by Tariq Ali
“I am waiting,” he finally said. “Tell me why I should not hand you over to the Kadi, who will have you stoned to death for your crime.”
“If love is a crime,” she began in a self-pitying tone, “then, Commander of the Merciful, I deserve to die.”
“Not love, wretched woman, but adultery. Betraying your husband before God.”
At this her eyes blazed. The sadness had evaporated and she began to speak. Her voice changed too. She spoke with confidence and with no trace of humility. She had entirely regained her self-possession, and spoke to the Sultan in a confident voice as though addressing an equal.
“I could not understand how small this world can be for two people. When Messud was not with me, the memory of him became a torment. I care not whether I live or die, and I will submit to the Kadi’s punishment. He can have me stoned to death, but I will not beg for mercy or shout my repentance to the vultures. I am sad, but I am not sorry. The short spell of happiness was more than I had thought possible in this life.”
The Sultan asked if she had any relatives. She shook her head. He then requested Halima to tell her story.
I was two years old when I was sold to the family of Kamil ibn Zafar. They said I was an orphan, found abandoned miles away by Kurdish traders. They had taken pity on me, but the term of their pity was limited to only a couple of years. Kamil ibn Zafar’s mother could not conceive again. Her husband, they told me at the time, was dead. She lived in her father’s house, and this kind old man bought her a child from the streets. I was part of the seasonal trade. That is all I know of my past.
Kamil was ten or eleven years old at the time. He was kind and loving even then, and always attentive to my needs. He treated me as though I was his real sister. His mother’s attitude was different. She could never decide whether to bring me up as a daughter or as a slave girl. As I grew older, she became clearer as to my functions in the house. I still ate with the family, which annoyed the other servants, but I was trained to become her serving woman. It was not such a bad life, though I often felt lonely. The other serving women never fully trusted me.
Every day an old man came to the house to teach us the wisdom of the Koran, and to recount the deeds of the Prophet and his Companions. Soon Kamil had stopped attending these lessons. He would go riding with his friends, and shooting arrows at the mark. One day the teacher of holy texts grabbed my hand, and put it between his legs. I screamed. Kamil’s mother rushed into the room.
The teacher, muttering the name of Allah, told her that I was indecent and licentious. In his presence she slapped my face twice, and apologised to him. When Kamil came home, I told him the truth. He was angry with his mother, and the teacher was never allowed near our house again. I think that she was nervous of Kamil’s affection for me, and she soon found him a wife. She chose her sister’s daughter, Zenobia, who was two years older than me.
After Kamil’s wedding, I was made to attend to the needs of his young wife. I liked her. We had known each other since I had first entered the household, and we often shared each other’s secrets. When Zenobia bore Kamil a son, I was as delighted as all of them. I looked after the child a great deal, and I grew to love it as if it were my own. I envied Zenobia, who Allah had blessed with unlimited amounts of milk.
Everything was fine—even Kamil’s mother had become friendly again—until that fateful day when Kamil took me aside and told me that he loved me, and not just as a brother. Allah is my witness, I was wholly surprised. At first I was scared. But Kamil persisted. He wanted me. For a very long time, I resisted. I felt much affection for him, but no passion. Not so much as a trace.
I know not what would have happened, or even how it would have ended, had Kamil’s mother not attempted to marry me off to the son of the water-carrier. He was a rough type, and did not appeal to me. Yet marriage, as Your Grace knows, is never a free choice for women. If my mistress had decided my fate, I would have married the water-carrier’s boy.
Kamil was upset by the news. He declared that it would never happen, and immediately asked me to become his wife. His mother was shocked. His wife declared that she was humiliated by his choice, taking her servant as a second wife. Both women stopped speaking to me for many months.
Imagine my situation. There was no one to talk to about the problems of my life. In bed at night, I used to weep, yearning for the mother I never knew. I considered the choices confronting me quite coldly. The thought of the water-carrier’s son made me feel ill. I would rather have died or run away than bear his touch. Kamil, who had always been kind and loving to me, was the only possible alternative. I agreed to become his wife.
