Classical Arabic Stories Read online

  Ishaq was nonplussed by this and stirred up by an envy too strong for him to control. When alone with Ziryab, he told him:

  “Now, ʿAli, envy is the oldest of human ills, and life on earth is bewitching, and competition in art arouses an enmity none can quell. You deceived me about your fine music, how skilled it was, and all the while I was seeking your profit. Now I have eased myself out from my secure place, and very soon my status will fall while yours will rise—a state of affairs to which I cannot reconcile myself, even though you are like a son to me. Were it not for my loyalty as your mentor, I should end your life without further ado, come what may.

  “So, choose one of two things, with no other course permitted. Either you go away from me into the wide world, so that I hear no more of you— you must promise me that with the most sacred oaths, and I will help you with anything you may need, money and other things—or you stay in spite of me and against my wishes, leaving yourself an open target. Take care, for I shall not let you be and shall not hold back from having you killed, paying for it with my wealth and my body. So, make your decision.”

  Ziryab chose to flee and left at once, knowing Ishaq was well capable of carrying out his threat. Ishaq helped him to this end, giving him enough to support him. Ziryab left, his destination the far western regions of the Muslim world [i.e., Muslim Spain]. Then, at last, Ishaq’s mind could be at rest.

  When al-Rashid had finished with a matter needing all his attention, he told Ishaq to bring in Ziryab.

  “But where am I to find him, Prince of the Faithful?” Ishaq answered. “He is a crazed young man, who claims that the jinn speak to him and nourish him with what he needs to excel in his singing, so that he sees no one in this world equal to him. When the Prince of the Faithful’s reward did not arrive swiftly, he supposed this was meant to belittle him and make light of his art, and he left in anger, wandering the world, I have no knowledge where. Almighty God has aided the Prince of the Faithful, for this man is afflicted with a madness that threatens to break all bounds, striking terror in all who see him.”

  Al-Rashid trusted what Ishaq had said.

  “Whatever he is,” he said, “we had great pleasure from him.”

  Ziryab went on to Spain. [Emir] ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn al-Hakam knew of him and wrote to those governing under him that they should treat the man well and have him come to Cordova, instructing, too, that he should be met with mules and good equipment. Arriving at night with his family, Ziryab was given one of the best houses, equipped with all he needed, and presented with gifts from the emir, who also assigned a salary for him and gave him houses and possessions in Cordova and its orchards to the value of forty thousand dinars. When the emir had given him all he wished for and felt he had pleased him and assured his acquiescence, he summoned him. And when he heard his singing, he left all other singing and loved him dearly, promoting him above all other singers.

  From Lisan al-Din ibn al-Khatib, Nafh al-Tib fi Ghusn al-Andalus al-Ratib (Emitted Fragrance from the Moist Branches of al-Andalus), vol. 2; in Qisas al-ʿArab (Stories of the Arabs), vol. 4.

  1. Ishaq al-Mawsili was a great Abbasid musician (150 / 767–235 / 850) who sang at the court of the renowned Abbasid caliph Haroun al-Rashid (170 / 786–193 / 809).

  29

  An Attendant of al-Hallaj Fasts for Fifteen Days

  I was informed by Abu ʾl-Hasan Ahmad ibn Yusuf al-Azraq as follows:1

  I had heard how [the Sufi leader] Husain ibn Mansur al-Hallaj would eat nothing for a month or more, and he was being closely watched, too. I was amazed at this; and, since there was a friendship between me and Abu ʾl-Faraj ibn Rauhan the Sufi, a pious and devout traditionalist whose sister was married to Qasri, Hallaj’s attendant, I asked him about this.

  “How Hallaj managed it,” he replied, “I have no idea. But my brother-in-law Qasri, his attendant, practiced abstinence from food for years and, by degrees, came to be able to fast for fifteen days, more or less. This he achieved by a means I’d never discovered but that he revealed when he was imprisoned with the other followers of Hallaj.

