by Robert Irwin
Francesco Gabrieli, Arab Historians of
the Crusades (London, 1969), pp. 83–4
COMMENTARY
Usamah was not the only Arab to write on the subject of sticks. The Shu’ubiyya used to mock the way that Arabs when speaking used sticks to emphasize their rhetorical points. In reply, several Arab authors, including Jahiz, produced treatises attesting to the antiquity and usefulness of sticks.
John, the son of Zechariah, is John the Baptist – who is revered by Muslims as well as by Christians.
Usamah also produced treatises, now lost, on dreams and on women. However, the Lubab al-Adab (‘The Pith of Literature’) has survived. This was a belles-lettres anthology in which Usamah collected traditional material on a wide range of subjects – among them politics, generosity, holding one’s tongue, the way women walk, the wisdom of Pythagoras, the moral and social purpose of adab, and eloquence in the service of virtue. Like Abu Tammam, the compiler of the Hamasa, Usamah was particularly preoccupied with courage and he dedicated a special chapter to it. Usamah was also a noted literary critic and his Kitab al-Badi” fi Naqd al-Sh’ir (‘The Book of Embellishment in the Criticism of Poetry’) deals with the new, or badi’, style in poetry.
ATHIR AL-DIN Muhammad ibn Yusuf Abu Hayyan al-Andalusi (1256–1344) was born in Granada and came from Berber stock. However, he travelled east on the hajj and eventually settled in Cairo. There he taught the religious sciences and grammar in the madrasas. He was particularly famous as a grammarian and linguist; he knew Turkish, Persian and Ethiopian, and wrote the oldest grammar of the Turkish language to have survived. He was also a notable poet, as was his learned daughter Nudar, and when she died young, he wrote a short book about her called the Idrak (‘The Achievement’). The elegy which follows comes from Athir al-Din’s Diwan:
Now that Nudar
has settled in the grave,
my life would be sweet again
could my soul only taste it.
A brave young woman
seized for six months
by a strange sickness
of varied nature:
Swelling stomach and fever,
then consumption, coughing, and heaving –
who could withstand
five assaults?
She would see
visions sometimes,
or leave this world
for the Realm Divine,
And inwardly,
she was calm, content
with what she saw of paradise,
but of life, despairing.
Yet she was never angry for a day,
never complaining of her grief,
never mentioning the misery
she suffered.
She left her life on Monday
after the sun’s disk
appeared to us
as a deep yellow flower.
The people prayed
and praised her,
and placed her in the tomb –
dark, desolate, oppressive.
Th. Emil Homerin (trans.), in ‘Reflections on Poetry in the Mamluk
Age’, Mamluk Studies Review, vol. 1 (Chicago, 1997), p. 81
Athir al-Din knew by heart the fundamental work on Arabic grammar, Sibawayhi’s monument Kitab (‘The Book’). This was a noteworthy feat, for the Kitab is roughly 900 printed pages long. However, Athir al-Din’s achievement has many parallels. Saladin, though a Kurdish military adventurer, seems to have been entirely Arab in his culture and, among other feats, he had memorized the entire Diwan of Usamah ibn Munqidh’s poems. Usamah himself was reported to know by heart over 20,000 verses of pre-Islamic poetry. Such mnemonic feats were quite common in the pre-modern Middle East. It was normal for a scholar to know the Qur’an by heart and this must have had an influence on the literary styles of those who had memorized the Holy Book. The tenth-century philologist and traditionalist Abu Bakr al-Anbari was reported to have dictated from memory 45,000 pages of traditions concerning the Prophet. The tenth-century poet, philologist and scribe Abu Bakr al-Khwarizmi sought audience of the Vizier Ibn ‘Abbad (on whom see Chapter 5). Ibn ‘Abbad said, ‘Tell him I have bound myself not to receive any literary man, unless he know by heart twenty thousand verses composed by Arabs of the desert.’ The chamberlain reported this to al-Khwarizmi, who replied, ‘Go back and ask him if he means twenty thousand composed by men or twenty thousand composed by women?’ On being told this, Ibn ‘Abbad realized that it must be the illustrious al-Khwarizmi who was seeking audience and gave instructions for him to be shown in straightaway. Blind poets like Buhturi and Ma‘arri committed anything they heard to memory.
