by Robert Irwin
‘Go and bring the Vizier in,’ Judar replied.
The jinnee led the Vizier into the palace, where he saw Judar seated upon a couch such as no king ever possessed and arrayed in greater magnificence than any sultan. He was confounded at the splendour of the palace and the beauty of its ornaments and furniture, and, Vizier that he was, felt himself a beggar in those surroundings. He kissed the ground before Judar and called down blessings upon him.
‘What is your errand, Vizier?’ Judar demanded.
‘Sir,’ he answered, ‘your friend King Shams-al-Dowlah sends you his greetings. He desires to delight himself with your company, and begs your attendance at a banquet in his palace. Will you do him the honour of accepting his invitation?’
‘Since he is my friend,’ returned Judar, ‘give him my salutations and tell him to come and visit me himself.’
‘It shall be as you wish,’ the Vizier replied.
Upon this Judar rubbed the ring and ordered the jinnee to fetch him a splendid robe. The jinnee brought him a robe, and Judar handed it to the Vizier, saying: ‘Put this on. Then go and inform the King what I have told you.’
The Vizier put on the robe, the like of which he had never worn in all his life, and returned to his master. He gave him an account of all that he had seen, enlarging upon the splendour of the palace and its contents.
‘Judar invites you,’ he said.
‘To your horses, captains!’ the King exclaimed and, mounting his own steed, rode with his followers to Judar’s house.
Meanwhile, Judar summoned the servant of the ring and said to him: ‘I require you to bring me from among the jinn a troop of guards in human guise and station them in the courtyard of the palace, so that when the King passes through their ranks his heart may be filled with awe and he may realize that my might is greater than his.’
At once two hundred stalwart guards appeared in the courtyard, dressed in magnificent armour. When the King arrived and saw the formidable array, his heart trembled with fear. He went up into the palace and found Judar sitting in the spacious hall, surrounded with such grandeur as cannot be found in the courts of kings or sultans. He greeted him and bowed respectfully before him; but Judar neither rose in his honour nor invited him to be seated. The King grew fearful of his host’s intent and, in his embarrassment, did not know whether to sit down or leave.
‘Were he afraid of me,’ he thought to himself, ‘he would have shown me more respect. Is it to avenge his brothers’ wrong that he has brought me here?’
‘Your majesty,’ Judar said at last, ‘is it proper for a king to oppress his subjects and seize their goods?’
‘Sir, do not be angry with me,’ the King replied. ‘It was avarice, and fate, that led me to wrong your brothers. If men could never do wrong, there would be no pardon.’
He went on begging forgiveness and humbling himself in this fashion until Judar said: ‘Allah forgive you,’ and bade him be seated. Then Judar dressed the King in the robe of safety and ordered his brothers to serve a sumptuous banquet. When they had finished eating, he invested all the courtiers with robes of honour and gave them costly presents. After that the King took leave of him and departed.
Thenceforth the King visited Judar every day and never held his court except in Judar’s house. Friendship and amity flourished between them and they continued in this state for some time. One day, however, the King said to his vizier: ‘I fear that Judar may kill me and usurp my kingdom.’
‘Have no fear of that, your majesty,’ the Vizier answered. ‘Judar will never stoop so low as to rob you of your kingdom, for the wealth and power he enjoys are greater than any king’s. And if you are afraid that he may kill you, give him your daughter in marriage and you and he will be for ever united.’
‘Vizier, you shall act as our go-between,’ the King said.
‘Gladly, your majesty,’ the Vizier replied. ‘Invite him to your palace, and we will spend the evening together in one of the halls. Ask your daughter to put on her finest jewels and walk across the doorway. When Judar sees her he will fall in love with her out-right. I will then lean towards him and encourage him by hint and suggestion, as though you know nothing about the matter, until he asks you for the girl. Once they are married, a lasting bond will be ensured between you and, when he dies, the greater part of his riches will be yours.’
‘You have spoken wisely, my Vizier,’ said the King.
He thereupon ordered a banquet to be given, and invited him. Judar came to the royal palace and they sat feasting in the great hall till evening.
The King had instructed his wife to array the Princess in her finest ornaments and walk with her past the doorway. She did as the King bade her and walked past the hall with her daughter. When Judar caught sight of the girl in her incomparable beauty, he uttered a deep sigh and felt his limbs grow numb and languid. Love took possession of his heart, and he turned pale with overpowering passion.
