The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights

by vol 02 (tr Malcolm C

  By God, my eye has wronged my heart;

  Let it quench the grief of love with tears.

  Time is among those who blame me for my love.

  But, wrapped within my shroud, I shall not see her face.

  I composed an air for him like a lament and sang it, after which he fainted until I thought that he was dead. When he recovered he asked me to sing it again, but I said: ‘God forbid,’ telling him I was afraid lest it kill him. ‘I wish it would,’ he said, and he continued to entreat me humbly until I took pity on him and sang it again. This led to an even more violent reaction, but in spite of the fact that I was quite certain that he was dead, I went on sprinkling him with rosewater until he recovered and sat up. I thanked God for his recovery before returning him his dinars and saying: ‘Take your money and leave me.’ ‘I don’t need it,’ he said, ‘and you can have as much again if you sing the air once more.’ I was attracted by the thought of the money, and I told him that I would do this but only on three conditions, the first being that he should stay and eat with me so as to strengthen himself, the second being that he should hearten himself by drinking wine and the third that he should tell me his story. HE DID AS I ASKED AND SAID:

  I come from Medina. One day, I went out on an excursion and took the road to al-‘Aqiq with some companions. It was then that, among a group of girls, I caught sight of one like a branch decked with dewdrops, whose glances slew all those at whom she looked. She and her friends sheltered in the shade until evening and, when they left, I discovered that my heart was suffering from wounds that were slow to heal. When I went back, I tried to find out about the girl, but without any success, and when I attempted to follow up her trail in the markets, no one could tell me anything and I fell sick with grief. I then told my story to a relative of mine, who said that I should not worry, explaining: ‘It’s still spring and we can expect rain. Then the girl will go out and I shall come with you, after which you can do what you want.’

  This comforted me and I waited until the water course at al-‘Aqiq ran full and became a popular spot to visit. I went there with my brothers and some other relatives, and we sat in the same place that I had been before. Before we had been waiting for long, the women came hurrying up like horses running in a race and I asked one of my female relatives to tell the girl: ‘This man says: “How well the poet expressed it when he said:

  She shot an arrow at my heart and turned away,

  Leaving me with new wounds and scars.” ’

  When my messenger has gone to her and told her that, she said: ‘Tell him how well this was answered in the lines:

  I have the same complaint as you. Patience!

  It may be that our hearts will soon be cured.’

  I said nothing more for fear of a scandal and got up to leave. She rose at the same time and I followed her until she saw that I had discovered where she lived. After that she started to come to me, while I would go to meet her, and this happened so often that it became widely known and word reached her father. I kept on trying to meet her and complained to my father, who collected my relatives and went to her father to ask for her hand in marriage. He said: ‘Had this request come to me before my daughter had been put to open shame, I would have accepted, but as it is now notorious, I’m not going to prove that the gossip was right.’

  Ibrahim continued: ‘I sang the air to him again, and he left after telling me where he lived, and we then became friends. Ja‘far ibn Yahya held an assembly, which I attended as usual, and I sang the young man’s lines for him, to his great delight. He drank some wine and asked me whose lines they were, at which I told him the young man’s story. Ja‘far instructed me to ride over and to assure him that he would get what he wanted, and after I had gone to him, I brought him to Ja‘far, who asked him to repeat the story. He did that and Ja‘far then delighted him by saying that he would guarantee to marry him to the girl. He stayed there with us, and in the morning Ja‘far rode to al-Rashid, who was charmed when he heard the story. He ordered us both to come and told me to sing the air, to which he drank. He then sent a letter to his governor in the Hijaz telling him to make liberal provision for the girl’s father and her family and to send them to him with all honour. They were not long in coming and al-Rashid summoned the father and told him to marry his daughter to the young man. He was then given a hundred thousand dinars and returned to his family.

  ‘The young man stayed as one of Ja‘far’s boon companions until the fall of the Barmecides, after which he returned with his family to Medina. May Almighty God have mercy on all their souls.’