Literary men were walking, talking books (rather like that closing scene in Truffaut’s film Fahrenheit 451, in which the rebels dedicated to literature are shown wandering about and declaiming texts they have committed to memory in order to preserve them from oblivion). Writing was not a necessary vehicle for literature and a number of important poets were illiterate.
The Spanish poet ABU HAMID AL-GHARNATI (d. 1169–70) wrote,
Knowledge in the heart is not knowledge in books;
So be not infatuated with fun and play.
Memorise, understand, and work hard to win it.
Great labour is needed; there is no other way.
George Makdisi, The Rise of Humanism in Classical Islam
and the Christian West (Edinburgh, 1990), p. 207
Ibn Khaldun, having noted that poetry rather than the Qur’an was used to teach Arabic in Andalusia, went on to urge poets to train themselves in their art by memorizing the poems of their great predecessors, especially those included in al-Isfahani’s anthology, the Kitab al-Aghani (see Chapter 5). Ibn Khaldun believed that one was what one had committed to memory; the better the quality of what had been memorized, the better it was for one’s soul. For Ibn Khaldun and his contemporaries, rote-learning was a source of creativity rather than a dreary alternative to it. The impromptu quotation of apposite verses or maxims (so greatly esteemed by those who attended literary soirées) was only made possible by a well-stocked memory. Similarly the ability of poets to extemporise within traditional forms depended in the first instance on memory.
Riwaya, which in modern Arabic means ‘story’, originally referred to the act of memorization and transmission. The written word was seen as an accessory, a kind of aide-memoire for people who preferred to rely on memorization and oral transmission. Often manuscripts were copied with the sole aim of committing to memory what was being copied. Reading aloud also helped to fix a book in the memory. Incidentally, reading silently in private was commonly disapproved of. One should read aloud with a master and by so doing insert oneself in a chain of authoritative transmission. Medieval literature was a continuous buzz.
Repetition was crucial to memorization. According to one twelfth-century scholar, ‘If you do not repeat something fifty times, it will not remain firmly embedded in the mind.’ Treatises on technical and practical subjects, such as law, warfare, gardening or the rules of chess, were commonly put into verse or rhymed prose in order to assist in their memorization. Men worried ceaselessly about how to improve their memory. Honey, toothpicks and twenty-one raisins a day were held to be good for the memory, whereas coriander and aubergine were supposed to be bad. Ibn Jama‘a, a thirteenth-century scholar, held that reading inscriptions on tombs, walking between camels haltered in a line, or flicking away lice, all interfered with memory.
Many of the best-known literary productions of the twelfth to fifteenth centuries were stodgy compilations of received knowledge put together by men whose daytime work was as clerks in some government office, or as tenured professors in madrasas. Nevertheless, there were exceptions and it is even possible to discern elements of late medieval ‘counter-culture’, and elements too of a literature of vagabondage, satire, scurrility and eroticism.
The sophisticated craze for stories about thieves and charlatans which had been embraced by litterateurs and intellectuals in tenth-cent
ury Baghdad persisted in the late medieval period and, sometime in the 1230s or 1240s, Jawbari produced the classic work on rogues’ tricks. Zayn al-Din ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn ‘Umar al-jAWBARI was born in Damascus. He pursued an exciting career as a dervish, alchemist and professional treasure-hunter, in the course of which he travelled widely – even as far as India. The Kashf al-Asrar, ‘The Unveiling of Secrets’, was written at the behest of Mas’ud, the Artuqid ruler of Mosul. It is a treatise in thirty chapters on the tricks of all sorts of rogues – peddlers of quack medicines, horse doctors, professional seducers, disreputable monks, fraudulent alchemists, and so on. Besides explaining the technical details of all sorts of criminal and fraudulent activities, Jawbari also tells lots of entertaining stories, some said to be based on personal experience. However, it is clear that some of the stories he claims as his own are in fact very old, and despite his pretence to rendering a public service by warning his readers about various dangers and deceits, it is also clear that Jawbari’s primary purpose in assembling his material was to amuse and excite. What follows is from the chapter on the tricks of the Banu Sasan.
