The Theocrat: A Modern Arabic Novel (Modern Arabic Literature)

by Bensalem Himmich

  In you I see behavior both good and bad; by my life, you are the one I shall describe:

  Near and far, forthcoming and inscrutable, generous and miserly, upright and criminal,

  Honest and deceitful, so not even his friend knows whether to shun or flatter him.

  You are neither deceiver nor counselor; I find myself completely uncertain about you.

  So my tongue can both lampoon and extol you, just as my heart is both knowing and ignorant of you.”

  “You do indeed surprise me, Ibn al-Haytham.” said al-Hakim with a laugh, “you surprise me very much! So go in peace! Now bring in the poet, Ibn al-Sa‘sa‘ al-Qarmati.”

  With that Ghayn the police chief went over to the cage where the accused were being kept and brought out a handsome young man in the prime of his youth. He forced the young man to kiss the ground in front of the caliph and display signs of humility and obedience.

  “Come now, young man,” said a!-Hakim. “Tell us about the accusation against you, the way you interpret the history of ‘Ali—peace be upon him!—and the Shi‘a who make him divine.”

  “My Lord,” Ibn Sa‘sa‘ began, “you should be aware that ‘Ali—peace be upon his memory—had spent two thirds of a night in prayer and recitation. Just before dawn he and his army set off to confront a group of his followers who were exaggerating his superhuman qualities and making him divine.

  “Once he had reached them and had them surrounded, they bowed down to him.

  ‘“You are our god, creator, and provider,” they all said. ‘From you we take our beginning and to you we return. For you to be our Lord is glory enough: for us to be your servants is honor enough. You are as we would wish, now make us as you would wish!’

  ‘“Ali drew his sword and told these devotees to desist from such gross hyperbole and error. They refused and vaunted their defiance.

  “This very day I shall fill this ditch with your corpses,’ ‘Ali told them, ‘and dire is the resort for you thereafter!’

  ‘“If you do indeed slay us,” they replied once they realized they were doomed to die, “you yourself will raise us up again! We testify that ‘Ali is the Imam al-Mahdi, the expected Messiah!’

  “When threats proved to be of no avail, ‘Ali gave orders for a fire to be lit in the ditch and for their bodies to be burned. He recited the following line: Once I realized that the matter was anathema, I lit my fire and summoned a lark.’

  “From the limits of life the humble servant now stands before you. I began my comments on this hadith by saying: Had ‘Ali actually renounced such hyperbole regarding his unique essence and the glorification of his worldly-record, he would have realized that the ‘Ali. of those who burned to death in that fire was not ‘Ali himself, but rather Imam ‘Ali, the expected one; and it is impossible to await what is either present or transitory. The use of the very same name for a personage who is absent is a metaphorical device demanded by the will of events. As a result, the basic, real meaning of the word ‘‘Ali’ here is Man. The Shi‘a were awaiting the imam named Man, and in that they were indeed radical.”

  “The only thing that astonishes me about your interpretation,” said al-Hakim, “is your reliance on the role of imagination. You can astound us even more now by giving your imagination free rein to contemplate your death at my hands.”

  “I’m only contemplating death at your hands, my lord,” replied Ibn Sa‘sa‘ confidently, “in a single, utterly unique fashion. In the police record it will state as follows: ‘In that the perpetrator of the above mentioned interpretation has radically supported the cause of the Shi‘a who were burned, in that his words do not conform with their testimony, in that he is a well-known poet-heretic who defines poetry as the revelation of what is inspired by standing in front of a wall in the midday sun when people are taking a nap, in that this poet has extolled authority and seems devoted to it, this poet who claims that poetry is the discourse of waiting in that space which separates us from seizing power, and—in another version—that the most poetic of poets is one who senses that his poetry is an expression of essential weakness and deprivation, and so he strives for power and dreams of it. The police authorities, realizing their duties and ever watchful for the repose of the people, reserve for themselves the right to arrest and interrogate the poet until such time as he reveals the many secrets stored in his heart.’ However, my lord, once I have disappeared for ever, Ghayn, the chief of police, will release a factual report to people, which will say: ‘Rumors have spread abroad in the country stating that Ibn Sa‘sa‘ the poet who had been arrested by our forces died while being tortured by our personnel. In that this is false, we have no alternative but to reveal the following information: the above-named poet’s corpse was discovered where the Nile waters had deposited it. A medical examination determined that he had been killed by a dagger thrust while fighting alongside pimps and heretics.’”