  A story is also told, O fortunate king, that the vizier Abu ‘Amir ibn Marwan had been given an exceedingly handsome Christian boy. Al-Malik al-Nasir noticed him and asked the boy’s master where he had come from. ‘From God’ was the reply, at which the king exclaimed: ‘Are you trying to terrify me with stars and imprison me with moons?’ The vizier apologized and took care to prepare a present which he sent to the king along with the boy, to whom he said: ‘You must be part of the present, but had I not been forced to do this I would never have let you go.’ He wrote these lines:

  Master, this moon has risen on your horizon,

  And the horizon is a fitter place for moons than earth.

  I seek to please you with the gift of this precious soul. Never before

  Have I seen one who sought to please you with his own heart’s blood.

  Al-Nasir approved of this and rewarded the vizier with a large quantity of money and an assured position. Some time later, the vizier was presented with one of the loveliest of women as a slave girl. He was afraid that al-Nasir might hear of this and might ask for her, as had happened in the case of the boy. So he prepared an even more lavish gift and sent it to him with her.

  Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the six hundred and ninety-eighth night, SHE CONTINUED:

  I have heard, O fortunate king, that when the vizier had been given this slave girl, he was afraid that al-Nasir might hear of her and the same thing would happen as had done with the boy. So he prepared an even more lavish gift and sent it to him with her. He wrote the following lines:

  Master, here is the sun, following the moon,

  Sent to you so that sun and moon may meet,

  A conjunction promising felicity.

  So enjoy through them the river of Paradise.

  They have no match in beauty,

  Just as you have no match as king of all mankind.

  As a result he enjoyed even greater favour with al-Nasir, but then his enemies spread a report that he still had a passion for the boy and continued to talk about him while under the influence of wine, gnashing his teeth at the thought that he had given him away. So al-Nasir threatened that if he kept talking about the boy he would cut off his head, and then wrote him a letter, purporting to come from the boy, in which he said: ‘Master, you know that you used to be mine alone and I was always happy with you. Although I am with the king, I would prefer to be alone with you, but I am afraid of his power. Can you think of some way of asking me back from him?’ Al-Nasir sent this note with a youngster, who was to tell the vizier that it came from the boy and that al-Nasir himself had not said anything to him.

  When Abu ‘Amir understood the dangerous deception in this message brought by al-Nasir’s servant, he wrote these lines on the back of the paper:

  Should a man of experience and discretion

  Do his best to go into the lion’s den?

  I am not a man whose intelligence is overcome by love,

  Nor am I ignorant of what the envious claim.

  I have willingly presented you with my life;

  But how can life be brought back once it leaves?

  When al-Nasir read this, he was struck with wonder at the intelligence of the vizier and after that he would never listen to anything said by his detractors. Al-Nasir later asked him how he had escaped from the snare that had been laid for him, and the v
izier told him: ‘It was because my intelligence was not trapped by love.’

  A story is also told, O fortunate king, that in the time of the caliph Harun al-Rashid there was a man called Ahmad al-Danaf and another called Hasan Shuman, both of whom were wily and resourceful men who had performed remarkable feats. Because of this the caliph presented them both with robes of honour and appointed them as joint commanders of the city watch, each with a monthly allowance of a thousand dinars and each with forty men under their command. Ahmad was responsible for the district lying outside the city wall. He and Hasan rode out with their men accompanied by the emir Khalid, the wali, together with a herald who proclaimed that, in accordance with the orders of the caliph, Ahmad al-Danaf was to be the sole commander of the right-flank company of the city watch of Baghdad while Hasan Shuman was to command the left flank. Their orders were to be obeyed and they were to be treated with respect.

  In the city there was an old woman known as Dalila the wily, with a daughter who was known as Zainab the trickster. When they heard the proclamation, Zainab said to Dalila: ‘Look at this man, Ahmad al-Danaf, mother. He came here when he was thrown out of Cairo and he played his tricks in Baghdad until he ingratiated himself with the caliph and became commander of the right wing of the watch, while that scabby fellow, Hasan Shuman, commands the left. They are given two meals a day and each of them has a thousand dinars a month, while we sit at home with no jobs, no status, no respect and no one to ask after us.’