Kamil was overjoyed. I was satisfied and not unhappy, even though Zenobia hated me, and Kamil’s mother treated me as if I were dirt from the street. Her own past hung over her like a cloud. She could never forget that Kamil’s father had deserted her for another, while she was heavy with their child. He had left Cairo one night, never to return. I am told he has a family in Baghdad, where he trades in precious stones. His name was never mentioned, though Kamil used to think of him a great deal. What I have recounted is his mother’s side of the story.
In the kitchen, there was another version which is common knowledge. I was told it only after the servants were convinced that I would not carry tales to the mistress. For the truth is that Kamil’s father ran away from our city when he discovered, on returning from a long voyage abroad, that his wife had coupled with a local merchant. The child in her belly did not belong to him. Kamil confirmed this to me after we were married. His mother knew that I had been told, and the very thought filled with her hatred. What would have happened to all of us Allah alone knows.
Then Messud, with eyes like almonds and lips as sweet as honey, entered my life. He told me tales of Damascus, and how he had fought by the side of Sultan Yusuf Salah al-Din ibn Ayyub. I could not resist him. I did not wish to resist him. What I felt for him was something I had never experienced before.
That is my story, O great Sultan. I know that you will live without misfortune, you will win great victories, you will rule over us, you will pass judgement, and you will make sure your sons are brought up as you wish them to be. Your success has put you where you are. This benighted, blind and homeless creature puts her trust in you. Allah’s will must be done.
While Halima had been talking, Salah al-Din had drunk in every word, observed every gesture, and noticed every flash of the eyes. She had the look of a wild, but cornered, cat. Now he inspected her with the steady, emotionless gaze of a Kadi, as though his face were made of stone. The intensity of the Sultan’s gaze unnerved the girl. This time, it was she who averted her eyes.
He smiled and clapped his hands. The ever-faithful Shadhi entered the chamber, and the Sultan spoke to him in the Kurdish dialect, which I could not understand. The sound struck some deep chord in Halima. Hearing them talk in their tongue startled her, and she listened carefully.
“Go with him,” the Sultan told her. “He will make sure you remain safe, far away from the Kadi’s stones.”
She kissed his feet, and Shadhi took her by the elbow and guided her out of the chamber.
“Speak frankly, Ibn Yakub. Your religion shares many of our prescriptions. In my place, would you have allowed such a beautiful creation to be stoned to death outside the Bab-el-Barkiya?”
I shook my head.
“I would not, Your Highness, but many of the more orthodox within my religion would share the view of the great Kadi.”
“Surely you understand, my good scribe, that al-Fadil did not really want her to be killed. That is what all this business is about. He wanted me to take the decision. That is all. Had he wished, he could have dealt with the whole matter himself—and then informed me when it was too late to intervene. By asking me to listen to her story, he knew that he was not consigning her to the cruel uncertainties of enigmatic fate. He knows me well. He would have been sure I would keep her alive. If the truth be told, I think our Kadi, too, fel
l under Halima’s spell. I think she will be safe in the harem.
“Now, it has been a tiring day. You will break some bread with me, I trust?”
FOUR
A eunuch kills the great Sultan Zengi and the fortunes of Salah al-Din’s family take a turn; Shadhi’s story
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, I arrived at the palace at the agreed time and was taken to the library by Shadhi. The Sultan himself did not appear. I busied myself with volumes hitherto unknown to me.
At noon I was told by a messenger, with Shadhi trailing behind him, that matters of state were occupying the Sultan and that he had no time that day.
I was about to leave when Shadhi winked at me. I was wary of this stooped old man, who was still vain enough to dye his white beard with henna and whose well-oiled bald head glistened dangerously in the sun. My face must have registered confusion.
“Matters of state?”
The old man laughed, a rasping, loud, vulgar, sceptical laugh, as if to answer his own question.
“I think the Defender of the Weak is not inspecting the citadel as he should be at this hour. Instead, he is exploring the cracks and crevices of the girl with red hair.”