I once saw one of the Banu Sasan in Harran. This man had taken an ape and taught it to salaam to the people and to do the prayer and the rosary, and to use the toothpick and to weep. Then I saw this ape perform a trick which no human could have managed. For, when it was the day of the Friday prayer, an Indian slave proceeded to the mosque. This slave, who was smartly dressed, spread a beautiful prayer-mat in front of the mihrab. Then, at the fourth hour, the ape was dressed in a princely robe, secured at the waist by a valuable belt, and he was drenched in all sorts of perfumes. Then he was mounted on a mule which was caparisoned in gold. His escort was provided by three extravagantly apparelled Hindu servants. One carried his prayer-mat, the other his hose, while the third beat the ground in front of him. As they proceeded the ape salaamed the people along the way. When they reached the entrance to the mosque, they put the ape’s hose on him, they helped him to dismount and the slave who stood before him with the prayer-mat spread it for him. The ape made the gesture of greeting to the people. Everyone who asked about him was told that, ‘He is the son of King So-and-So, who is one of the greatest of Indian kings. However, he has been bewitched and he will remain in this form until he reaches a place to pray.’ Then the slave spread out the special prayer-mat and passed the rosary and the toothpick down to the ape. The ape produced a handkerchief from his belt and spread that in front of him, after which he made use of the toothpick. Then he did two ritual prostrations as prescribed for ritual purification. Then he did two more prostrations, in the way that they are done in the mosque. Then he took the rosary and ran it through his fingers. After this the chief slave got to his feet and salaamed the people and said, ‘O fellows, verily God has blessed the man who has his health, for you should know that humanity is vulnerable to all sorts of evils. So a man should bear himself steadfastly and let him who is healthy give thanks. And know that this ape which you see in front of you was in his time the handsomest of men. He was the son of King So-and-So, ruler of Such-and-Such Island. Yet praise be to Him who stripped the prince of handsomeness and power. This despite the fact that there was no one more pious and more fearful before God the Exalted. Yet the believer is the afflicted one. God decreed the prince’s marriage to the daughter of a certain king and he spent some time living with her. But then people reported to her that he had fallen in love with one of his mamluks. She asked him about this and he swore before God that it was not so, she let the matter drop. Then she heard more gossip on the affair and jealousy overcame her and there was no resisting it. Then she sought permission from him to go away and visit her family. He sent her off in the state appropriate to her rank. But then, when she reached her family, she used magic to transform him into the ape that you see before you. When the king learnt what had happened, he said that he would be utterly disgraced among the other kings. So he ordered him to leave his territory. We have asked all the other kings to intercede for him, but she maintains that she has sworn he shall stay in this form until 100,000 dinars are paid, and only on their payment will he be restored to his former shape. The kings have rallied round and each has paid a bit and we have collected 90,000 dinars and now only need 10,000 dinars. So who will help him with some money and show pity to this young man who has lost kingship, family and homeland, as well as his original shape when he became a monkey?’ At this, the ape covered his face with the handkerchief and began to weep tears like rain. Then the hearts of the people were moved by that and every single one gave him something. So he came away from the mosque with a lot and he continued to tour the territory in this guise. Pay attention to this and take heed.
Again, I was once in Konya…
‘Abd al-Rahman al-Jawbari, Kashf al-Asrar, trans. Robert Irwin
(Damascus, n.d.), pp. 22–3
COMMENTARY
The ancient city of Harran, in the Euphrates basin, is in present-day eastern Turkey.
The year 613 in the Muslim calendar corresponded to April 1216-April 1217 in the Christian calendar.
