Selections from the Art of Party Crashing in Medieval Iraq Read online

  3. Abu Nuwas (d. 813) is perhaps the most famous of classical Arabic poets, known especially for his homoerotic verses and his wine poetry.

  81

  Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn `Abd al-Wahid alMunkadiri recited this to me, on Abu Ruh Zafar ibn `Abd Allah al-Harawi:

  82

  Abu Talib `Amr ibn Ibrahim ibn Said al-Zuhri alFaqih told me, Muhammad ibn al-'Abbas al-Khazzaz told us, and he said, Muhammad ibn `Abd Allah alKatib recited to us, Muhammad ibn al-Marzubani recited to us, and he said, I recited one of the secretary's poems:

  83

  Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ibn Ahmad al-Ahwazi recited to me, saying, al-Walid ibn Ma`an al-Mawsili recited to us, saying, I recited one of their poems:

  85

  Al-Hasan ibn Abu Bakr told me, Abu al-Fadl `Isa ibn Musa ibn Abu Muhammad ibn al-Mutawakkil `Ali Allah told us, Muhammad ibn Khalaf ibn al-Marzuban said, al-'Abbas ibn Hisham told this story on the authority of his brother Unayf ibn Hisham, who heard it from his father, who heard it from someone from Medina, who said:

  `Abd Allah ibn Ja'far and a number of his friends passed the house of a man who had just gotten married.'

  When they passed, suddenly a singing-girl said,

  Tell the noblemen there at the door to come in- to behave like a child while you're young is no sin!

  "Go in," `Abd Allah said to his friends. "We were just invited to the party."

  So he got off his horse, and his friends got off as well, and they went in. When the owner of the house saw the arrivals, he seated them all on a mat.

  "How much did you pay for your banquet?" `Abd Allah asked the man.

  "A hundred dinars," he said.

  "And how much was your dowry?" he asked.

  The man told him the amount.

  `Abd Allah ordered a hundred dinars and the amount of the man's dowry to be given to him, along with a hundred extra dinars to back it up. Then he apologized and departed.

  86

  Al-Hasan ibn al-Husayn ibn al-'Abbas al-Ni'ali told us, Abu al-Faraj `Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Isbahani told us, Ahmad ibn `Abd al-'Aziz told us, al-Hasan ibn `Ali related to me, `Ali ibn Said al-Kindi told us, I heard Abu Bakr `Ayyash say:

  I was told that Dhu al-Rumma was a partycrasher who went to weddings.-

  87

  Abu Said Muhammad ibn Musa ibn al-Fadl ibn Shadhan al-Sayrafi told us, I heard Abu al-'Abbas Muhammad ibn Ya'qub al-Asamm say, I heard al'Abbas ibn Muhammad al-Duri say, I heard Yahya ibn Main say:

  Zakariyya ibn Manzur was a party-crasher.'

  88

  `Ali ibn al-Muhassin al-Tanukhi told us, I found written in a book of my grandfather, Harami ibn Abu al-`Ala' told us, Ishaq ibn Muhammad ibn Aban al-Nakha'i told us, al-Qahdhami related to me:

  Raqaba would sit in the mosque, and when he left in the evening he would seek out some table companions in the houses neighboring the mosque. He would visit every man of them in their houses one after another, and he would eat.

  "Would that the nighttime would last and last, until the Day of Resurrection!" he would say.'

  89

  Abu Talib Muhammad ibn al-Husayn ibn Ahmad ibn `Abd Allah ibn Bakir told us, the judge Abu Hamid Ahmad ibn al-Husayn ibn `Ali al-Hamadhani told us, Ahmad ibn al-Harith ibn Muhammad ibn `Abd al-Karim told us, my grandfather Muhammad ibn `Abd al-Karim al-'Abdi told us, al-Haytham ibn `Adi told us:

  Raqaba ibn Masqala al-'Abdi went to see Mis'ar ibn Kidam and threw himself on his back.

  "What's the matter?" Mis'ar asked him.

  "I've been struck down by faludhaj,"5 he said. "We were in a man's house who was acting as a judge for a group of people, and arbitrating between the disagreeing parties, and Walid ibn Harb ibn al-Harith ibn Abu Musa al-Ash'ari invited us to a banquet. They produced a table as big as a crater. Then they produced thin bread that was like an elephant's ears, and then watercress like the ears of a goat, and then smooth stew and a water-dweller with a back like the back of a qirati bird, and then we were given faludhaj so transparent you could read the inscription of a coin through it. He topped it all off with a giant jug, and we were in rapture about this and certain that we would all get some of that."

