ‘So,’ I asked, ‘how was your cured mutton?’

  “ ‘Heaven bless you!’ she exclaimed. ‘It isn’t time for the cured meat yet! We still have enough fat, and shanks, and scraped bones, and things like that. Everything has its proper time!’ ”

  One of the other men there picked up a handful of pebbles and flung them down on the ground.

  “You never realize how wasteful you’ve been,” he yelled, “till you hear about the deeds of the righteous!”

  3. Abu Yaʿqoub a
l-Daqnan used to say:

  I never went without meat after I became rich. On the Friday I’d buy beef for a dirham, onions for a daniq, eggplants for another daniq, and a squash and a carrot for a daniq each when they were in season. Then I’d cook it all up together. That day my family and I would eat our bread with whatever was floating at the top of the pot: bits of onion, eggplant, carrot, squash, grease, or meat. On Saturday we’d crumble our bread and sop it in the broth. On Sunday we’d eat the onions, on Monday we’d eat the carrots, on Tuesday we’d eat the squash. As for Thursday, that was earmarked for the meat. And so, I never went without meat after I became rich.

  4. Our companions related the following:

  We made a visit to some people in the northern region and found their country rather cold. And yet they had a whole forest of tamarisk trees to use as firewood.

  “There’s no fuel more efficient than tamarisk,” we told them.

  “It certainly is efficient,” they answered. “That’s why we don’t go near it.”

  “Why don’t you go near it?” we asked.

  “Tamarisk smoke,” they told us, “sharpens the appetite. And we have large families.”