‘I trust you are well, my master,’ said the Vizier in a whisper. ‘Why do I see you so distressed?’
‘That girl,’ Judar murmured, ‘whose daughter is she?’
‘She is the daughter of your friend the King,’ replied the Vizier. ‘If you like her, I will ask him if he will marry her to you.’
‘Do that, Vizier,’ Judar said, ‘and you shall be handsomely rewarded. I will give the King whatever dowry he demands and the two of us will be friends and kinsmen.’
‘Allah willing, you shall have her,’ the Vizier replied.
Then, turning to the King, he whispered to him.
‘Your majesty,’ he said, ‘your friend Judar desires to marry your daughter, the Princess Asiah. Pray accept my plea on his behalf. He offers you whatever dowry you wish to ask.’
‘I have already received the dowry,’ the King answered. ‘My daughter is a slave in his service. I marry her to him. If he accepts her I shall be greatly honoured.’
Next morning the King assembled his court, and in the presence of Sheikh al-Islam Judar wedded the Princess. He presented the King with the bag of gold and jewels as a dowry for his daughter and the marriage-contract was drawn up amidst great rejoicings. Judar and the King lived together in harmony and mutual trust for many months; and when the King died the troops requested his son-in-law to be their sultan. At first Judar declined, but when they continued to press him he accepted and was proclaimed their king. He built a great mosque over the tomb of Shams-al-Dowlah and endowed it munificently. Judar’s house was in the Yemenite Quarter, but since the beginning of his reign the entire district has been known as Judariyah.
Judar appointed Salem and Seleem his viziers, and the three of them lived in peace for one year, no more. At the end of that time Salem said to Seleem: ‘How long are we to stay as we are? Are we to spend the whole of our lives as servants to Judar? We shall never taste the joy of sovereignty or power as long as Judar is alive. Can we not kill him and take the ring and the bag from him?’
‘You are cleverer than I am,’ Seleem replied. ‘Think out some plot for us whereby we can destroy him.’
‘If I contrive to bring about his death,’ said Salem, ‘will you agree that I shall become sultan and you chief vizier? Will you accept the magic bag and let me keep the ring?’
‘I agree to that,’ Seleem replied.
Thus for the sake of power and worldly gain, the two conspired to kill their brother. They betook themselves to Judar and said to him: ‘Brother, will you do us the honour of dining with us this evening?’
‘To whose house shall I come?’ he asked.
‘To mine,’ Salem replied. ‘Then you can go to my brother’s.’
‘Very well,’ said Judar.
He went with Seleem to Salem’s house, where a poisoned feast was spread before him. As soon as he had swallowed a mouthful his flesh fell about his bones in little pieces. Salem thereupon rose to pull the ring off his finger, and, seeing that it would not yield, cut off the finger with his knife. Then he rubbed the ring, and the jinnee appear
ed before him, saying: ‘I am here! Demand what you will.’
‘Take hold of my brother and put him to instant death,’ Salem said. ‘Then carry the two bodies and throw them down before the troops.’
The jinnee put Seleem to death, then carried out the two corpses and cast them down in the midst of the palace hall, where the army chiefs were eating. Alarmed at the sight, the captains lifted their hands from the food and cried to the jinnee: ‘Who has killed the King and his vizier?’
‘Their brother Salem,’ he replied.
At that moment Salem himself entered the hall.
‘Captains,’ he said, ‘eat and set your minds at rest. I have become master of this ring, which I have taken from my brother Judar. The jinnee who stands before you is its faithful servant. I ordered him to kill my brother Seleem so that he should not scheme against my throne. He was a traitor and I feared he would betray me. Judar being dead, I am your only King. Will you accept my rule, or shall I order this jinnee to slay you all, great and small alike?’
The captains answered: ‘We accept you as our King.’
Salem gave orders for the burial of his brothers, and assembled his court. Some of the people walked in the funeral and some in Salem’s procession. When he reached the audience-hall, Salem sat upon the throne and received the allegiance of his subjects. Then said he: ‘I wish to take in marriage my brother’s wife.’
‘That may not be done,’ they answered, ‘until the period of her widowhood has expired.’
But Salem cried: ‘I will not hear of such trifles. Upon my life, I will go in to her this very night.’
Thus they wrote the marriage-contract and sent to inform Judar’s widow.
‘Let him come,’ she said.
When he entered, she welcomed him with a great show of joy. But she mixed poison in his drink and so destroyed him.
