The Penguin Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature
Page 29
Nor are the eyes of misfortune closed to the speckled ostrich, who goes without shoes and sandals, who drinks neither at watering-place nor channel, and is satisfied with colocynth and marjoram…
D. S. Margoliouth (trans.), The Letters of Abu ’l-‘Ala of Ma‘arrat
al-Nu’man (Oxford, 1898), pp. 54, 121–6
COMMENTARY
Ma‘arri continues in the same vein for quite a bit longer.
Sahm is the name of a plant and mard is a form of fruit of the arak (a type of palm).
The name Kaswar derives from the verb qasara, meaning ‘to break’.
Sumi is the name of a spring.
Shih and ala are forms of wormwood.
Ma‘arri’s best-known as well as most interesting work, the Risalat al-Ghufran, ‘The Epistle of Forgiveness’, is in prose, probably written in 1033. It is a vision of the afterlife, though he probably did not believe in such a thing, except perhaps for animals, for he thought that animals suffered so much in this life that there must be recompense for them elsewhere. Ma‘arri constructed his version of Paradise on the basis of taking the text of the Qur’an extremely literally. The notional pretext of his book was a dispute with a friend of his, a minor Aleppan litterateur called Ibn al-Qarih, who was alleged to have expressed some harsh judgements about the immorality of certain pre-Islamic poets and their consequent fate in the afterlife. Ma‘arri’s book is cast in the form of a letter to Ibn al-Qarih. This need not be taken too seriously; the letter-to-a-friend was a conventional device which served as an excuse for the production of literature. Thus it was that in another letter purportedly written to Ibn al-Qarih, Ma‘arri had to say why he was explaining certain terms of whose meaning Ibn al-Qarih would be perfectly aware: ‘You certainly do not need such an explanation, but I fear that this letter may fall into the hands of a dull youth in his teens and that the vocabulary being strange to him, may form a shackle and bring him to a dead stop.’
To return to the Risalat al-Ghufran; in it Ma‘arri has Ibn al-Qarih die and go to Paradise. There he has many discussions on philology and poetry (for this was Ma‘arri’s and Ibn al-Qarih’s notion of Paradise). Ibn al-Qarih also conversed with houris and saw the Tree of Houris. After a tour of Paradise, Ibn al-Qarih was granted an overview of Hell (which is located in the bottom of a volcano) and then an interview with Iblis. Ibn al-Qarih talked about scholarship, but ‘A bad profession,’ rejoined Iblis. ‘Though it may afford a bare livelihood, it brings no comfort to one’s family and surely it makes the feet stumble. How many like thee has it destroyed!’ Ibn al-Qarih then went on to make a tour of Hell. Sadly, many of the most famous Jahili and Islamic poets seemed to have ended up there, including Imru’ al-Qays, Antara, Tarafa, Shanfara, Ta’abbata, Akhtal and Bashshar ibn Burd. (Bashshar, the blind poet, has his eyes opened in order to intensify his sufferings.) Apart from poets, Hell seems also to have been packed with philologists. Given that Ma‘arri had purportedly set out to demonstrate the limitlessness of divine mercy, it is curious that his crowd of poets and philologists in Hell would rather seem to confirm Ibn al-Qarih’s initial prejudice. However, perhaps the point was to make Ibn al-Qarih feel sorry for the poets he so summarily consigned to the flames of torment. Al-Khansa’ (see Chapter 1) was one of the few first-rank poets to be encountered in Paradise.
In the second part of the Risalat al-Ghufran, Ma‘arri rather loses the structure of his book and spends a lot of time exploring the nature of heresy and atheism, though there are many digressions on such matters as the hard life of scholars, the religious convictions of Abu Nuwas, lucky and unlucky names, metempsychosis, and women’s ability to judge poetry. Ma‘arri’s fantasy had presented the afterlife as one big literary salon. The conversational exchanges with the dead are lively. Paradise and Hell are vividly evoked. Nevertheless, the overall flavour of the book is somewhat bleak and pessimistic, just like the rest of Ma‘arri’s writings. The usual contempt for pleasure, for wine, women and song, comes through.
