Scheherazade Goes West: Different Cultures, Different Harems

by Fatema Mernissi

  The name Harun Ar-Rachid has been triggering the imagination of countless Arabs ever since his reign in the ninth century. He inspired many of the tales from The Thousand and One Nights because of his magical combination of qualities: physical beauty, youth, athleticism, intelligence, love of learning and the sciences, and military success. Harun Ar-Rachid also seems to have had a rich emotional and sexual life. He was not afraid to love, to express his emotions, or to explore the passionate feelings that women stirred in him. Harun Ar-Rachid often confessed that when a man falls in love and expresses his emotions, he becomes vulnerable and jeopardizes his capacity to control women. But this capacity to express his feelings and admit his vulnerability when in love is one of the secrets of Harun’s lasting spell. I, myself, like everyone else, am of course scared of making a fool of myself by declaring my love to a man who might not care for me at all. Whence my admiration of Harem Ar-Rachid’s courage to show his emotions and run the risk of being ridiculed. In at least one of the tales in The Thousand and One Nights, he is described as an unfortunate husband, betrayed by an unfaithful jarya who seduces his own musician.

  Harun Ar-Rachid was born on February 16, 766 (the year 149 of the Muslim calendar), in Rayy, a Persian city whose remnants lie a few miles south of present-day Teheran. By all accounts he was handsome without being superficial or conceited. This is a rare combination, at least on my side of the Mediterranean. Medieval Muslim historians — who are, of course, all male — describe his good nature as being due to a harmonious mix of physical characteristics and intellectual gifts: “Ar-Rachid was very fair, tall, handsome, of captivating appearance and eloquent. He was versed in science and literature. . . .”3 He also believed that the agility of the mind depends on the agility of the body, and that both must be developed through games and competitions. Harun Ar-Rachid “was the first Caliph to popularize the games of polo, shooting with the bow in the course of a tournament, ball games, and racket games. He rewarded those who distinguished themselves in these various exercises and these games spread among the people. He was also the first among the Abbasid Caliphs to play chess and backgammon. He favored the players who distinguished themselves and granted them pensions. Such was the splendor, wealth, and prosperity of his reign that they called this period the ‘Days of the Marriage Feast.’”4

  But if Harun Ar-Rachid had been nothing more than a handsome, chess-playing prince, he would have been forgotten or dismissed as a negligible entity, like many of today’s oil-rich playboys. In contrast, Harun knew when to stop playing and switch to business. One of the key words of Arab civilization is wasat, which simply means the midpoint between two extremes; we are taught since childhood to aim for striking a balance between reason and passion. And Harun’s life was in perfect balance. In addition to his highly developed intellectual and physical capabilities, “he was scrupulous in fulfilling his duties as a pilgrim and waging Holy War. He undertook public works by building wells, cisterns, and strongholds on the road to Mecca. . . . He strengthened the frontiers, built cities, fortified several towns . . . carried out innumerable works of military architecture, as well as building caravansaries and ribats. . . .”5

  The ideal ruler is one who puts his people’s solidarity at the top of his agenda and does not hesitate to use his own money if necessary to help those who are in trouble. Harun’s chief enemies were the Christians, and “in the year 189 [810 of the Christian], he ransomed his people with the Romans, so that there did not remain a single Muslim captive in their territories.”6 But even this would not have been enough to keep the caliph’s memory alive for generations, if he had not also attacked the Roman Empire: “In the year 190 he took Haraclea and spread his troops over the Roman territories.”7 Containing Christian aggressiveness made Harun the ideal Muslim leader, and his famous letter to the Roman emperor Nikephoros, who breached a contract, is taught to all Muslim children in kindergarten. “In the name of God, the Merciful and the Compassionate, from the servant of God, Harun, Commander of the Faithful, to Nikephoros, the dog of the Romans, as follows: I have understood your letter, and I have your answer. You will see it with your own eye, not hear it.”8 Then he sent an army against the Romans.