  “ ‘If,’ he told me, ‘a man’s watched closely over a period of time, and no trickery’s discovered, then the scrutiny becomes less strict, and, as still no fraud is found, it slackens still further till it becomes neglected altogether, and the person under watch can do as he wishes. These people were watching me for fifteen days and saw me eat nothing in that time. That’s the utmost time I can endure hunger; were I to fast one day more, I should perish. Now, take a ratl2 of Khorasani raisins, and another of almonds, pound them to the consistency of oil dregs and make them into thin leaf. Then, when you come to me tomorrow, place it between two leaves of a notebook, which you should carry openly in your hand but rolled up so that what’s inside should neither break nor be seen. When you’re alone with me, and see there’s no one watching, put it under the tails of my coat and leave me. Then I shall secretly eat the cake and drink the water I use to rinse my mouth for ablution, and that will last me a further fifteen days, after which you’ll bring me a second supply in the same way. If those people watch me during the third fortnight, they’ll find I really do eat nothing before you pay your regular visit with supplies, and then I shall elude their watch once more, and so remain alive.’ ”

  He followed these instructions (the narrator went on) all the time the man was in prison.

  From Abu ʿAli ʾl-Muhassin al-Tanukhi, Nishwar al-Muhadara wa Akhbar al-Mudhakara (Snippets of Conversation and Memorable Tales).

  1. Al-Hallaj (ca. 244 / 858–309 / 922) was a prominent figure in the early period of Sufi mysticism. During this time Sufism faced mounting hostility from mainstream Islam, and al-Hallaj himself was eventually arrested and executed.

  2. A weight measurement.

  30

  A Vizier Removes a Dessert Stain with Ink

  Iwas told this story by Abu Ishaq ibn Abu ʾl-Dahhak, who was known as al-Dinari because his mother came from Dar Dinar in Baghdad. Abu ʾl-Qasim ʿAli ibn Muqla1 told me the same anecdote, in much the same words:

  The vizier Abu ʿAli ibn Muqla, who was also a fine calligrapher, was having a meal one day. The dining table was cleared. As he was washing his hands, he saw on his garment a yellow stain from the sweet dessert he had just been eating. He opened the inkpot, dipped his finger in it, and let a drop of ink fall on the spot, till the spot had been wiped out, replaced by the ink mark.

  “That first,” he said, “was a shameful stain, because it was a mark of gluttony. But this one is a sign of craftsmanship.”

  Then he recited the following lines of verse:

  Saffron is fragrance for young women,

  But ink is the perfume for men.

  From Abu ʿAli ʾl-Muhassin al-Tanukhi, Nishwar al-Muhadara wa Akhbar al-Mudhakara

  (Snippets of Conversation and Memorable Tales), vol. 3.

  1. Ibn Muqla (273 / 886–328 / 940) is the reputed inventor of the first cursive style of Arabic script (known as nashki). An apparently inveterate political intriguer, he was appointed vizier, and dismissed, three times, ending his life in prison.

  31

  How a Baghdadi Chief of Police Questioned Suspects

  Iwas told this story by Abu ʾl-Qassem Bahloul ibn ʿAli Abu Talib al-Qadi Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Ishaq ibn Bahloul al-Tanukhi, who heard it from the administrator of the Bab al-Sham quarter in the west of Baghdad:

  When I worked as a police officer with Abu ʾl-Hassan al-Abzaʿji, the chief of police in Baghdad, he once brought out twenty thieves from prison and sought the caliph’s permission to have them crucified near the bridge. Permission was granted, and al-Abzaʿji gave orders for them to be crucified in the early evening, instructing my unit to keep watch over them.

  “Stay by these criminals through the evening and night,” he said. “Tomorrow I’ll have their heads cut off.”

  We spent the night asleep, and so did our unit commander. One of the thieves thereupon seized his chance, cut his bonds, and came down from the cross
. We heard his footsteps, but he was already on the run. The commander and I ran after him, but we couldn’t catch him. Then, fearing the other thieves might see what had happened and do the same, we hurried back and sat down, anxious and downcast.

  “Al-Abzaʿji,” our commander said, “isn’t one to accept excuses or overlook mistakes. He’ll think one of the thieves bribed me so he could get free and escape. He’ll have me beaten till I confess, and if I don’t, he’ll go on and flog me to death. What am I going to do now?”