Despite the interest of its contents, the Risalat is likely to be hard going for a modern reader. What follows is one of the more accessible and self-contained passages, though some of Nicholson’s translation is conjectural. A banquet at which poetry was recited and debated has just finished. The Shaikh is, of course, the protagonist, Ibn al-Qarih.
When the guests departed, the Shaikh was left alone with two houris. Their exceeding beauty amazed him, and he was lavish of his compliments, but one of them burst into laughter, saying, ‘Do you know who I am, O Ibn Mansur? My name in the transitory world was Hamdun, and I lived at the Babu’1-Iraq in Aleppo. I worked a hand-mill, and was married to a seller of odds and ends, who divorced me on account of my ill-smelling breath. Being one of the ugliest women in Aleppo, I renounced worldly vanities and devoted myself to the service of God, and got a livelihood by spinning. Hence I am what you see.’ ‘And I,’ said the other, ‘am Taufiq al-Sauda. I was a servant in the Academy in Baghdad in the time of the Keeper Abu Mansur Muhammad b. ‘Ali, and I used to fetch books for the copyists.’
After this the Shaikh, wishing to satisfy his curiosity concerning the creation of houris, was led by an angel to a tree called ‘The Tree of the Houris’, which was laden with every sort of fruit. ‘Take one of these fruits,’ said the guide, ‘and break it.’ And lo! there came forth therefrom a maiden with large black eyes, who informed the Shaikh that she had looked forward to this meeting four thousand years ere the beginning of the world…
Now the Shaikh was fain to visit the people of the Fire, and to increase his thankfulness for the favour of God by regarding their state, in accordance with His saying (Kor., xxxvii, 49–55). So he mounted on one of the horses of Paradise and fared on. And after a space he beheld cities crowned with no lovely light, but full of catacombs and dark passes. This, an angel told him, was the garden of the ‘Ifrits who believed in Muhammad and are mentioned in the Suratu’l-Ahkaf and in the Suratu’l-Jinn. And lo! there was an old man seated at the mouth of a cave. Him the Shaikh greeted and got a courteous answer. ‘I have come,’ said he, ‘seeking knowledge of Paradise and what may perchance exist among you of the poetry of the Marids.’ ‘Surely,’ said the greybeard, ‘you have hit upon one acquainted with the bottom of the matter, one like the moon of the halo, not like him who burns the skin by filling it with hot butter. Ask what you please.’
‘What is your name?’ ‘I am Khaishafudh, one of the Banu Sha’saban: we do not belong to the race of Iblis, but to the Jinn, who inhabited the earth before the children of Adam.’ Then the Shaikh said: ‘Inform me concerning the poetry of the Jinn: a writer known as al-Marzubani has collected a good deal of it.’ ‘All this is untrustworthy nonsense,’ rejoined the old man. ‘What do men know of poetry, save as cattle know about astronomy and the dimensions of the earth? They have only fifteen kinds of metre, and this number is seldom exceeded by the poets, whereas we have thousands that your littérateur never heard of’…
Now the Shaikh’s enthusiasm for learning made him say to the old man, ‘Will you dictate to me some of this poetry? In the transitory world I occupied myself with amassing scholarship, and gained nothing by it except admittance to the great. From them, indeed, I gained pigeon’s milk in plenty, for I was pulling at a she-camel whose dugs were tied… What is your kunya, that I may honour you therewith?’ ‘Abu Hadrash,’ said he; ‘I have begotten of children what God willed.’ ‘O Abu Hadrash,’ cried the Shaikh, ‘how is it that you have white hair, while the folk of Paradise enjoy perpetual youth?’ ‘In the past world,’ said he, ‘we received the power of transformation, and one of us might, as he wished, become a speckled snake or a sparrow or a dove, but in the next world we are deprived of this faculty, while men are clothed in beautiful forms. Hence the saying, “Man has the gift of hila and the Jinn that of haula.” I have suffered evil from men, and they from me.’ Abu Hadrash then related how he struck a young girl with epilepsy, ‘and her friends gathered from every quarter and summoned magicians and physicians and la
vished their delicacies, and left no charm untried, and the leeches plied her with medicines, but all the time I never budged. And when she died I sought out another, and so on like this, until God caused me to repent and refrain from sin, and to Him I render praise for ever.’
