In defense of shepherds

Some people disparage herdsmen and call them simpletons: "Dumber than a shepherd of eighty [sheep]" is one thing they say, and "Don't go to the shepherd for advice" is another. But the virtues of the shepherd are indicated in hadith. "Never was there a prophet that did not tend a flock, and so did I," the Prophet said, God's blessings and peace be upon him, and: "God never sent a prophet that was not a shepherd. Moses and Aaron were shepherds, and I was sent as shepherd to my people."

[Al-Jahiz says that Ibn Kunasa said:] The owner of a herd of camels contracted a cameleer, saying: "You must tar their mange, and line their trough with clay, and locate strays and turn back runaways. And you must see to their milking without depriving the calves and drinking it all yourself."
      The cameleer said: "Fine, as long as your hands are with mine in extremes of heat and cold, and I am given a seat by the fire, and you say nothing bad about my mother."
     "Okay," said the herd owner, "you can have all that. But if you cheat me, what's the penalty?"
     "Swing your rod," the cameleer said, "and you might hit me, and you might not."

And then there was the boasting-match between two herdsmen. "By God," the first one said, "ever since my youth, I've had no rod but this one, and it's never broken!"
     "Profligate!" said the other. "My hand is the only rod I've ever owned."

A poet [al-Ra‘i al-Numayri] said:

      [So thin] his veins jut, he is gentle with the rod.
          Even in lean times you see his flock well cared for.

From Lectures of the Learned by al-Raghib al-Isbahani

Two recensions

A man described as ‘abāmā’ is a doltish simpleton. Jamīl said (meter: ṭawīl):

           This dolt has never joined a fight, or knelt a camel
               for its saddle as it strains against a tether.
           Herds are what he's busy at, pasture
               his eternal quest. His thoughts are of his nanny goats
           sired by a dusky buck, with horns that poke up
               from their skulls like pods of carob.
           His gut is big, and though his mind's a muddle,
               his eye is ever on the smallest kid, and long his rod.

       

Al-Aṣma‘ī said: A man who is ṭabāqā’ is without insight into what concerns him, as in the verse by Jamīl:

           This dullard's never joined a fight, or knelt a camel
               for its saddle as it strains against a tether.

This is the Basran recension of the verse as al-Aṣma‘ī recited it, and Abū ‘Ubayd reported that he said: "‘Ayāyā’ has the same meaning as ṭabāqā’, and is said of the male camel that won't mount a female." In his Book of Uncommon Words, Abū ‘Ubayd says: "A ṭabāqā’ is an impotent dullard."

From The Curtailed and the Prolonged by Abū ‘Alī al-Qālī

Some myths are true

SOCRATES: The speech I will deliver is by Stesichorus son of Euphemus of Himera, and it has to go something like this:

It's false to say that, rather than someone who loves you madly and is good to go, you should take a disinterested lover who is sane and rational. That would be well said if all madness were bad. But it is through madness that our greatest blessings come to us, by which of course I mean the madness that is the gift of the gods. [Firstly,] in public as in private matters, the ravings of the oracle at Delphi have done Greece a lot of good, and so have the holy women who prophesy at Dodona, but little to no good when these same women were in their right minds. And if we were to speak of the Sibyl, and all others whose divinely-inspired pronunciations have corrected so many people's courses toward the future, then our discourse would obviously run on long.

But it is worth giving evidence for the beliefs of the ancient name-givers, according to whom madness was no cause for rebuke or shame. Otherwise, they would not have called our noblest prognostic arts by a name that implicates them in mania. But in their conviction that divinely-awarded madness is a blessing, they designated these arts as manic; it's only now that the "mantic arts" are spoken of with an inserted letter t, which is an insipid vulgarism. [By contrast,] when they assigned a name to those forms of research into the future performed by the non-mad, through studious contemplation of birds and other omens, they called them oionoïstikē, since these techniques endow mortal oiēsis (opinion) with nous (intellect) and historia (fruits of inquiry). Nowadays, by way of affecting a more sententious tone, people lengthen the second o and pronounce it as oiōnoïstikē. The upshot of all that is this: To the same degree that mantic arts are more perfect and honorable than augury—in name as they are in deed—the superiority of divine madness to mortal reason is attested by the ancients.

It also happens, in the event of ailments and grievous harms stemming from accursed deeds of long ago [e.g.], that madness intervenes to communicate a divinely-inspired message to those in need, and through resort to prayer and ministration to the gods it ferrets out their means of deliverance, hitting thus upon purifications and sacred rituals and bringing wellness once and for all to the sufferer touched with madness. Madness finds release for people in the grip of present evils, provided that they rave in the right way.