  "Hey," said Mis'ar, who was nicknamed Abu Salama, "do you think you're becoming a sponger?"

  "Hey, `Pop,"' he replied (that was how they addressed one another), "they're all spongers, though they hide it from one another."

  91

  I read one of their poems in our friend Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Zayd al-`Alawi's book:

  92

  Ahmad ibn `Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Tawwazi told us, `Ubayd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Muqri' told us, Ja'far ibn al-Qasim told us, Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Tusi told us, Ibn Abu Sa'd told us, `Umar ibn Ismail ibn `Abd al-'Aziz ibn `Umar ibn `Abd al-Rahman ibn `Awf related to us, Muhammad ibn Shafana al-Ghifari related to me:

  Hakam al-Wadi the singer left Wadi, having quarreled with his father, and went on until he reached Medina. There he befriended a group of camel drivers and assisted them on their journey to Kufa, riding with them on the trail until they entered the city. Then he asked them,

  "Who can tell me who in Kufa drinks wine and entertains friends at home?"

  "So-and-So the cloth merchant," someone replied. "He has drinking companions who are also cloth merchants, and all these merchants go to one of their houses every day. When it's Friday, they all go to his house."

  So Hakam al-Wadi went out and joined their circle, each one of the guests thinking that he had come with someone else. They talked with him and he with them until they departed.

  So when they went to the cloth merchant's house, al-Wadi was with them.

  As the gathering got started, a concubine came out and took their cloaks and folded them. They were brought food, and then they were brought wine, and they drank, all still thinking that al-Wadi was one of them, until they became cheerful and the wine went to their heads. Then al-Wadi got up to go to the toilet. The remaining guests turned to one another and said, "Who did he come with?"

  "By God, I don't know!" everyone said.

  "A party-crasher," they concluded.

  "But don't say anything," said the owner of the house, "because he is high-minded and of agreeable intelligence."

  Al-Wadi heard what they said.

  When he came back out, he greeted the crowd, then asked the owner of the house, "Is there a square tambourine around?"

  "No, by God!" said the host. "But we'll get one for you." He sent someone out to the market to purchase one. The other guests gathered that he was a musician.

  The moment the tambourine fell into his hands and he shook it, it almost spoke. The crowd almost soared from pleasure as he smacked the tambourine. Then he sang from his throat, and none of them had heard anything like it before. When he fell silent, they said, "By my father! It couldn't have been done any better."

  "I heard what you said," he replied, "when you mentioned party-crashing. Why do you have a problem with somebody going into a party with you?"

  "It doesn't matter to us one bit," they said.

  He spent the whole day with them.

  "Where were you intending to go?" they asked him.

  "To the Commander of the Faithful's door," he replied.

  "How much were you hoping he would give you?" they asked.

  "A thousand dinars," he replied.

  "We swear before God," they said, "that you will not have an audience with the prince, and he will not see you, for you will see no other country but Kufa, and the thousand dinars are on us." Then they gathered together a thousand dinars among them, as well as clothing for his family and his father, and presents from Iraq. He stayed with them until he began to miss his family, and then they provided him with transportation, and he returned home.

  93

  Muhammad ibn `Ali ibn `Abd Allah al-Surf related to me, `Abd al-Rahman ibn `Umar al-Tujibi in Egypt told us, Abu Hurayra Ahmad ibn `Abd Allah ibn al-Hasan ibn Abu al-`Assam al-'Adawi told us, Abu al-`Abbas `Isa ibn `Abd al-Rahim told us, `Ali ibn
Muhammad who is the son of Hayyun related to me, Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Kufi related to me, al-Husayn ibn Abd al-Rahman of Aleppo related to me that his father said that:

  Once al-Ma'mun heard of ten heretics among the people of Basra and commanded that they be brought to him. They were being gathered together when a party-crasher caught sight of the group and said, "What could they possibly be gathered for except a feast!" He slipped into their midst, and the guards herded them along to the prison boat.