  “I’m truly amazed, young man,” said al-Hakim contentedly. “Get out of here before my sword performs your vision for you! Now, Ghayn, bring in the Sufi with no shoes.”

  The Sufi did not bother to wait for Ghayn to execute the caliph’s command, but rushed over to stand before the caliph, repeating the phrase, “Be kind to me, O God!” over and over again, and then. “I beg God’s forgiveness; He is sufficient for me, and is good as a trustee!”

  “So, shoeless one,” said al-Hakim, raising his voice over the noise of the Sufi’s invocations, “you stand accused of shunning me and insulting my name. Many times I have summoned you to appear, but you have resisted. As with other holy men of God, I have sought your counsel by offering bouquets of narcissus, but you have spurned them. Now here you stand before me, asking God for kindness and protection. And I am still being patient!”

  The shoeless Sufi responded: “The Prophet of God—peace and blessings be upon him!—once said, ‘Beware of the councils of tyrants.’ He was asked, ‘And who are tyrants, O most judicious of God’s created people?’ ‘Those who govern by their own order,’ the Prophet replied, ‘who contravene God’s laws by tyrannous deeds and self-deification, and who kill the soul that God has declared sacred. In the next world they are fuel for hellfire, and it is a dire resort indeed. O God, in Your kindness.…”‘

  Al-Hakim was furious. “That’s a fraudulent hadith,” he yelled. “It is unauthenticated and false. Your words are sheer nonsense; they trivialize the truth. They represent a lie and a travesty of our moral and religious practice.”

  The Sufi tried again. “There can be no word of truth but that the Prophet of God is its utterer. Included in that is what he has transmitted to believers following his occultation by way of dreams and visions. That is still the case today. I myself have seen him—on him be peace!—and he followed up on his previous hadith with this pronouncement (may he be exalted!): O people, a simile is being invoked here, so pay attention. The people to whom you pray in place of God could never create so much as a fly even though they all combined their efforts. If that fly were to rob them of something, they could never retrieve it; seeker and sought are simply too weak. They have not given God his true value; indeed God is powerful and mighty. In my dream I heard his voice—on him be peace!—counseling me, ‘Saint of God, make sure you don’t adjust your words to the world of tyrants. If you do so, your words will immediately dwindle, beset by collapse on all sides. Instead, allow your imagination to confront tyranny with patience, defiance, and creativity.”‘

  “How sorry I feel,” said al-Hakim, “for all those people who die otherwise than by my sword. Shoeless one, how much I regret the power I have to kill you. If your fondness for life were not weaker than a spider’s thread, I would have no compunction about consigning you to your grave.”

  “How true, my lord,” replied the shoeless Sufi. “If people were like me in disdaining their life here on earth and aspiring to what is more ideal and worthy in their hearts, you would have no authority over them. Your oppression and terror would have no effect.”

  �
��Leave my covering where it is,” interrupted al-Hakim. “Raise it no further! Instead, since you stand here before me, reveal to us the pages of your enlightened ideas. What do you have to say about peace and love?”

  “Peace is the pact whereby we all live with each other. If someone else inclines to it, then I follow in my turn, offer him my greetings, present roses and doves to him, and pray for his safety. Then I go on my way feeling secure and at ease. When I feel possessed by love, I declare it to my beloved in beautiful words marked by their grace and charm. I try to fill his heart with sweetness and to become like a tree with fruit always available. For me he is goal and helper, someone to stand by as I proceed on my way. However, if my beloved dies in my arms while I am still alive and cognizant, then I will inevitably weep sad tears, fully aware of the essence of death and that in both beginning and end there is violence and cruelty. Thus I rebel and almost recant.”

  Al-Hakim was clearly much affected by this. “What happens when you’re hungry,” he asked, “or when you feel lonely and go crazy?”