Shams-al-Dowlah’s daughter took the ring and broke it to pieces, so that none should ever use it. She also tore the magic bag. Then she sent to inform Sheikh-al-Islam of what had happened and to bid the people choose a new king.
N. J. Dawood (trans.), Tales from the Thousand and One Nights
(Harmondsworth, 1973), pp. 350–71
Even without taking account of the Nights, the Mamluk period was a golden age for the production of popular fiction. In particular there was a vogue for lengthy poetic epics featuring Arab paladins who battled against Byzantines, Crusaders and Zoroastrians – not to mention sorcerers, dragons and seductresses. Such enthusiasm for pseudo-historical fiction aroused disapproval in pious circles. A fourteenth-century Syrian religious scholar advised copyists not to copy deceptive books ‘by which Allah does not offer any useful thing, such as Sirat ‘Antar and other fabricated things’. Quite a number of heroic epics circulated in the late Middle Ages, among them Sirat Dhat-al-Himma, Sayf al-Tijan, Sirat al-Zahir and Sirat Sayf bin Dhi Yazan. However, the Sirat ‘Antar seems to have been the best known of these epics, as well as the most accomplished in literary terms. Its stories were lightly based on the exploits of the real-life warrior and poet of pre-Islamic times, ‘Antara ibn Shaddad. ‘Antara (but ‘Antar in the folk epic) had been born to an Arab father, but his mother was an Abyssinian slave. Thus ‘Antar was one of the Ghurab, or ‘Crows’, and in early episodes of the epic he has to perform many valorous feats in order to be fully accepted by his fellow tribesmen as one of them. More acts of heroism have to be accomplished before he can win the hand of Abla, his uncle’s daughter. Although ‘Antar started out as a saga of inter-tribal warfare in the Arabian desert, later episodes took the hero to Europe, Africa, India and even into the skies (thanks to a box drawn up by eagles). ‘Antar fought for the Byzantines against the Franks and tangled with heroes of Persian legend. His fantasy conquests can be seen as prefiguring the real ones made by Islamic armies in the seventh and eighth centuries. At the opening of the epic it is claimed that it was composed by the famous ninth-century philologist al-Asma‘i. However, its real authors were anonymous figures who transmitted and added to the epic over several centuries. A version of ‘Antar certainly existed as early as the twelfth century, though what survives today seems to have been heavily revised in the fourteenth century, probably in Egypt. It is rich in excitement and colour – and also very long and somewhat shapeless. One printed version in Arabic runs to thirty-two volumes.
In the first extract here, the jinn Wajh al-Ghul (his name means ‘face of a monster’) is dispatched by King Ghawwar to do battle with ‘Antar. After a week’s marching Wajh al-Ghul’s army encounters that of ‘Antar, but the battle goes badly for the former. Then Wajh al-Ghul is tempted to enter the heat of the fray…
Then it was that a knight called al-Dahhash ibn al-Ra“ash advanced towards him and kissed the ground. He said, ‘My lord, by al-Lat and al-‘Uzza be not rash. I shall go forth in single combat. I will show you what I can do with these horsemen.’ When Wajh al-Ghul heard him speak, he answered, ‘Hurry to achieve your wish. If you slay not Antar, then bring him to me captive so that I can deliver him to the great king.’ Then the other went forth on a pale charger, tall and thin, which raced against the wind. He bore a sharp sword and having entered the field of combat he loosed his horse’s reins and broke forth into verse. He had but finished when Ghasub attacked him. He was mounted on a fine-coated horse of unsurpassed speed. Over his chest he wore a hauberk of closely linked rings, impenetrable to the Indian blade nor could a well-aimed spear penetrate its doubled links. On his head he wore a pot de fer prized by Chosroes, king of Persia. It was hammered from iron plates. In his hand he grasped a sword as sharp as a razor.
Then he attacked, roaring like a lion. He thrust his enemy through the heart, toppled him from the back of his steed, and he fell on the ground wallowing in his gore. Ghasub cried out with an eloquent tongue, ‘Woe to you, will you challenge us with words, bastards that you are! We are heroes of the Banu ‘Abs, noble among men called by the name of “the terrible death”.’