  "A pleasure cruise!" the party-crasher said, and got on the boat with the rest. It wasn't a moment before they were all in shackles, the party-crasher included. "Look what my party-crashing has amounted to!" he said. "Shackles!"

  They reached Baghdad and were taken to alMa'mun,b who made them call out their names, man by man. Then he ordered that their necks be struck until he reached the party-crasher, who was at the end of the line.

  "Who is this?" al-Ma'mun asked the guards.

  "By God, we don't know!" they said. ,we just found him tagging along, so we brought him with us!"

  Al-Ma'mun looked at the party-crasher and said, "Damn it, what's your story!?"

  "0 Commander of the Faithful!" he cried. "May he who has any idea what these people were claiming divorce his wife! As for me, I don't know anything but God and the prophet Muhammad, prayers and peace upon him.... I'm just a guy who saw these people in a group, and I thought they were going somewhere to eat!"

  Al-Ma'mun laughed and said, "Let him be punished."

  Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi,' who was in alMa'mun's court at the time, said, "0 Commander of the Faithful, let me take the burden of his punishment by telling you a wondrous account about myself!"

  So he said, "Speak, Ibrahim."

  "Commander of the Faithful!" began Ibrahim. "Once I went riding out of your palace just for fun, and started down a side lane with a wall at the end. There I smelled, 0 King, a whiff of spices, the aroma spreading so deliciously.

  "I longed for it because of its scrumptious scent, so I stopped by the tailor's house and asked him, `Do you know who lives in that house?'

  "`A man who is a cloth merchant,' he said.

  "`What's his name?' I asked him, and he said `So-and-So.'

  "So I walked around the side of the house where there were some windows, and I saw a lady put her hand out of the window, all the way past the wrist to the upper arm.

  "And I was mesmerized, 0 Commander of the Faithful, more by the beauty of the hand and the wrist than by the aroma of the stew. I lingered a long while before regaining my senses.

  "Then I asked the tailor, `Does So-and-So drink wine?'

  "`Yes,' said the tailor. `In fact, I think he's having a little gathering today, but he's just drinking with some merchants like him.'

  "Just then I saw two noble men riding down the alley, and the tailor said, `Those are the people he invited.' I asked him what their names were and he said, `So-and-So and So-and-So.'

  "So I got back on my horse and rode up to the men, saying, `So-and-So! May I be your ransom! I've been waiting for you! May God hold you dear!' And I kept up like that until we reached the door, at which point they did me the honor of letting me go in first. I went in and they went in, and when the owner of the house saw me with them, he didn't doubt that I was their friend, or that I had met them somewhere, so he welcomed me and put me at the best place at the table.

  "And then, 0 Commander of the Faithful, they brought wonderful bread to the table, and gave us all kinds of food, which was even more delicious than the aroma that I had smelled. And I thought to myself, `I've now tasted their food, but what of that hand and its owner?'

  "Then the meal was lifted away and the washing bowl was brought out, and we all went into the drinking room. I don't know if I've ever seen a nicer household, 0 King, and the owner fawned over me and made kind conversation with me, so that nobody doubted he had known me for a long time, because everybody just assumed that I was one of them.

  "When we were drinking from the wine goblets, a concubine came out. 0 King! She was like a bending willow branch, and she approached and greeted us, not at all shy, and she gathered up a cushion and sat down. An oud was brought out and placed in her lap, and she tested it gently so that I could tell by her testing that she was a skillful player. Then she plunged into a song:

  "`Oh!' I cried, Commander of the Faithful, because of her skill. I was so transported that I could hardly control myself, and then she plunged into a third song:

  "I envied her talent, 0 Commander of the Faithful, and the wounding meaning of her poetry, and that she hadn't made good the promise implied in her art, so I leered, `God preserve you, concubine,' and she smacked the floor with her oud and said to the others, `Since when do you spend time with boors like this?'

  "Then I regretted what I had done, and I saw the crowd's attitude toward me was starting to change, so I said, `Isn't there an oud here?'