  Ar-Rachid sent his impassioned letter to the Emperor because the Roman had refused to honor a treaty made between his mother, Queen Irena, who ruled from 797 to 802, and Harun, when he invaded Byzantium. Nikephoros, categorically rejecting his mother’s treaty, had written: “From Nikephoros, the King of Romans, to Ar-Rachid, the King of the Arabs, as follows: That woman put you and your father and your brother in the place of kings and put herself in the place of a commoner. I put you in a different place and am preparing to invade your lands and attack your cities, unless you repay me what that woman paid you. Farewell!” And when that letter reached the caliph, he was so furious that he decided to lead the Muslim army himself, and not desist until Nikephoros was defeated: “Ar-Rachid advanced relentlessly into the land of the Romans, killing, plundering, taking captives, destroying castles, and obliterating traces, until he came to the narrow roads before Constantinople, and when they reached there, they found that Nikephoros had already had trees cut down, thrown across the roads, and set on fire. . . . Nikephoros sent gifts to al-Rachid and submitted to him very humbly and paid him the poll tax for himself as well as for his companions.”9

  But again, if Harun Ar-Rachid had been nothing more than a fighter, he would not have survived in people’s imagination for centuries. It was his capacity to know when to stop fighting, enjoy life, and cultivate sensuality and refined entertainment that made him a hero. He also became a hero because he was young (he was twenty-one when he became caliph, and died at the age of forty-four), had a strong erotic dimension, and was not afraid to explore it. This romantic side is captured in many of the stories of The Thousand and One Nights .

  The first woman whom Harun fell in love with, at age sixteen, was his cousin Zubeida, herself a proud princess. He married her right away in a ceremony that took place in a fabulous palace called Eternity (Al-Khuld ). “People came from all horizons,” writes Ibn Khalikhan, one of the more restrained historians of the period. “Huge sums of money, the likes of which Islam had never before seen, were distributed at this occasion.”10 Various chronicles give minute details of Ar-Rachid’s love for Zubeida and of the luxuries that he showered her with while she was the favorite. “She was the first to be served on vessels of gold and silver enriched with precious stones,” writes one ninth-century observer. “For her the finest clothes were made of the varicolored silk called washi, a single length of which, designed for her, cost 50,000 dinars. She was the first to organize a bodyguard of eunuchs and slave girls, who rode at her side, fulfilled her orders, and carried her letters and messages. She was the first to make use of palanquins of silver, ebony, and sandalwood, decorated with clasps of gold and silver. She was the first to introduce the fashion for slippers embroidered with precious stones and for candles made of ambergris fashions which spread to the public.”11 But in spite of Zubeida’s vanity and love of luxury, Muslim historians never dismissed her as a brainless creature. Instead, they always stressed her interest in the environment and in public works; it was Zubeida who was responsible for the building of waterworks on the roads linking Baghdad to Mecca, to ease the pilgrims’ travel. That young Harun had chosen as a wife a princess who was both beautiful and politically involved was to be expected.

  In spite of his love for Zubeida, as soon as Harun Ar-Rachid became the fifth caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, he found himself surrounded by jarya from all over the world. Their talents and elegance excited historians: “Ar-Rachid had 2000 jarya . . . ,” wrote one. “Some were experts in singing. . . . And they were covered with jewelry.”12 Since at that time Muslims were not supposed to enslave fellow Muslims (though they did later in history), most of the jarya were foreign women from newly conquered territories and the variety of their talents was magnified by the diversity of their origins. Foreign jarya who wanted to bec
ome singers had an arduous road ahead of them; besides learning voice and various instrumental techniques, they also had to master the Arabic language, with its difficult grammar, and compete with home grown stars like Fadl. Considered to be the epitome of beauty, Fadl set the standards for Arab singers for centuries to come. Writes one historian: “Fadl was dark-skinned, well versed in literature (adiba ), eloquent, with an extraordinary sense for quick, witty answers (sari’at al hajiss), accurate in her poetry rendering.13 Another describes Fadl’s ability to speed up the rhythm of dialogue and surprise her partners by introducing unexpected linguistic nuances — something much appreciated in Arab culture to this day. “Fadl was among the most beautiful of Allah’s creatures. She had excellent calligraphy, surpassed everyone in eloquence when it came to words, and was a perfectly skillful communicator (ablaghuhum fi mukhataba), clear when engaged in a discussion. . . .”14