  “When I’m hungry,” the shoeless Sufi replied, “I intone a verse of the Qur’an and use that as food. If the verse gives forth, then I am filled; if it does not, then I hunt birds and pilfer food from ants. If I feel lonely, either I go out into the desert and yell till the wild beasts ask me how I feel, or I go out among the people and offer radical advice, or else I go and roam outside the city. When I feel crazy, my inner vision is sharpened and empowered. I turn into an eye that sees, a thousand lips that intone transcendent thoughts as I recite what I see. And, because I disclose the truth and counsel rebellion, I am forever being taken off to prison or the mental asylum.”

  By now al-Hakim was trembling. “And what about when you’re ill and close to death?”

  “In that case,” replied the shoeless Sufi, “I will donate what I have earned to simpletons, read the Fatiha of existence, embrace my dear friends, and say farewell. Then I’ll write on the walls of markets and alleys, on tree stumps and rivers, on gravestones and flowers in cemeteries, I’ll write the instructions of water and daylight. Then I shall surrender my spirit to the elements.”

  “Ah, how alike we are!” said al-Hakim, sweat pouring from his brow. “How much I aspire to be like you! If only you could have come to me in my seclusion in the Muqattam Hills, you would have found me there pure and concealed, head bare, countenance transformed, stomach empty. My only companion there was contemplation of the unity of God; the absolute was my only goal. Now go back to your desert and direct your prayers toward forgiveness for all those who go astray and overstep their station.”

  At this point al-Hakim stood up as though bringing the session to an end. There were still a man and two women inside the cage.

  “You, old man,” said al-Hakim, “didn’t you hear about my interdiction of drinking, transporting, or trading in wine? Didn’t I run into you on a narrow bridge in broad daylight, scrambling away on a donkey loaded up with what I have explicitly forbidden? Where had you come from and where were you going with it?”

  “I was coming from God’s own narrow earth,” the man replied boldly, “and that’s where I was going,”

  “So you’re determined to make a bad thing worse, are you?” said al-Hakim angrily. “God’s earth is narrow, you say?”

  “My lord,” the old man replied, “if that were not the case, then you and I would never have met on that narrow bridge.”

  Al-Hakim gave a hearty laugh and let the man go. Now he turned his attention to the two women. “So what has brought you into these cages?” he asked.

  “My lord,” replied the first woman, who was very beautiful, “you have twice denied me the man who was most beloved to me. Once your men surprised and killed him out of revenge because he was my companion in loneliness, my resort in times of oppression, and my protector against temptation. The second time was when you prevented me from visiting his grave and communing with his dead body. Since you had made it impossible for me to visit him, I placed my own body in a grave next to that of my beloved. By day I used a reed to provide myself with enough air, and at night I went in search of food. I stayed this way for several days until there came the morning when one of the men who harass women visiting cemeteries trod on my reed. I emerged half-dead from the grave, and they brought me to stand before you.”

  Al-Hakim was astonished. “Woman,” he asked, “you would do all this for the sake of a man? Who was this beloved husband of yours?”

  “He wasn’t my husband,” she replied, her eyes gleaming with defiance. “He was my brother.”

  Al-Hakim was now even more astonished. “Your brother, woman! Go now to see my sister, Sitt al-Mulk, and tell her this amazing story. Perhaps my rebellious sister will take note of this tale and see the light. And you, old woman, why is your back so withered?”

  “My lord,” the old woman replied, “even old women have been distressed by your regulation that forbids women from leaving the house or even looking out of balconies and windows. Even old women are crushed between two flames: one is you, my lord, and the other is their own husbands who oppress them while being themselves oppressed by you. I was writing down my frustrations and anger on notes that I would place in the ladles of street vendors; all I’d get in exchange was some fruit and sweetmeats. When your decree was issued forbidding the uncovering of what was concealed, I got drunk, stole out of the house at night, and went down to the Nile where I stretched out and covered myself in a wrap. There I proceeded to drink some more and stole an occasional glance at the beauty of God’s creation in the water, the plants, and the greenery. When your men showed up and wanted to identify me by removing my wrap, I stopped them. “I am fully covered,” I told them in a threatening tone, “and you’re trying to contravene the orders of our lord the caliph by uncovering what is concealed. So they brought me here so I could tell you my story and you could decide on my fate.”