  "`Of course there is,' they said, and gave me the oud. So I adjusted it to my liking, and I plunged into a song:

  "And I had hardly finished, 0 Commander of the Faithful, when the concubine leaped up, leaned over, and kissed my feet! `O my lord,' she said penitently. `By God, I've never heard anyone sing that song like you!' And her master leaped up and everybody who was there, and they all exclaimed as she had, and the entire crowd was overjoyed and encouraged to quaff their wine in goblets and draughts.' Then I plunged into a song:

  "The excitation of the crowd was so extreme, 0 Commander of the Faithful, that I was afraid they might go out of their heads. So I restrained myself for a while, trying to calm their passion. But then they plunged into drink in earnest, intent on that passion, and once again I plunged into a song:

  9. The word liver is used to indicate the emotional core of the body, like heart in English poetry.

  "Then the concubine started crying, `My God, what a song, my lord!' and the crowd was intoxicated and out of their heads, and the owner of the house was extremely liberal with his drink. But he was prudent and ordered two of his slaves to help the slaves of his guests support them and conduct them back to their houses.

  "So I was left alone with him, drinking goblets of wine, until he said to me, `My friend! All the days that I didn't know you were days wasted! Who are you, my lord?' And he wouldn't let off beseeching until I told him. Then he leaped up and kissed my head and said, `Of course! I doubt that anyone but you could play the oud like that. If I were from the royal court, wouldn't I be eloquent too?!'

  "Then he asked me my story, and how I came to do what I had done, so I told him about the food, and about the hand and the wrist that I saw reaching from the window, and I said, `As for the food, it fulfilled my desires. . . ,' and he said, `What about the hand and the wrist?'

  "Then he said, `Hey, So-and-So!' to one of his concubines, and made her come over, and he made all his concubines come over to me one by one and show me their hands and wrists, but each time I said, `It isn't she.'

  "Finally, he said, 'By God, there's nobody left but my sister and my mother. By God, I'm going to call them in here for you.'

  "I was amazed at his generosity and his bigheartedness. `If I could only sacrifice myself for you!' I exclaimed. `I'll look at your sister before your mother, possibly it will be she ...'

  "`You're right,' he said, and she came out. When I saw her hand and her wrist, I said, `It is she.'

  "So he ordered his slaves to fetch ten sheikhs who lived nearby at the time, and when the slaves brought them, he called for two giant sums of coin, ten thousand dirhams each. He said to the sheikhs, `This is my sister, So-and-So. Bear witness to the fact that she is now married to Mr. Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi.'

  "I presented his twenty thousand dirhams to her as a dowry, and she was pleased and accepted the marriage. She divided the dowry in half, giving ten thousand to the sheikhs.

  Aroma

  "Then he said, `You are excused,' and they left immediately, taking the money with them

  "`My friend!' he said to me. `I'll get o
ne of my dwellings ready for you and your new family to sleep in.' And I was ashamed, for, my God, I'd never seen a man so openhearted and noble natured.

  "`I'd rather call a litter and carry her to my house,' I said.

  "She said, `As you like,' so I called a litter, and she was carried to my house.

  "By your truth, 0 King, they even brought us some provisions that we needed, and I who stand before you consummated the marriage without delay."

  The Commander of the Faithful was astounded by the generosity and openheartedness of the man, and he said, "May God bless him and his family! I've never heard anything like it!" Then he freed the party-crasher and granted him a wonderful boon, and ordered Ibrahim to fetch the generous man from the story. That man became one of the caliph's dearest companions.

  94

  `Ali ibn Abu `Ali al-Basri told me, my father related to me, Abu al-Faraj `Ali ibn al-Husayn known as alIsbahani related this story publicly from memory, and I wrote it down with his permission, but I don't have my book with me, so I've recited it from memory.10 I've struggled to recite it word for word:

  Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Mawsili told me, my father related to me:11

  I got up one morning, and I was tired of sticking around the caliph's palace and my service there, so I rode out in the morning and decided to take a jaunt in the desert. I set off. I told my slave boys, "If the caliph's messenger or someone else comes, tell them that I went out early on an errand and that you don't know which way I went." Then I took off wandering where I pleased.

  When I came back, the day had grown ragingly hot, and I paused to rest on a road in Mukharram. On this road was a densely shaded courtyard, with a spacious outdoor portion in which I settled down for some relaxation.

  Before long a servant boy passed by, leading a merry little donkey, and on the donkey was a concubine. Beneath the concubine was a riding handkerchief, and she was wearing a splendid gown-the height of fashion. I could see that she had a noble bearing, a languid gaze, and elegant features, and I surmised that she was a singing-girl.