  To be a foreigner in the Abbasid court was not really a drawback, however, since the culture encouraged diversity and rewarded people for speaking many languages and bringing the richness of their own backgrounds into their performances. In fact, during the Abbasid dynasty, “scholars, artists, poets, and littérateurs came from a variety of ethnic backgrounds (speaking Aramaic, Arabic, Persian, and Turkish), colors (white, black, and mulatto), and creeds (Muslim, Christian, Jew, Sabian, and Magian). It was this cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism of Baghdad that made for its enduring strength as a great center of culture.”15 According to Jamal Eddine Bencheikh, a modern expert on seduction in medieval texts, the price of a first-rate singing jarya in the eleventh century was 3,000 dinars, while the yearly pension of a well-known poet such as Ibn Zaidun was 500 dinars, and a construction worker earned one Dirham a day. With one Dirham, one could buy three kilos of bread.16

  The more skills a jarya commanded, the more varied the sensuous pleasures she could offer the master, and the more she was worth. This is one of the most striking features of the Abbasid harems during the dynasty’s Golden Age. Slave dealers knew what kind of women were likely to please each caliph, as in the case of Mamun, Harun Ar-Rachid’s son, who inherited the throne after him: “I heard a slave-dealer say as follows: I showed a slave girl to al-Mamun, skilled in versifying, eloquent, well-bred, and a good chess-player, and I asked of him a thousand dinars as her price and he said, if she can cap a verse I will recite to her by a verse of her own, I will purchase her for what thou askest, and will give thee over and above the bargain.”17 Caliph Mamun especially enjoyed playing chess with a woman. He practiced the game to sharpen his mind and prepare for war, but playing with a woman also gave him an added sensuous thrill. He believed that only if the players engage in a game body and soul does intellectual competition reach an exciting edge, and he considered it more appropriate to say “Come, let us press one another” than “Come, let us play.”18 That competition has an erotic dimension for the competitors is considered common knowledge today, but it must have been quite a startling thing to say during Caliph Mamun’s time.

  One fourteenth-century writer, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziya, who took the trouble to count up the words in Arabic that can be used to say “I love you,” came up with a list of sixty,, which he compiled into a book, Garden of Lovers (Rawdat al Muhibbin). An analytic mind of infinite refinement, al-Jawziya remarked that having so many words ith which to express the same thing was not a particularly good sign, but rather implied that there “was a problem.” The Arabs, he explained, usually make an effort to name only complex concepts so abundantly — i.e., only those difficult to grasp (ma chtadda al fahmu lahu) or treacherous to their hearts (aw katura khuturatuhu ’ala kulubihim). In any case, he added, having so many words for a single concept was, in fact, one way to celebrate an important civilizing phenomenon (ta’diman lahu). On his list were many words that refer to love as a dangerous moment of mental confusion (khabal), or disorientation (futun). There is also the concept of love as a plunge into the void (hawa), similar to the English “fall in love” or the French tomber amoureux, and words that equate love with madness (junun, walah, kamad) or atrocious suffering (tadlih, wasb, hurqa, chajan). But to me, the most interesting revelations of al-Jawziya’s list, which cheer me up and sustain my hopes, are those that describe love in positive terms — as a privileged friendship where tenderness facilitates communication (khilla, mahabba) or provides a strong bolt of energy.

  Though love as energy is central to the Sufis, it is also a concept open to ordinary people like you or me ho have no spiritual pretensions. “A man in love will give prodigally to the limit of his capacity, in a way formerly he would have refused . . . all this in order that he may show off his good points, and make himself desirable,” writes Ibn Hazm, an eleventh-century politician and expert on religious law ho devoted a book to the mysteries of emotions. “How often has the miser opened his pursestrings, the scowler relaxed his frown, the coward leapt heroically into the fray, the clod suddenly become sharp-witted, the boor turned into the perfect gentleman, the stinker transformed himself into the elegant dandy, the sloucher smartened up, the decrepit recaptured his lost youth, the godly gone wild, the self-respecting kicked over the traces, all this because of love!”19 Ibn Hazm has gotten it exactly right. Love pushes you to go beyond your usual routine and into directions you might not otherwise have taken. Which brings us back to our list. Many of the sixty words describe love as a compelling voyage (huyam), a step into the unknown (ghamarat), an adventure in alien territories. And if such an adventure is risky for the average person, it was even more so for the caliphs, which is why Harun Ar-Rachid never left pleasure to chance. It had to be planned for, strategized, and integrated into the calendar.