I was slightly shocked, not even sure myself whether I was disturbed more by the words that Shadhi had spoken or by the message they conveyed. Could it be true? The Sultan’s speed on horseback was legendary, and I wondered whether this same impatience had characterised his movements in the bedchamber. And Halima? Had she yielded willingly, without a struggle or, at the very least, a verbal plea for patience? Was it a seduction, or a violation?
The report was probably accurate. I was desperate for more information, but I refrained from comment, not wishing to encourage Shadhi further. This irritated him. He was trying to develop a familiarity with me by sharing a secret, and he took my lack of response as a snub.
I hurriedly took my leave of him and returned home.
To my surprise, when I returned the next morning, I found the Sultan waiting for me in the library. He smiled at my entrance, but wanted to begin immediately, wasting no time in pleasantries. In my mind’s eye, I thought I caught a brief glimpse of Halima, before the Sultan’s familiar tones forced me to concentrate my attention on his words. My hand began to move on the paper, pushed as if by a force much greater than me.
Spring always came to Baalbek like a traveller with stories to tell. At night the sky was like a quilt sewn with stars. During the day it was an intense blue, as the sun smiled on everything. We used to lie in the grass and inhale the fragrance of the almond blossom. As the weather grew warmer, and summer approached, we would compete with each other to see who would dive first into the small freshwater lake, endlessly supplied by several little streams. The lake itself was hidden by a clump of trees, and we always treated its location as our little secret, though everyone in Baalbek knew of its existence.
One day, while we were swimming, we saw Shadhi racing towards us. He could run in those days, though not as well as in his youth. My grandmother used to talk of how Shadhi could run from one mountain village to another, over distances of more than twenty miles. He would leave after the morning prayer and return in time to serve breakfast to my grandfather. That was a long time ago, in Dvin, before our family moved to Takrit.
Shadhi told us to get out of the water and run as fast as we could to the citadel. Our father had summoned us. He swore at us, threatening vile punishments if we did not obey his instruction immediately. His face was taut with worry. On this occasion, we believed him.
When my older brother, Turan Shah, inquired as to the reason for such haste, Shadhi glared, telling him that it was for our father to inform us of the calamity that had befallen our faith. Genuinely alarmed, we ran as fast as we could. I remember Turan Shah muttering something about the Franj. If they were at the gates, he would fight, even if he had to steal a sword.
As we approached the citadel, we heard the familiar sound of wailing women. I remember clutching Turan Shah’s hand, and looking at him nervously. Shadhi had noticed this and correctly interpreted my anxiety.
As he lifted me onto his shoulders, he whispered soothing words in my ear.
“Your father is alive and well. In a few minutes you will see him.”
It was not our father but the great Sultan Zengi who had died. The Defender of the Faith had been murdered by a drunken eunuch while he slept in his tent by the Euphrates.
He was fully engaged in the Holy War against the Franj. My father had been put in command of Baalbek by Sultan Zengi, and now he was worried that we might have to pack our tents and move again.
It was Zengi who had defeated the Franj and, after a month’s siege, taken the city of al-Ruha, which they called Edessa. The city had become a jewel set in the dagger of our faith, as we looked with longing towards al-Kuds and the mosque of Caliph Omar.
I still remember the words of the poet, often sung in Baalbek by both soldiers and slaves. We used to join them, and I think if I begin to sing, the words will come back:
He rides in a wave of horsemen,
They flow o’er the earth like a flood,
His spears talk to the enemy
Like tongues encrusted in blood.
He’s merciful and forgiving
But not in the heat of the fight,
For in the battle’s fire and rage
The only law is might.
My father had enjoyed warm relations with Sultan Zengi and was genuinely upset by the manner and cause of his death. Years later, Shadhi told me the real story.
Zengi was fond of wine. On the night of his death, he had consumed an entire flask of wine. While still in his cups he had sent for a young soldier who had caught his eye during the siege. The Sultan used the young man to assuage his lust.