Thirdly, there is possession by the Muses. This madness takes hold of pure and tender souls and stirs them to song and other verse forms in a Bacchic frenzy. Thus arranged by the Muses' madness, countless feats of the heroic past are made teachable to hearers of the latter day. Anyone who shows up at the gates of poetry without it, presuming to become a worthy poet through craft alone, is destined for oblivion when the poetry of the stark and raving blows away that of the merely sane.

Plato, Phaedrus 244a-245a

Nights come in threes

I was informed by Tha‘lab on the authority of Salama that al-Farrā’ said:

The first three nights [of the lunar month] are called al-Ghurar or al-Ghurr "The Blazes." The moon rises in the forepart (ghurra) of the night, and is likened to the blaze (ghurra) on a horse's forehead because it is brighter in one area than the rest. By some these nights are called al-‘Urj "The Limpers." The first of them is called al-Naḥīra "The Affrontant" [because it "faces" the last night of the month before it]. The last night of the month, when the crescent moon disappears from view, is another Naḥīra.

The next three nights are called al-Nufal "The Superogatory," because they give more light than the first three. A gift that is not incumbent on the giver is an act of tanfīl, and superogatory prayer is called nāfila, because it is not obligatory. By some, these nights are called al-Shuhb "The Greys," because the whiteness of the moon mixes with the black of night. Horses with grey coats are called the same.

[Three nights omitted here are called by some al-Zuhar "The Brights," or defensibly "The Cythereans" after the planet Venus which is al-Zuhara.] There follow three Buhar "The Outshiners," so called because their moon outshines the darkness of the night.

Night thirteen is the night of al-Siwā’ "The [Full Moon's] Equivalent," also called al-‘Afrā’ "The Dusty." Night fourteen is the night of al-Badr "The Full Moon," so called for its uncanny resemblance (mubādara) to the sun. These are al-Bīḍ "The White Nights."

Then come three Dura‘ [an epithet of sheep that are] "Black with a White Head" or "White With a Black Head," because the last of them gets dark. Then there are three Bīḍ. There follow three Ẓulam "The Darks," then three Ḥanādis "The Pitch Blacks," and then the three Da’ādi’  "Hasteners [of the Occultation of the Moon]," singular Daydā’a or Da’dā’a. On al-Muḥāq "The Total Wipeout," the moon's occultation is total, and that is the last night of the month.

From The Book of Day and Night in [the Arabic] Language
by Ghulām Tha‘lab (Ibid.) (cf.)

Night and Day are not to blame

[Al-Bukhari said:] I was informed by Yahya ibn Bukayr that he was informed by Layth on the authority of Yunus that Ibn Shihab said: Abu Salma reported to me that Abu Hurayra, may God be pleased with him, said:

The Prophet, God's blessings and peace be upon him, said:
    "God says: 'The children of Adam revile Fate, yet I am Fate, and Night and Day are in My hand.'"

       

[Ibn Hajar said:] The meaning of the prohibition against reviling Fate is that the true agent is God. Vilification is reserved for perceived wrongdoers whose actions we condemn, so if you revile the One through Whom some fate befalls you, that condemnation reverts to God.
      My commentary on this was summarized above in the chapter of Qur’anic exegesis (on 45:24). There are three basic interpretations of the hadith. According to one, God "is" Fate in the sense that He has forethought of all matters. By another interpretation, it is in the sense of God's authorship of all things that He "is" Fate. By a third, He "is" Fate insofar as He is more powerful than it, which is why He goes on to say that "Night and Day are in My hand." The narration of this hadith by Zayd ibn Aslam on the authority of Abu Salih Dhakwan has it that "Night and Day are in My hand, and some things I renew, and some I cause to wither, and I bring reigns of dynasts to their end." This is how Ahmad ibn Hanbal reports the hadith.
      The fact of the matter is that any agency attributed to Fate is anathema. To speak of Fate in such a way is not necessarily an act of unbelief, unless it expresses the speaker's actual convictions. In any case, it is best avoided, because fatalism is typical of unbelief. It is like saying [that a shower of rain was caused by this or that seasonally-rotating star, using the expression:] "We were brought rain by such-and-such [an asterism]." This expression was discussed in a previous chapter.
      Al-Qadi ‘Iyad said: It was claimed by a certain person, in despite of true discernment, that al-Dahr (Fate) is one of the names of God. This is erroneous. Al-Dahr is the fullest extent of sublunary time, understood by some people as all that God brings about in the mortal world, up to their deaths. Through their ignorance, fatalists and Epicureans seize upon the outward surface of the hadith, believing Fate to be nothing more than rotation of the celestial spheres. But only those with no grounding in knowledge are convinced by this. May God, the All-Knowing, assist us! He is the One true Craftsman, and they've got nothing. The hadith itself refutes them, where God goes on to say: "I overturn Night and Day." How can anything be overturned by itself? God, be He Exalted, is Higher and Greater then anything they say of Him.
      Ibn Abi Jamra said: Anyone who reviles a craftsman's work obviously vilifies the craftsman along with it. To revile Night and Day themselves is a grave matter, and a senseless one. Usually it is events that occur during Night or Day that people mean to condemn—and this is what gives context to the hadith and its prohibition against blaming them, as if to say: "Night and Day are not at fault."
      Some events are made to happen through the actions of sentient beings, who are thereby responsible for them. In terms of religious law and ordinary speech, such events are ascribed to whoever carries them out, but also to God, because of His divinity and power. Now the actions of God's servants are of their own acquiring, which is why they are subject to judgment, and have been since the beginning of Creation. Then there are events that occur through no one's action, and these we ascribe to the determination of the Almighty. But no agency or responsibility can be ascribed to Night and Day, whether through reason, religious law, or everyday speech. This is the meaning of the hadith. And for animals lacking reason the same applies.
      Ibn Abi Jamra points out that this is a case of Admonition against the lower by means of the higher, [saying: "Night and day are among the greatest signs in Creation. They signify the reality of His Godhead, and this is why He points them out as objects for contemplation, be He Exalted and Magnified (3:190): 'In the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the alternation of night and day, there are signs for the perspicacious.'"] The prohibition against reviling Night and Day is indicative of the prohibition of reviling anything at all, unless dictated by religious law. Because [whether one vilifies the high or the low,] the fault is the same. And God knows best.