  Dalila’s husband had commanded the city watch of Baghdad with a monthly allowance of a thousand dinars from the caliph, but he had died, leaving two daughters. One of these was married, with a son called Ahmad al-Laqit, while Zainab the trickster was unmarried. Dalila herself was a mistress of wiles, deception and subterfuge. She could trick a snake out of its hole and tutor Iblis in double-dealing. Her husband had been in charge of the caliph’s pigeons, with a monthly salary of a thousand dinars, and it was he who had reared the carrier pigeons which took letters and messages, with the result that in emergencies each bird was dearer to the caliph than one of his own sons.

  Zainab now told her mother to play some trick to win them a reputation in Baghdad and get them the salary that her father had been paid.

  Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the six hundred and ninety-ninth night, SHE CONTINUED:

  I have heard, O fortunate king, that Zainab told her mother to play some trick to win them a reputation in Baghdad and get them the salary that her father had been paid. Dalila swore that she would outdo both Ahmad al-Danaf and Hasan Shuman and so, getting up, she veiled her face and clothed herself in wool like a poor woman with a dress that went down to her ankles, a woollen jubba and a broad belt. She took a jug which she filled up to its neck with water, and she then put three dinars in its mouth, which she covered with a tuft of palm fibre. Around her neck she wore a rosary the size of a load of firewood and in her hand she carried a flag made of red and yellow patches. She went out calling on the Name of God, but while her tongue was praising Him, her heart was galloping on the racetrack of evil, as she looked out for some trick to play in the city.

  She went from one lane to another until she came to one that was paved with marble and had been swept and sprinkled with water, and there she saw an arched doorway with a marble threshold where a Maghribi gatekeeper was standing. The house belonged to the chief of the caliph’s officers, a landed proprietor who enjoyed a large income. He was called Hasan Sharr al-Tariq,* because his blow came before his word, and he was married to a beautiful girl whom he loved. On their wedding night she had made him swear to take no other wife and to spend no single night away from home.

  One day, when her husband went to the caliph’s court, he noticed that each of the emirs was accompanied by one son or two, and then, when he went into the baths and looked at his face in the mirror, he saw that there were more white than black hairs in his beard. He said to himself: ‘God took away your father and will He not provide you with a son?’ He was in an angry mood when he went back to his wife and, when she wished him a good evening, he said: ‘Get away from me. From the day that I first saw you nothing has gone right for me.’ ‘Why is this?’ she asked, and he said: ‘On our wedding night you made me swear to take no other wife. Today I saw that every single emir had one or two sons. I thought about dying without issue, and a man who leaves no heir will not be remembered, and I am angry because you are barren and cannot conceive by me.’ His wife invoked God’s Name against him and said: ‘I have worn away mortars by pounding powders and medicines, and the fault is not mine but yours. You are a flat-nosed mule with watery and infertile sperm that cannot inseminate and produce children.’ ‘I am going on a journey,’ he told her, ‘and when I come back I shall take another wife.’ ‘It is God Who determines my fortune,’ she told him. He then left her and each of them was sorry for having blamed the other.

  Later, as the girl looked out of the window like a fairy princess in all her jewels, Dalila, who was standing outside, saw her in her finery and her rich clothes and said to herself: ‘It would be a true test of cunning to take this girl from her husband’s house, strip her of her jewellery and clothes and take the lot.’ So she stood beneath the window of the house calling repeatedly on the Name of God, and what the girl saw was an old woman dressed as a Sufi whose white clothes were like a dome of light and who was saying: ‘Come, you saints of God.’ The women of the quarter looked out of their windows and exclaimed: ‘God has sent us aid! Radiance is spreading from the face of this shaikha.’ Khatun, the wife of the emir Hasan, burst into tears and told her slave girl: ‘Go down and kiss the hand of Abu ‘Ali, the gatekeeper, and tell him to let the shaikha come in so that we may be blessed by her presence.’ The girl went down and did what she was told, passing on her mistress’s message to the gatekeeper…

  Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the seven hundredth night, SHE CONTINUED:

  I have heard, O fortunate king, that the girl went down to tell the gatekeeper that her mistress’s instructions were that he should let the shaikha come in to see her so that both she and everyone else there might be blessed by her presence, and he in his turn went to kiss Dalila’s hand, but she would not let him and said: ‘Keep away from me lest you spoil my state of purity. But you too are drawn to God and have won the attention of His saints. May He free you from this servile state, Abu ‘Ali.’