  “Run off,” I said.

  “And how and where,” he said, “am I going to live then?”

  “Listen to me,” I told him. “It’s midnight now, and no one realizes what’s happened. Let’s go around. We might come across some unlucky man fated to die. We’ll tie him up, crucify him, then tell the chief he can have the twenty convicts he left with us.”

  “That sounds good to me,” he said.

  And so we started wandering around. We took the road to the bridge over the Tigris River, and there we spotted a man relieving himself under the bridge. We went down and arrested him.

  “What’s up with you people?” the man shouted. “What have I done wrong? I’m just a boatman. This is my skiff, look here!”

  We started beating him, telling him he was the thief who’d run away from the place of execution. We led him off to where the other convicts were and put him up alongside the rest, in place of the runaway thief.

  All night he went on crying and wailing. We felt sorry for him. It was just his bad luck, we thought, but what could we do?

  Next morning, Al-Abzaʿji rode off to the prison and came close by the crosses, ready to have the criminals executed.

  “Hey,” the boatman shouted, “you, the top man! You’ll be answerable to Almighty God! Get me down and listen to me. I’m not one of the thieves you want to put to death. I’ve been trapped into this, it’s totally unjust.”

  The police chief had him brought down.

  “What do you have to say to me?” he asked.

  The boatman told him exactly what had happened. The chief summoned us.

  “Who is this man?” he asked.

  “We’ve no idea what he’s talking about,” we said. “You left twenty men with us, and here they are.”

  “You took money from one of the wrongdoers,” he said, “and let him go. Then you came across this innocent stranger and arrested him.”

  “We didn’t! This is one of the thieves you handed over to us.”

  The chief issued orders for the nineteen criminals to be executed, but kept the boatman to one side. Then he instructed all the prison guards to be brought in front of him.

  “Is this man one of the twenty wrongdoers we arrested?” he asked.

  They took a close look at the man, then said, all together, that he wasn’t.

  Al-Abzaʿji pondered for a time. Then he gave orders for the boatman to be set free. The man went off, but was then brought straight back to the chief, who asked him to tell his story again. The man repeated what he’d said before.

  “And what were you doing just there, at midnight?” the chief asked.

  “I was fast asleep in my boat,” the man said, “when nature called. So I went up on to the bank and relieved myself.”

  Once more the police chief pondered for a time. Then he said to the boatman:

  “Tell me the truth, and nothing but the truth, and I’ll set you free right away. What were you doing there?”

  The man repeated his account.

  It was al-Abzaʿji’s habit, when he wanted to force a confession from someone, to place him between two men holding canes behind their backs. If the accused man scratched his head, he’d get a mighty blow on the back. Then the police chief would yell at the one with the cane: “God cut your hand and leg, you scoundrel! Who told you to do that to this man here? Why did you hit him? Come over here. You, poor fellow, I’ve spared your life this time.” If the offender admitted his guilt, the chief would settle the case in one way or another. But if the man should hesitate, or scratch his head, once, twice, three times more, he’d be thrashed harder and harder, while the chief stepped in every so often with threats and promises.

  That was exactly how the boatman was handled, till at last he collapsed and spoke pleadingly to the chief.

  “Do you,” he asked, “promise me safety and security, in soul and body, if I tell you the truth?”

  “Yes,” said al-Abzaʿji, “I do.”

  “I’m a boatman,” the man said, “well known among my neighbors for good manners and good conduct. Yesterday, after dark, I was steering my boat alongside the Tuesday market to enjoy the moonlight scene. A servant came out from a house I’m not familiar with, and, as I came closer to the bank, he showed me a pretty, well-dressed woman and two little girls. He gave me a few dirhams and told me to take them to Bab al-Shamasiyya.

  “We moved smoothly on for a while, toward the place. When the woman took off her veil, I was enchanted by her lovely face and felt a desire for her. I raised the oars and fixed them to the sides of the boat, and the waves drove us to the middle of the river. I touched the woman and tried to make love to her, but she fended me off and started shouting. So I warned her, if she didn’t stop shouting and resisting, I’d drown her in the river. She stopped shouting at that, but, in spite of all my attempts to force myself on her, she kept fighting back.