From Victory of the Creator: A Commentary on the Sahih of al-Bukhari by Ibn Hajar al-‘Asqalani

And the bat said

Who shuns the mob lives on. Beware of mixing with the throng! Just look at what it did for Ham. For all Ham's milling about the enclosure, Shem was the elect of God, the Apportioner.

A creature of seclusion, whose realm is the night, I am puny, but [unstoppable in flight] "like a boulder the flood washes down from a height." By day, I hide from others' view. Isolation is necessary, in my view. Night is when I unwrap myself, for "The rising of night is when impressions are strongest." The sun, when she rises, sentences my eyes to blindness, and I covet the sight of anything else. Against the sun's eye, I close my own, and where she is present, I make myself gone. Why should my heart placate what's subservient to my Lord? Fie on irreligious leanings toward what's transient and remiss: the sun who hauls her fire just to warm the solar disk!

[The bat went on to say (meter: mutaqārib): ]

  How long you've been her prisoner! How much longer will you be?
     Now, by God, the time has come to set the prisoner free.
  She showers you with affection, makes her visits known to all,
     but any circumspection on her part is hard to see.
  If you were serious about your feelings
     you would flee her when she flees,
  and turn your love to Him Whose love
     is glory, and rejoice.
  The way of faith and purity
     mends the heart and leads aright.
  To make your home inside the Garden of Eternity,
     God's love is where to put your eyes.
  While those who work away the day will find reward tomorrow,
     sleep all day rewards the wakers of the night.

From the Language of the Birds of Ibn al-Wardī

Which color is the sky

I have seen these verses in the handwriting of Ibrahim ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Su’alati, who acknowledged them as his (meter: kāmil):

      Lithe as a shoot, my tormentor in blue
         passes by, exulting in his pride.
      Tobacco smoke envelops his face, going up
         from inside him like mist on a winter's day,
      as if screening his beauty—like the full moon's
         when it rises, and dazzles in the paleness of its sky—
      as if screening it from people's eyes
         lest they fall slain by him [as have I!]

These anonymous verses are quite similar (meter: ṭawīl):

      When he comes into view, in his caftan of blue,
         swaggering with pride in outrageous beauty,
      I cannot suppress my cry of "Stop!" at all who blame me,
        "And behold my full moon in his dark sky!"

Poets and writers choose from a range of hues to describe the sky, which changes under different conditions and forms of expression. Some describe it in terms of zurqa "blueness," as in the verses above, whose authors follow this description of a girl in blue by Abu ‘Uthman al-Najim (meter: khafīf):

      Qabul surpasses the occasion when she arrays
         herself in raiment as brilliant as herself,
      dressed in blue and topped with a face
         like the full moon in the paleness of the sky.

Thus did the ancients describe it. When the sun is shining, the sky's blueness is an azure hue produced by the mixture of blue and white, the color of blood flowing in a vein.
      The sky is called akhdar "blue-green" in hadith: "No one more truthful than Abu Dharr ever went beneath the blue-green [sky] or trod the dust-brown [earth]."
      And it is called lazawardi "azure," as where Abu Hafs ibn Burd described a boy dressed in that color (meter: majzū’ al-kāmil):

      In azure silk, the sight of him
         blotted out everything else.
     "What mortal is this?" I exclaimed
         at his exorbitant beauty.
     "Let no one deny the moon," he answered
         the right to go robed in the sky!"