  To be able to enter into the world of emotions and sexual attraction without looking silly or becoming embarrassed, one has to make pleasure a sacred priority and allocate time for it, just as one would with a religious festival. To put pleasure on the sacred calendar does not mean squeezing two days of relaxation into a hectic two-week-long business trip. No, it means just the opposite: switching priorities and putting what may be weeks of relaxation on the calendar first, and then adding the business trip. At least this is what I learned from reading about how Harun Ar-Rachid planned for his “majliss,” or “time for pleasure.” He planned for them exactly as he planned for battle and sacred pilgrimages to Mecca.

  1. The first year of the Muslim calendar corresponds to the year 622 of the Christian calendar, and commemorates the prophet Mohammed’ s migration from Mecca (his hometown, which was then ferociously pagan and rejected his monotheist religion) to Medina, where he started ruling over the first Muslim community. Immediately after the death of the Prophet, there was a short period of three decades (from the year 11 to the year 41) where four caliphs identified as orthodox (rachidun) ruled over the Muslims. Then, Muawiya, the first Umayyad, took control in 661 (the year 41 of the Islamic calendar) and created a dynasty, by announcing that his son would inherit his throne.

  2. There were twenty-eight Umayyad caliphs if we discount the branch of the dynasty that ruled Spain (from 756 to 1042 A.D.) and thirty-seven Abbasid caliphs.

  3. Jalalu’ddin As-suyuti, History of the Caliphs, translated from the original Arabic by H. S. Jarrett (Amsterdam: Oriental Press, 1970), p. 291. The author As-suyuti lived in the fifteenth century.

  4. Mas’udi, English translation of his “Turiy Ad-dahab,” The Meadows of Gold, The Abbassids, by Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone (New York: Kegan Paul International, 1989), p. 389. Mas’udi was born in 896 and died in 956.

  5. Mas’udi, ibid.

  6. Jalalu’ddin As-suyuti, op. cit., p. 297.

  7. Jalalu’ddin As-suyuti, op. cit., p. 297.

  8. Al-Isbabani, “Aghani” (volume 17, pp. 44-46, edition Bulaq, 1225), translated by Bernard Lewis in Islam (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), vol. l, pp. 26 and 28.

  9. Ibid.

  10. Ibn Khalikhan, Wafayat al A’yan, biographie de Zubeida No 242, vol. II, p. 314.

  11. Mas’udi, op. ci
t., p. 390.

  12. Kitab al Aghani, vol. 9, p. 88, mentioned in Ahmed Amin, Doha al Islam (Cairo: Maktabat an-nahda, 1961), vol. I, p. 9.

  13. Ibn as-Sai, Nissaa’ al Khulafa’, op. cit., p. 85.

  14. Ibid.

  15. George Dimitri Sawa, “Music Performance Practice in Early Abbassid Era 132-320 A.H./750-932 A.D.” (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1989), pp. 6 and 7.

  16. “L’Exigence d’aimer,” interview of Jamal Eddine Bencheikh by Fethi Benslama and Thierry Fabre in Qantara Magazine de l’Institut du Monde Arabe. Paris. Special issue “De l’Amour et des Arabes.” (On Love and the Arabs). No 18, Janvier, Février, Paris, 1996. p. 23.

  17. Jalalu’ddin As-suyuti, History of the Caliphs, op. cit., p. 338.

  18. Jalalu’ddin As-suyuti, op. cit., p. 339.

  19. Ibn Hazm al Andaloussi, Tawq al Hamama: fi al alfati wa alullaf (Beirut: manchourate dar maktabat al hayat, 1972). The English translation is that of A. J. Abberry, The Ring of the Dove (London: Luzac and Co., 1935), p. 35.

  9

  The Majliss: Pleasure as Sacred Ritual

  You can’t experience strong sensuous involvement if you keep looking at your watch every ten minutes; that is the lesson I learned from reading medieval history books about Harun Ar-Rachid. A Muslim caliph’s duty is to aim for the al wassat, the ideal middle between two extremes — between earthly temptations and celestial aspirations, life and death, pleasure and war. And so, the perfect majliss must unfold, like a well-planned battle, according to a prescribed scenario wherein the actors and the terrain, as well as the provisions, are carefully determined in advance.