  “ ‘Who are these girls?’ I asked.

  “ ‘My daughters,’ she said.

  “ ‘Which one do you love more?’ I asked, holding one of the little girls up.

  ‘Let me do what I want, or I’ll drop her in the water.’

  “ ‘Whatever you do,’ she said, ‘I won’t give in.’

  “I flung the girl in the water, and the woman started wailing. I slapped my hand over her mouth, and, to confuse anyone who might have heard her screaming in the darkness, I shrieked out: ‘Over my dead body. I’m not divorcing you!’

  “She fell silent again and started weeping. I let her go on for a while, then came back to her.

  “ ‘Let me have what I want,’ I said, ‘or I’ll throw the other girl in.’

  “ ‘I won’t let you, by God,’ she said.

  “I took hold of the second girl and flung her in the water. Then I turned to the woman.

  “ ‘You’ve nothing left now,’ I said. ‘Either you let me do it, or you get killed right now.’ And I seized hold of her hand and lifted her up to hurl her down in the water.

  “She gave in at last. I laid her down in the boat, forced myself on her, then started steering the boat toward the place where I was supposed to go. After a while, though, I realized that once she arrived there, or back at her house, she’d tell people what had happened, and then I’d be chased and caught and killed. So I grasped her hands and legs and flung her into the river.

  “After I’d drowned her, I plunged into deep thought, realizing the enormity of my misdeed, the gravity of my crime. I felt like a drunken man who’s just come to, filled with repentance and guilt. The only thing I could do now, I thought, was to go down to Basra and hide among the rivers there. So I moved on, then, as I approached the bridge, I felt a call of nature. I’d get out and relieve myself, I thought, then go back to my boat. And while I was doing it, these guards attacked me and put me under arrest.”

  Al-Abzaʿji gazed casually at the boatman, with a satisfied air.

  “Under the circumstances, man,” he said, “you’re no affair of ours and we’re no affair of yours. You can go off now.”

  Supposing, naively, that the case was closed, the man turned to leave. The chief yelled after him:

  “Where are you going, young man? Come back here! You can’t leave till you’ve given us your oath you’ll never do anything like this again.”

  The man came back.

  “Now take him,” the chief said, “and cut off his hand.”

  “But, sir,” the man pleaded, “you guaranteed my safety and security.”

  “Safety a
nd security,” al-Abzaʿji said, “for a mad dog like you? After you’ve killed three living human beings, committed adultery, and disturbed the public peace?”

  The man’s hands were severed, his head cut off, and his body burned there and then.

  From Abu ʿAli ʾl-Muhassin al-Tanukhi, Nishwar al-Muhadara wa Akhbar al-Mudhakara (Snippets of Conversation and Memorable Tales), vol. 3.

  32

  God Alone Be Thanked

  A l-Hajjaj1 had some wrongdoers brought before him and ordered that they be beheaded. When the time came for the early evening prayer, just one of them remained. He told Qutaiba ibn Muslim: “Take him away with you and bring him back tomorrow.”

  Later Qutaiba said:

  “I went out with the man. As we were going on our way, he asked me:

  “ ‘Do you feel inclined to a charitable deed?’

  “ ‘And what might that be?’ I asked.

  “ ‘By God,’ he replied, ‘I’ve made no rebellion against the Muslims, nor wished to fight with them. You’ve seen what I became drawn into. But I have money and other things entrusted to me. If you’d agree to set me free, and let me go to my family and return everything to its owner, then make my will, I promise to return and place my hand in yours.’

  “Astonished at his request, I laughed and continued on our way. But he repeated the request, adding:

  “ ‘I vow before God to return to you.’

  “I couldn’t but grant his request, and told him: ‘Go!’

  “As he vanished from sight, fear took hold of me. How had I let myself do this? When I reached my family, I was in great distress. They asked me what was making me so anxious, and I told them.

  “ ‘You’ve been bold with al-Hajjaj,’ they said.

  “We spent the longest of nights, but, as the dawn call to prayer sounded, there was a knock at the door. I went out, and there was the man.

  “ ‘You’ve come back!’ I exclaimed.