  Abu ‘Ali was in difficulties, as he was owed three months’ wages which he did not know how to get from the emir. He said: ‘Give me a drink from your jug, mother, so that I may get a blessing from you.’ She took the jug from her shoulder and twirled it through the air with a flick of her hand so that the fibre covering fell from its mouth and the three dinars dropped on the ground. Abu ‘Ali saw them, picked them up and said to himself: ‘By God, this shaikha is a lady of power. She discovered my secret, found that I needed spending money and conjured up three dinars for me from the air.’ He took them in his hand and said: ‘Aunt, take these three dinars which have fallen on the ground from your jug.’ ‘Keep them away from me,’ Dalila said, ‘for I am one of those who are unconcerned about worldly things. Take them yourself and use them for your own purposes in place of what you are owed by the emir.’ Abu ‘Ali took this as a matter of divine inspiration and heavenly aid.

  The slave girl now kissed Dalila’s hand and took her to her mistress, whom she found, on entering, to be like a treasure freed from talismanic spells. Dalila greeted her, kissed her hand and said: ‘Daughter, it is divine providence that has brought me to you.’ Khatun produced food for her, but she said: ‘I only eat the food of Paradise and break my fast on no more than five days in the year. But I can see that you are worried and I want you to tell me why.’ ‘Mother,’ replied Khatun, ‘on my wedding night I made my husband swear that he would take no other wife. Then he looked at other men’s sons and, in his longing for th
em, he accused me of being barren, while I told him that he was an infertile mule. He went off in a fit of anger, promising to take another wife when he came back from his journey. I am afraid that he will divorce me and marry another, as he is a man of property with a large income, and if he has sons by another wife it is they who will take the wealth and the property instead of me.’ ‘Daughter,’ said Dalila, ‘don’t you know about my master, Abu’l-Hamalat? If any debtor goes to him as a pilgrim, God will free him of his debt, and any barren woman who visits him will conceive.’ When Khatun told her that since the day of her wedding she had not left her house either to offer condolences or congratulations, Dalila said: ‘I shall take you with me on a visit to Abu’l-Hamalat. If you cast your burden on him and make a vow to him, it may be that when your husband comes back from his journey and lies with you, you will conceive either a daughter or a son, and the child, of whichever sex it may be, will become a dervish in the service of the shaikh Abu’l-Hamalat.’

  Khatun got up and put on the most splendid of her clothes as well as all her jewellery, telling her maid to keep an eye on the house. ‘To hear is to obey, my lady,’ the girl replied, and Khatun then went down and was met by the gatekeeper, who asked where she was going. When she told him that she was going to visit the shaikh Abu’l-Hamalat, he said: ‘I swear to fast for a year if this shaikha is not a holy saint. She has mystical powers and she gave me three dinars of red gold, having found out my secrets and knowing that I was in need, without my having to ask her.’ So Dalila set off with Khatun, telling her as she went: ‘When you visit the shaikh Abu’l-Hamalat, you will find comfort: through the permission of Almighty God you will conceive and, thanks to the blessing brought by the shaikh, you will regain your husband’s love and never again hear any hurtful words from him.’ Khatun agreed to visit the shaikh, and Dalila said to herself: ‘Where can I strip her of her clothes while the people are going to and fro?’ She then told Khatun to walk behind her while still keeping her in sight, explaining that she had many burdens which people would lay upon her and that all those who had votive offerings to make would present them to her and kiss her hand. So Khatun followed at a distance, with her anklets tinkling and the tassels in her hair sounding, as Dalila led her to the merchants’ market.