The use of a toothpick (siwak) was part of piety, for, according to a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, ‘Cleanse your mouths with toothpicks; for your mouths are the abode of guardian angels; whose pens are the tongues, and whose ink is the spittle of men; and to whom naught is more unbearable than the remains of food in the mouth.’ According to the tenth-century belletrist Muhammad ibn Isma‘il al-Tha’alabi, Abraham was the first person to trim his moustache, part his hair and use a toothpick. According to al-Washsha, use of the toothpick ‘whitens the teeth, cleans the brain, perfumes the breath, puts off choler, drives out phlegm, strengthens the gum, cleans the sight and renders food more tasty’. Despite all this, public use of the toothpick was seen by some as anti-social and the ‘Abbasid poet Ibn al-Mu’tazz characterized an undesirable table companion as one who ‘continually picks his teeth with a toothpick’. Some Muslims believed that prayer was more efficacious after the use of the toothpick.
However, it is debatable whether the toothpick should be used during the fasting hours of Ramadan.
Friday, in Arabic yawm al-jum’a, literally ‘the day of assembly’, is the day when all adult males are supposed to assemble for the noon prayer in the main mosque of the town or region.
A mihrab is a niche in the wall of the mosque indicating the direction of prayer (towards Mecca).
Regarding the ape’s hose, sar-muza is an imported Persian word, meaning ‘hose placed over boots’.
It is quite common for Muslim worshippers to place a handkerchief (or mandil) on the ground where their head will touch during the prostrations of prayer.
Mamluks (slave soldiers) who were beautiful attracted high prices in the slave markets and homosexual love affairs between master and slave sometimes occurred.
Jawbari’s reminiscence should be compared to ‘The Second Dervish’s Tale’ in The Thousand and One Nights, in which a prince is transformed into an ape by a wrathful demon but demonstrates his underlying human nature by his skill at calligraphy.
A French translation by René Khawam exists of a somewhat longer version of the Kashf al-Asrar (Le Voile arraché, 2 vols., Paris, 1980), with a longer and slightly different text of this story. Khawam does not identify his source text, but it is probably a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.
Like Jawbari, Ibn Daniyal claimed that his writings about villainy served a moral purpose. Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn Daniyal was born in Mosul in 1248 and worked as an oculist in Cairo, where he died in 1311. He is the only playwright to be included in this anthology. Live theatre scarcely existed in the medieval Near East. Although there is evidence of plays (usually of a fairly crude and bawdy nature) being performed in Arab cities, no scripts of those plays seem to have survived, apart from three which Ibn Daniyal produced for shadow-theatre performances.
Egyptian shadow-theatre seems to have offered popular entertainment for the masses, bu
t there is some evidence that members of the elite also enjoyed such performances. It is said that Saladin once persuaded al-Qadi al-Fadil to watch a shadow play, at the end of which the pompous minister remarked, ‘I have had a lesson of great significance. I have seen empires coming and going, and when the screen was folded up, I discovered that the Prime Mover was but one.’
(For pious moralists like al-Fadil everything in life had a moral, if only one could discover it.)
Ibn Daniyal himself was a member of the Egyptian elite and a friend of senior mamluk officers. He was a literary disciple of ‘Imad al-Din al-Isfahani and he wrote didactic poetry in classical Arabic on the history of the qadis (judges) in Egypt and on medicine. His use of low-life dialect and Middle Arabic forms in his plays was therefore for artistic effect. In his preface to the text of his plays, he claimed that they were works of literary art, which could only be understood by men of adab. There are indeed a number of similarities between the plays of Ibn Daniyal and the Maqamats written by, among others, Hamadhani and Hariri. Like those Maqamats, Ibn Daniya’s plays deal with low life but enjoy a high literary status, and, again like them, they are written in a mixture of verse and rhymed prose. In his preface Ibn Daniyal addresses a certain ‘Ali ibn Mawlahum who, he says, requested his play scripts: ‘So I let my thoughts range through the wide fields of my profligacy and I was able to fulfil your request without the slightest delay. I have composed for you some licentious plays, pieces of high not low literature, which, once you have made the puppets, divided the script into scenes, assembled your audience and waxed the screen, you will find to be entirely novel and truly superior to the usual shadow play.’