  Al-Hakim was on the point of leaving. “Here I promised to pardon anyone who was able to astonish me,” he said with a laugh. “From you and all your colleagues in this session I’ve heard more heresy and deviance than I would have imagined possible. Now I feel relaxed and forgiving, so go in peace—God forgive you!”

  3. A Session on Theology with the Devotees

  Al-Hakim got the notion of claiming divinity. To that end he brought in a man named al-Akhram, and attached to him a group of men whom he encouraged to engage in irreligious acts …. The story of his claim to divinity spread. This way he gathered around him a group of ignoramuses. Whenever they encountered him, they would greet him with the words: Peace be upon you, O One and Only, O bringer of both life and death.

  Ibn al-Sabi,

  Book of History—Completion of Thabit Ibn Sinan’s Book of History

  It was in the secret wing of the Dar al-Hikma that one night after a long break, al-Hakim reconvened his session on theology. This group was made up of major missionaries, marshals, and deputies of the community, along with a coterie of the enlightened. They used to form themselves into a closed circle ready to talk or listen, but al-Hakim preferred to huddle by himself inside his dark closet. He used to sit there looking distracted, as firmly rooted as a lofty idol.

  The senior member was Hamzah ibn ‘Ali, “Guide of the Respondents,” whose hallmark was a broad forehead, something he relied on to convince his listeners and defeat his adversaries. He also had a capacious memory for both authentic and inauthentic Shi‘i hadiths. “In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,” he would intone, using a nod of his head as a means of breaking the august silence of this assembly, “all praise be to God who stands above all learning, transcends all decrees, and disdains all that can be imagined or comprehended; God’s prayers be upon the sovereign of His divine mercy and deep sea of his wisdom, the Prophet Muhammad who brings good news through the Torah, the Gospels, and the Psalms; and on his brother and cousin, courageous warrior on the day of battle and repository of the secret of the night of the ascension, ‘
Ali ibn Abi Talib, conduit between the two rivers, Euphrates the sweet and ‘Ajjaj the salty; and on his descendants, the Shi‘i imams, worthy guides of God’s people who preserve his faith and bring his words of justice and truth to fruition, the community of believers—may God keep you safe from the all-powerful terror and join you to those whom you love on the Day of Gathering!”

  Hamza the senior missionary continued, “Our lord, Imam al-Sadiq Ja‘far ibn Muhammad tells us. Our community of Shi‘a is like bees. Did birds but realize what their bellies contain, they would tear them apart.’ And this: ‘Beware of revealing secrets. It will shorten your life, blind your heart, and take away your sustenance.’”

  In the light of the preceding, our lord al-Hakim spoke in the ear of every missionary past or present, “Take a pledge of allegiance from every willing respondent, from every clear adherent whose loyalty and conviction you trust and whose chastity and devotion are clear. Urge them to be loyal to the pledge they have made. Do not force anyone to become a follower or pledge themselves. Only assign things to those whom you trust to preserve them. Only sow seeds in a field that will not stint its sower; for your seedlings search for the very best nurseries, then bring them to cisterns full of the water of life. Approach them with offerings of the sincere, with transport out of the darkness of doubt and uncertainty to the light of proof and clear signs. Recite the words of wisdom that you receive during sessions with believers and respondents, men and women alike, in the caliph’s gleaming palaces and the great mosque in the al-Mu‘izz district of Cairo. Keep these words of wisdom a secret from all save those who are qualified to hear them; only divulge them to people who deserve the privilege. Above all do not divulge the secret to incompetent people who cannot bear the burden and whose minds are not capable of comprehending what they hear. Make use of your insight to collect proofs of matters legal and intellectual, and show proof of the linkage between strong and weak. Visible entities are bodies, while hidden ones are their shapes. Hidden entities are souls, with the visible as their spirits. Shapes cannot exist without spirits, and in this haven of ours spirits only exist through shapes. If they are separated, the system falls apart, and creation is condemned to collapse.”13