Then the old man recited a poem describing his past life…
R. A. Nicholson (trans.), Journal of
the Royal Asiatic Society (1900), pp. 692–6
COMMENTARY
In what follows immediately after this passage, Abu Hadrash recites an autobiographical poem, discusses the language of the Jinn, and how in past times the Jinn used to eavesdrop on Heaven and were consequently punished by being pelted with blazing stars.
Houris are the maidens who await men in Paradise. They are so called because they are hur al-‘ayn, which means that the whites of their eyes completely surround and strongly contrast with the intense blackness of their irises. According to some authorities, their flesh is so transparent that, even when they are clothed in seventy silken robes, the marrow of their bones is visible. They are always virgin, no matter how often they sleep with men.
The ‘Academy’ in Baghdad must be the Bayt al-Hikma, a library and translation centre, which was established under’ Abbasid patronage in the early ninth century. However, the implication that it was still in business in Ma‘arri’s time is surprising. Taufiq must have been a black woman, as ‘al-Sauda’ indicates, but in Paradise she has been transformed into a white-skinned houri. Some women are born houris, and others achieve that state by virtuous living.
A precursor of the image of the Tree of Houris can be found in the writings of a fourth-century Syrian Church Father, St Ephraem, who wrote of vine stocks that in the afterlife would take to their virgin bosoms monks who had remained chaste on earth. The tree which grew human heads, or even whole human bodies, was an immensely popular image with Middle Eastern writers and artists. A popular location for this sort of tree was the distant and mythical island of Waqwaq. There, adventurous travellers were delighted to discover, sex grew on trees.
There are longer versions of the Risalat al-Ghufran than the one studied and translated by R. A. Nicholson. Not only that, but Nicholson produced a bowdlerized version. After the maiden drops off the tree, having been looking forward to meeting Ibn al-Qarih for four thousand years, Ibn al-Qarih prostrates himself on the ground and gives thanks to God for this blessing. He cannot help noticing, however, that the houri in question is a bit thin. No sooner has he had this thought than he looks again, and now he finds that she is excessively amply proportioned and has a bottom the size of a sand-dune. He prays to God to rectify the matter and it is done.
The Qur’anic sura referred to in Ma‘arri’s narrative is Sura 37, ‘The Rangers’.
Ifrits and Marids were ranks of powerful jinn. As is evident from Ma‘arri’s account, the universe contains both malevolent jinn and virtuous Muslim jinn.
The old man’s merry boast, comparing himself to the aureole round the moon, but not to the man who fills skin with hot butter, loses rather a lot in translation. It depends on a pun on the word haqin, which means both ‘a man who suffers from urine retention’ and ‘a moon having its two extremities elevated and its back decumbent [i.e. lying down]’. Nicholson was a great Arabist, but I cannot guess why he has brought in the filler-of-skins-with-hot-butter at this point in his translation.
Banu Sha’saban means ‘Sons of Decrepitude’.
Muhammad ibn ‘Imran al-Marzubani (c. 910–94) was a well-known literary scholar in Baghdad. His Kitab al-Ash’ar al-Jinn, or ‘Poems of the Jinn’, is listed in Ibn al-Nadim’s Fihrist, but like so much else, it has not survived.
The kunya is that part of a person’s name which identifies him or her as being the parent of someone – Abu so-and-so or Umm so-and-so. (See the Introduction for more on personal names in Arabic.)