Yaruktash, the eunuch who killed Zengi, had loved the boy. He could not bear the thought of his sculpted body being defiled by an old man in a hurry. In a fit of jealousy he followed the boy, and observed what took place. He brought wine to the guards outside the tent, making them drowsy. While they slept, he crept in and stabbed his master to death, joined by the young soldier whose body was still warm from Zengi’s embrace. It was a crime of passion.
The scribes who write history pretend that the eunuch and his friends had stolen Zengi’s wine. Fearful of being discovered, they had killed their ruler in a drunken frenzy. But this version doesn’t make sense. Shadhi told me the truth. He must have heard it from my father or my uncle. Little escaped the notice of those two men.
At the time I knew little or nothing of this. Nor was I especially interested in the affairs of that other world inhabited by adults. Once again, I benefited from not being the eldest son. That was the privilege reserved for Shahan Shah. He was obliged to sit next to my father during Friday prayers, and when other matters were being discussed. He was being trained in the arts of rulership. Turan Shah and I would sometimes find it difficult not to laugh when Shahan Shah began to adopt my father’s way of speaking.
The occupation of our coastal cities, and even of al-Kuds, which the Franj call the Kingdom of Jerusalem, had become, for me, one of the simple facts of life. Sometimes I would hear my father and my uncle Shirkuh talk of the past, often when the children were present. They would be speaking to each other, but we were the real audience. It was their way of making sure we understood the scale of what had taken place in our lands.
They would talk of how the barbarians had first arrived, and of how they ate human flesh and did not bathe. Always they told sad stories of the fate of al-Kuds. The barbarians had decided to kill all the Believers. All of your people, Ibn Yakub, as I’m sure you know better than I, were collected in the Temple of Suleiman. The exits were blocked, and the Franj set the holy sanctuary on fire. They wished to wipe out the past and to rewrite the future of al-Kuds, which once belonged to all of us, the People of the Book.
The only story that really moved me as a child was that of al-Kuds. The cruelty of the barbarians was like a poison that mak
es men mute. Al-Kuds was never absent from our world of make-believe. We used to climb on our horses and pretend we were riding to drive the Franj out of al-Kuds, an event which usually meant driving Shadhi out of the kitchen. Yet the real day is not so far away, Ibn Yakub. Our people will soon return to al-Kuds. The cities of Tyre and Acre, of Antioch and Tripoli, will once again belong to us.
That the Franj must be defeated was obvious, but how could we emerge victorious when the camp of the Believers was so bitterly divided? For a start, there were two Caliphs: one in Baghdad who ruled only in name, and another in Cairo, who was weak. The collapse of the Caliphate had led to little kingdoms springing up everywhere. My father told us on the day Zengi died that unless we were united the Franj would never be defeated. He spoke as a general, but his words were also true in a greater, spiritual sense. The animosities within our own side ran deep. We were fiercer in fighting our rivals than in resisting the Franj. Those words have always stayed with me.
“And your father?” I asked the Sultan. “You have not yet spoken of him. What kind of a man was he?”
My father Ayyub was a good-natured man. He was a cautious and trusting person. When trying to explain something to us, he would ask in his soft voice: “Is it simple? Is it clear? Does everyone understand?”
In a more tranquil world he might have been content in charge of a large library or as the man responsible for the regular functioning of the public baths of Cairo. You smile, Ibn Yakub. You think I underestimate the qualities of my father. Not in the least. All I am saying is that we are all creatures of our fate, and our lives are determined by the times in which we exist. Our biographies are determined by circumstance.
Take Ibn Maymun, for instance. If his family had not been compelled to leave Andalus, he might have been the Vizir of Granada. If al-Kuds had not been occupied, you might be living there and not in Cairo.
Take our Prophet himself. It was fortunate, was it not, that he received the Revelation at a time when two great empires were beginning to decay. Within thirty years of his death, the Believers, with the guidance of Allah, had succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. If we did not succeed in civilising the lands of the Franj, the fault is ours alone. It was human error that prevented us from educating and circumcising the Franj. The Prophet knew that reliance on Allah alone would never be enough. Did he not once remark: “Trust in Allah, but tie your camel first”?