      Some call the sky banafsaji "violet," as where Ibn al-Mu‘tazz described a boy in opulent brocade (meter: majzū’ al-kāmil):

      I marvel at a violet robe.
         To see it is to die a lover's death.
      Dressed in it now, you are become
         a full moon in the hue of its sky.

From The Fragrance of Green Herbs and Dewy Coating on Wine-Vessels of the Tavern by Muhammad Amin al-Muhibbi

Gourd Flower

What to be famous for? is a question only Chance and Fate get to answer. And if my name is remembered, it will be for the song "Gourd Flower," as recorded by my friend Julian Talamantez Brolaski, and appearing on xir new album It's Okay Honey.

The lyrics to this song first appeared on page 40 of Zeroes Were Hollow. Now, in a video jammed together from heart-breaking footage on archive dot org (thanks, Nick), they are the world's to sing along with. I await no higher credit to my name than this:

Pillar to post

‘Abd Allah said: I am informed by Muhammad ibn al-Husayn that Ruh ibn Salma [or ibn Maslama, or ibn Aslam] al-Warraq said: I was informed by Qutham al-‘Abid that

‘Abd al-Wahid ibn Zayd [known as Abu ‘Ubayda al-Basri] said:

I stopped one time in a valley, where I was startled by a monk who had confined himself in a cell. I said, "Is this a demon, or a man?"
      Weeping, the man said, "What is there to fear, other than God? A man degraded by sin, who flees to his Lord, in flight from his own sins—this man's no demon, but a mortal in distress."
      "How long have you been here?" I asked. "Twenty-four years," he said.
      "Who do you have for company?" I asked. "Wild animals," he said.
      "What do you eat?" I asked. "Fruits and vegetation of the earth," he said.
      "And you don't miss the company of other people?" I asked. "That's just what I'm fleeing," he said.
      "Do you follow Islam?" I asked. He said: "[Submission] is all I know."

Abu ‘Ubayd (sic) said: By God, I envied him his place!

‘Abd Allah said: I am informed by Muhammad ibn al-Husayn that Muhammad ibn Musa ibn ‘Amir al-‘Azdi told him:

I asked a monk about the iron pole he had [tied himself to?]: "What's the hardest thing about being out here by yourself?" "There's nothing hard about it," he said. "Solitude is sociability, for the seeker."

From The Book of Isolation and Seclusion of ‘Abd Allah ibn Abi 'l-Dunya

Deviation and aversion

Abū Zayd: Māla [means "to incline"]; its verbal noun is mayl. Ibn al-Sikkīt: Mamāl and mamīl [are also its verbal nouns], and amāla and mayyala [mean "to cause something to lean"]. Abū Ḥātim [CORRECTED AGAINST LISĀN AL-‘ARAB]: Mayl is for leaning that is contingent, while mayal [the verbal noun of mayila] is for leaning that is congenital or structural.
      Abū ‘Ubayd: The verb jāḍa yajīḍu means "to deviate from the path," as does ḥāḍa yaḥīḍu [discussed ahead]. Abū Zayd [attests that ḥāṣa yaḥīṣu is said for the same meaning, and that its verbal nouns are]: ḥayṣ and ḥayaṣān. Ibn al-‘Arābī adds: ḥuyūṣ. The author of Kitāb al-‘Ayn: Ḥāṣa ‘anhu ["He turned away from it" is said with verbal nouns] maḥīṣ and maḥāṣ, and [the same meaning is communicated by] taḥāyaṣa and ḥāyaṣa. Abū ‘Ubayd says in more than one place: Ḥāṣa means "to turn away in flight" from something, and jāḍa means "to deviate." Ibn Durayd: Jayadān is jāḍa's verbal noun.
      Abū ‘Ubayd: Nāṣa yanūṣu, verbal nouns manāṣ and manīṣ, is similar. In more than one place, he says it means "to get moving and go away." Ibn Durayd: Nāṣa yanūṣu, verbal noun nawṣ [can be used transitively, to mean] "to pursue something to the point of overtaking it." [Ibn Sīdah:] Nawṣ was discussed earlier with the meaning "to depart."
      Abū ‘Ubayd: The verbal noun of nakaba yankubu ["to be oblique"] is nakib. Abū Ḥātim: Nakb and nukūb are [two more] verbal nouns of nakaba, and nakab is the verbal noun of nakiba [which means the same]. The author of Kitāb al-‘Ayn: Tanakkaba means "to deviate from the path." Nakaba has this meaning, and also "to cause someone else to deviate."
      Abū ‘Ubayd: ‘Adala is similar to this. Someone else: ‘Adala ya‘dilu, with verbal nouns ‘adl and ‘udūl [means "to turn away from something"], as does in‘adala. ‘Adala is also [used transitively, with two contrary meanings:] "to cause someone to incline" and "to set someone straight and correct their inclination," as when you set something upright that was sagging low, and correct the imbalance in it. Ta‘dīl is [a verbal noun meaning] "rectification." ‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb said: "God be praised for surrounding me with people who set me straight when I go akilter (idhā miltu ‘addalūnī), as if straightening an arrow." ‘Ādala and in‘adala [mean "to waver"], as in the verse [by Dhu 'l-Rumma, meter: ṭawīl]:

      I fix my eyes on anyone but her,
          from modesty. Otherwise, my gaze would never waver.

[Contrarily,] ‘adala can mean "to return" to something.
      Abū ‘Ubayd: Kanafa means "to be averse," as in the verse [by al-Quṭāmī, meter: ṭawīl]:

      [The winesellers feared a cheat, and got into it with us]
          to make sure none of us were averse to paying.

[Ibn Sīdah:] Where this verse is attested with kātif ["holding back one's hands"] in place of kānif "averse," I think it is in error.
      Ibn Durayd: Khāma means "to refrain" from something; its verbal noun is khayamān. The verb zākha ["to be at a remove"] means the same.
      The author of Kitāb al-‘Ayn: Ḥāda [means "to hang back" from something]; its verbal nouns are ḥayd, ḥayadān, maḥīd, and ḥaydūda. Abū ‘Ubayd: Al-ḥayadā is someone who shies away, as in the verse [by Umayya ibn Abī ‘Ā’idh al-Hudhalī, meter: mutaqārib]:

      I recall the dusky onager guarding its bulk [from bowhunters],
          the one [I spied] hanging back from a pool of fresh water.

      The author of Kitāb al-‘Ayn: Ṣadafa means "to turn and go away"; its verbal nouns are ṣadf and ṣudūf, and aṣdafa means to cause someone else to do this.
      Abū Zayd: Kafa’a, verbal noun kaf’, means "to go wide of the mark," and so does akfa’a. Abū ‘Ubayd: Akfa’a is said of an archer who lets the bow's upper limb lean to one side, missing the target.
      Abū ‘Ubayd: Ṣadagha means "to decline"; its verbal nouns are ṣadgh and ṣudūgh. Abū Zayd: One says: "I will straighten out your ṣadgh," that is, your deviation from rectitude and uprightness.

From the Mukhaṣṣaṣ of Ibn Sīdah (continued)

Just visiting

√Zwr is a root of [Arabic words for] inclination and deviation. Zūr is "falsehood," because it deviates from the way of truth. Zawwara means "to conjure something in the mind," by way of shaping it and changing its tack to make it more agreeable to the hearer. When an idol is called zūr [as in the verse by al-Aghlab al-‘Ijlī, meter: rajaz], it is based soundly on this meaning [of "fabrication"]:

     They came with their zūrs, and we came with al-Aṣamm,
     [our shaykh who is like a lion of Iram's remnant.]

Zawar is "inclination." Izwarra means "to incline away" from something. A similar idea is expressed by [active participle] zā’ir "visitor," because when someone visits you they have inclined away from other people. The chieftain who commands a group is called al-zuwayr because his followers turn away from all others in deference to him only, as in the verse (meter: ṭawīl):

     At the hands of men with no leadership among them,
         the tyrannical zuwayr is driven to his death.

When they say, "There is no zawr to this man," they mean he lacks any judgment worth seeking out.
      Generosity shown to visitors is tazwīr. A zawr is a visiting group of any number of men or women, and for a single visitor the same word is used. A poet said (meter: rajaz):

     There's a sway in their walk at al-Khubayb
     that's like the swaying gait of visiting maidens (al-fatayātu 'z-zawru)

When a strong and hardy [camel] is called ziwarr, it is derived anomalously from zawr which is the upper part of its chest.

From Analogical Templates of Language by Ibn Fāris

If lost in the hills

Source | Soundtrack

The Bend in Arabic

[The verbs] i‘wajja, awida, māla, ḍali‘a, zawira, zāgha, ṣa‘ira, and ṣawira all mean the same. Ta’awwada is said of a thing that has a bend in it. And you say there is mayal in a bent thing, in addition to mayl, both verbal nouns of māla. [The nouns] ‘awaj, mayal, awad, ḍala‘, badan, zawar, zaygh, and ṣa‘ar are said especially for [affections of] the side of the face. God, be He Exalted and Magnified, says: Wa-lā tuṣa‘‘ir khaddaka li-n-nāsi "Twist not your cheek at people." Ṣawar and ṣayad are [upward bendings of a person's neck] from hauteur and pride, and [of a camel's neck] from the tugging of the rein upon the nose-ring.

From ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn ‘Īsā al-Hamadhānī's Book of Words for Secretarial Use in Arabic Language Science, the recension of
Ibn Khalawayh

    

[The nouns] ‘awaj, awad, ḍala‘, mayal, zawar, zaygh, ḥinw, and ṣa‘ar are said especially for [affections of] the side of the face. Ṣawar and ṣayad are [upward bendings of the neck] from hauteur and pride. Mayal is for a bend in the formation of a thing, as is ḍala‘, and its affiliated verb is mayila yamyalu; mayl is for when you incline towards another, and its affiliated verb is māla yamīlu. One uses the verb ta’awwada of a thing, and i‘wajja, in‘āja, and in’āda when it bends. And while the "contortion" of an abstract matter is called ‘iwaj, the "bend" in a stick is called ‘awaj.

From ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn ‘Īsā al-Hamadhānī's Book of Words for Identical and Similar Things, the recension of Abū 'l-Barakāt ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Anbārī

Interview With a Ampire

 

After thirty years in the arts, it's happened that someone asked me thoughtful questions about my work, and recorded and edited our conversation for everyone to enjoy. I will be forever grateful that it was my friend Tenaya Nasser-Frederick. Thanks also to the editors of Full Stop, where the interview appears in two parts: Part One | Part Two

 

UPDATED AUG. 31: Tenaya and I just gave no. 148 in the Brooklyn Rail's Wednesday reading series, and for better or worse the cloud recording's been made viewable until kingdom come. Thanks to Anselm and everyone at the Rail who makes it happen.

ALSO Gabriel Kruis's review of my new book Zeroes Were Hollow has appeared in the Poetry Project Newsletter 273 (Summer 2023), 27-8, and can be read right here. Thanks so much to Kay et alii at the Newsletter and ov course to Gabe.

AND NOW (DEC. 5): Jared Joseph's review of Zeroes appears as an insightful web-exclusive feature of Gulf Coast 36:1 (Summer/Fall 2023). Thanks to Jared, Gabriel and Tenaya, the book's launch is now complete, and I can go back to watching YouTubs.

                             Sly Stone on Dick Cavett (ABC, 1970)

                             Van Halen, "I'll Wait" (1984), fan video

                             AC/DC, "Highway to Hell" (Paris, 1979)

                             Elton John, "I Guess That's Why They Call It the
                             Blues" (Las Vegas, 2012), feat. Jean Witherspoon

Man and crow

‘Ali ibn Sulayman al-Akhfash reported to me that Abu Sa‘id al-Sukkari said, on the authority of Muhammad ibn Habib, that

Abu 'l-Nashnash was a bandit of the Banu Tamim, an antisocial type and nuisance of the road who used to hold up caravans between the Hijaz and Syria. He was caught by one of Marwan's brigadiers, who fettered him and kept him prisoner, until Abu 'l-Nashnash took advantage of his captors' inattention and ran for it. He went along until he came to where a crow in a moringa tree was croaking and preening its feathers, and this filled him with disquiet. Then he came upon a group of the Banu Lihb, and said: "Ordeals and evils, imprisonment and dire straits—this man's been through them all, and escaped!" He looked to his right, and saw nothing. Then he looked to his left, and saw again the crow in a tree, croaking and preening its feathers.
     "If the omen doesn't lie, this man's headed back to prison," a Lihbite said, "to languish in fetters until he's executed and exposed on a cross." "Suck a rock," said Abu 'l-Nashnash. "Suck it yourself," said the Lihbite. To which Abu 'l-Nashnash recited (meter: ṭawīl):

        Many women ask where I'm headed, and many men.
            Why ask the irregular where he's bound?
        The broad highway, that's where. If someone hangs onto
            what they'd better hand over, that's when I come near.
        A lonely man who can't roam free and easy,
            and no one is happy to see,
        is better off dead than hovering
            in penury around his master's well.
        The open waste where the sandgrouse falters 
            is where Abu 'l-Nashnash comes riding through,
        to avenge someone's killing, or take someone's stuff.
            Is the prodigy not now in view?
        He lies down to worse poverty, finding nothing he seeks
            on darker nights than I've ever seen.
        Live lawless or die noble. I have found no one
            left behind that death came seeking.

From the Book of Songs

Words and meanings

Words that hint at flashing glimpses, and meanings that set captives free. Words like trees in flower, and meanings that inspire deep breaths. Words that borrow the sweetness of lovers' complaints, and crib from their tête-à-tête on the day of separation.