When they saw these deeds of Ghasub the gallant were in awe of him. None came out to challenge him in single combat, neither Arab nor negro. He therefore returned to his people and changed his horse. Once again he returned to the battlefield. He cried out, ‘Oh, sons of harlots, come out and fight this knight of ‘Adnan.’ Wajh al-Ghul remained still, looking and listening. But he had become restive within. His eyes burned like embers when set alight. He charged forth from between the banners. He roared, and he made for Ghasub like a bird of prey when it strikes a dove. He taunted him in verse, then he unsheathed his Indian sword. He was a fighter skilled in every kind of weapon, and no man could face him when he screamed with all his voice.
On that day he was clad in a jazerant of thick quilted cotton hidden by a covering of tightly woven mail. On his head he wore a casque which deflected blades of iron, nor could spears penetrate its thickness. When Ghamra saw him she feared for the safety of her son, and she wished to sally forth to bring him away from Wajh al-Ghul. She went to Antar and told him of the matter. She said to him, ‘I fear this knight and what he may do to my son. I fear lest he arouse my emotions to a degree that I go forth to send back my son and fight the foe myself.’ When Antar heard her, he persuaded her not to act thus. He said to her, ‘Stay where you are. I will fulfil your hope. This devil is a doughty smiter and I alone can resist him.’ Then he went to his son and said to him, ‘What you have done today in battle is more than enough.’ When Ghasub heard the words of his father he realized that affection had inspired his sentiments. So he returned to his mother. She embraced him and kissed him. She thanked him and praised him.
But then Wajh al-Ghul saw that he was angry, and he wondered how he could withstand the opponent who now faced him. He advanced towards Antar with caution and calculation. He said to him, ‘Woe to you, offspring of base blood. Who are you to turn aside my foe and deny me my vengeance?’
Antar said, ‘Oh, offspring of apes and vilest creature of these lands. I am Antar ibn Shaddad, the mightiest of the Arabs in zeal and the
firmest in resolve. No tongue can describe me and my noble deeds. I am the mine of valour and pride, unique in this age. I have attained every goal I have sought, and every enemy of mine is abandoned. My foe has been slain, his blood scattered in drops. I smite with iron swords and with the lofty lance. My flame burns brightest among the Arabs. I am the noblest born and the stoutest in rebuff. I am the viper in the valley bottom, the father of knights, Antar ibn Shaddad. I have only to come to this country to avenge Ghamra, to uproot every trace of you, and to ruin these towns so that no hearth will be left to be tended.’
Al-Asma‘i said that when Wajh al-Ghul heard Antar’s speech he was dark in his countenance. He said, ‘How happy is this day of combat. I will show all who is the doughty knight, and who is the one entitled to his praise.’ Then he attacked Antar with a pounce while Antar met him with cool resolve. Dust rose above them as they were locked in weighty struggle beyond the gaze of the courageous. Destiny decided their fate – glory be to Him who has decreed death and wretchedness and who has singled out life and glory for the elect. The knights were awestruck until their horses, restless beneath them, were aware that both parties to the fight were equally fatigued, hungry and thirsty in a confined desert where the sun had passed its zenith.
Wajh al-Ghul sought to escape, but when Antar realized his intent he faced him, and when he was opposite him he thrust him with his spear in his left side. He leant from his saddle like a towering mountain and cried aloud, ‘Oh, ‘Abs, oh, ‘Adnan, I am Antar, the father of knights.’ Then the negroes saw Wajh al-Ghul covered in dust on the ground, and they all attacked Antar like the onset of blackest night. They called aloud in one great shout, ‘Oh, mighty knight and hero, may God cut short your life and rid the world of your evil. You have slain the knight of the desert.’
When Antar saw the negroes attack and loose their reins he made a sign with his hand. He cried out to the Banu ‘Abs, and they attacked behind him. They answered his call. They hurled cries into the hearts of Antar’s foes. Death was relief, and the battle raged on foot. The sea of mortality swelled, and the fire of fate burst into flame. Swords were blunted by hard blows, and spear-points were moist with blood. The horizon became sombre and darkened. Amid the rage of nations skulls were severed from their bodies. Only the bones were left. Men roared like forest beasts, speaking in tongues which were unintelligible. Every negro leader was killed. Lawn al-Zalam and his son accomplished deeds of valour, so too the negroes who were beneath his sway and his cousins. As for Ghamra and her son Ghasub, and Maysara his brother, they were like a blazing fire which caught alight amidst dry firewood. Their fighting was a marvel, it stirred the spirit. Their sword was at close quarters and in remoter corners of the battlefield.