You'd think their words were pearls cascading from a cloud, if not purer drops in showers, whose meanings were pearls laced into a chain, only more precious. Language that is intimate and distant, provoking desires and dashing hopes, like the sun that brings light near while staying far above, and like water, so cheap when plentiful but costly when it runs out. Language that is easy for the astute to take in hand, and hard for everyone else. Language that ears will not reject and time will not wear away. Words that come as happy news gathered from a flower garden, and meanings like breaths of wind redolent of wine and aromatic herbs.

Smooth-flowing language of fine vintage mixed with rainwater, bringing realizations closer to its hearers. Witticisms that are magic portals, and nuggets like riches after poverty. Language like cooling drink on an overheated stomach, like prestige garments on an unbridled youth, full of highlights, supple contents, exquisite edges and non-abrasive surfaces. Language that is licit magic, cold springwater, and robes and mantles of resist-dyed weave, and apothegms and maxims and immanent happiness and blooming youth. I see in it the picture of pure refinement, and a paragon of excellence in its casting and molding. Words of coltish newness that are knots of ancient sorcery. Words that gladden the despondent, and level rugged ground, and make the treasured pearl an otiose thing.

Language that is free from affectation and far from blemish. Language with magic on its breath, and a smile of pearls in a row. Words whose golden surfaces inspire delight, and meanings whose verity overcomes the inborn temper. Words so tender-hearted, you'd think them copied from from a page of puppy love, but so ingratiating you'd think they were dictated by appetitive passion. Language that comes as an announcement of noble birth to the ear of sterile old age. Language that comes tantalizingly near and is forbiddingly remote, descending until it's just "two bow-lengths away, or even closer," then ascending until it is the highest thing that can be seen.

Language of beautiful brocade and subtle mixture, sweet to take in, cast without flaw, of enticing verbal makeup in which I read hidden meanings made plain, and words at close hand that hit faraway targets. If ever there were language that could melt boulders, cool embers, heal the sick and set aright the broken bone, this is it. His language seats its hearers on carpets, and courses through their hearts like resin in an aloe-tree. A man whose words are flowers, and his meanings fruits. His language is company for the settled, and provisions for the traveler. Language in which gazelles seek refuge, and sparrows bathe their wings. Language that emancipates clarity but keeps beauty in its thrall. Language that hauls in pearls, ties magic knots, dilates bosoms, and appeases Fate. Language whose range is far and its harvest nigh, inspiring affection in its hearers, and despair in [would-be imitators of] its craft.

From The Magic of Eloquence and the Secret of [Rhetorical] Expertise by
Abu Mansur al-Tha‘alibi

Avant ‘Udhra

Abu ‘Ubayd Allah al-Marzubani reported that Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Jawhari informed him that Muhammad ibn ‘Ali al-Sulami said: It was reported to me by ‘Abd Allah ibn Abi Sa‘d that ‘Umar ibn Shabba al-Numayri said: Muhammad ibn al-Hasan told me: Muzahim ibn Zafar informed me that his uncle said:

In the land of the Banu ‘Udhra, I saw an aged man whose body was drawn in on itself like a bird's. I asked the woman attending him who this was. "It's ‘Urwa," she told me. So I bent down close and asked him, "Does your love affect you still?" He said (meter: ṭawīl):

      My gut is like a wingèd grouse of the sands,
          so very sharply does it flutter.

I went round to his left side, and he repeated the verse until I'd heard it from him four times.

Hisham ibn al-Sa’ib al-Kalbi reported that al-Nu‘man ibn Bashir said:

I was sent as tax collector to the Banu ‘Udhra, and went about collecting their taxes until, when I thought I had passed beyond their territory, a threadbare tent came into view. Lying in front of it was a young man reduced to skin and bones. On hearing my tread, he began to chant in a weak and mournful voice (meter: ṭawīl):

      To the healer of al-Yamama I'll pay what's due,
          and to the healer of Hajr—but first they must heal me.     

Just then, a rustling came from the tent, and inside it I beheld an old woman. "Old woman," I said, "come out, for this young man has passed the point of death, in my estimation." "Mine too," she said. "I haven't heard so much as a whimper from him in over a year, except these verses lamenting his departed soul" (meter: basīṭ):

      Mothers weep forever. Who weeps for me
          today? Now I am the one being subtracted.
      Today they let me hear it, but when I uplifted
          the people that I met, I heard nothing.

She came out and lo, the man had died. So I wrapped him in a shroud  and prayed over him. I asked, "Who was he?" She said, "This is ‘Urwa ibn Hizam, the man slain by love."

From Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Yazidi's recension of the Poetry of ‘Urwa ibn Hizam; cf. Poetry and Poets, the Book of Songs, the Meadows of Gold, and The Tribulations of Impassioned Lovers

Alexander the Sleepless XVIII

I will narrate another miracle, supernatural and superhuman, about a medicinal brew the foresightful blessed one prepared for some brothers who were sick. For this purpose, they took ramekins of clay and set them in the ground [near the hearth] to be heated there, and he tapped four brothers to oversee the preparation in day-long shifts. Then there came a day when it slipped their minds—or rather, the Lord allowed it to slip their minds, in order that His servant stand revealed to all. 

It was a day when no one paid attention. All they did with the ramekins that morning was to wash them, fill them with cold water and leave them sitting there. But when the hour drew nigh, and they were reminded of their duty, they were ashamed to look at any of their brothers, and did not dare to go to their abbot and let him know. Finally, one of them got up the courage, and went to him and said, "We had no wood, and heated no water." The blessed one, when he heard this, said, "And why were you not mindful of it this morning? Not that it matters: I know you're trying to test me. You can go back now, your water's hot." Doubtful as they were, they went back and found the ramekins bubbling, though it was obvious no fire had gone beneath them that whole day. And once again, the brothers marveled at the man's faith.

These few miracles have been chosen in order that we may believe in the many I could set forth, and that all things were possible for him through his perfect faith.

The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.47

Alexander the Sleepless XVII

Certain faithless men took it in hand to test his grace. Day and night, they shadowed the brothers to find out where their food was coming from, for every day they saw it ready, and that after taking what sufficed them, these slaves of God took no thought for the morrow, but gave it in abundance to the poor. Through the Holy Spirit, the blessed one knew of their investigation, and at a time when none had knocked upon their door, said to one of his followers, "Go, and let in what the Lord has sent us." And before the brother got there, a man in white came knocking. The brother opened it to find a basket full of fresh-baked bread, still warm—but the angel of God who had knocked so urgently was nowhere to be seen, leaving a man standing there with the bread. "Who sent you?" the brother asked when he came in. The man responded, "I was taking my loaves out of the oven when a man of giant size appeared beside me, robed in white, and fiercely pressured me to 'Take all that bread to the slaves of the Most High!' He made me follow him to this place, knocked on the door, and then he vanished. I don't even know where I am."

Hearing all this, the brother reported it to his blessed abbot. The holy Alexander received the bread and served it warm to the brothers, who were already at their tables. With gratitude, they took their share and gave the rest to their brothers, the indigent poor. And [those formerly faithless men] marveled when they saw the unrestrained liberality of him who, in accordance with Scripture, gave no thought to the morrow.

The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.45

What could this be?

The now-sainted Symeon was ailing at this time, and on the point of death. Gregory, when I made this known, sped to him, hoping to embrace him at the very end, but did not make it soon enough.

There were none to overshadow Symeon's greatness in his day. From the time he was a boy of tender nails, he pursued a life of hard extremity at the top of a pillar. His baby teeth had not yet fallen out when he took his stand there. The circumstances of his ascent to the pillar were these:

He was just a little kid, wandering boyishly in the foothills, when he came upon a wild leopard. Throwing his belt around its neck, he used the strap to lead around the beast, now forgetful of its wildness, and walked it back to his schoolhouse. Beholding this from the top of his own pillar, the schoolmaster asked: τί ἂν εἴη τοῦτο? "It's a cat," the boy said.

This proved the lad's future greatness, as far as the old man was concerned, and he conducted him up the pillar, where Symenon lived out sixty-eight years—first on that one, and then atop another in the highest fastness of the mountain. For expelling demons and healing every malady, every grace was due him, and for seeing into future things to come. To Gregory, he foretold that Gregory would not be present at his death. As to what might happen after that, he said, he had no knowledge.

From the Ecclesiastical History (VI.23) of Evagrius Scholasticus

Good neighbor

These verses were composed by al-‘Arji during his imprisonment
and made into a song (meter: wāfir):

      They have forsaken me. What a hero they forsake!
         One for days of battle and frontier outposts
      and fatal clashes, standing fast
         where heads of spears aim for my slaughter.
      Now daily I am hauled about in manacles,
         begging God's aid against wrongful restraint.
      As if respect and honor were not conferred through me,
         the scion of ‘Amr [who was a caliph's son]!

Muhammad ibn Zakariyya the bookbinder said: It was reported to me by Qa‘nab ibn al-Muhriz
al-Bahili that al-Asma‘i said:

Abu Hanifa had a neighbor in Kufa who could sing. He used come home drunk and singing to his room on an upper floor, from which Abu Hanifa enjoyed hearing his voice. And very often what he sang was:

      They have forsaken me. What a hero they forsake!
          One for days of battle and frontier outposts...

One night, this man crossed paths with the vice patrol, who seized him and put him in prison. Abu Hanifa missed hearing his voice that night, and made inquiries the next morning. On hearing the news, he called for his black robe and high peaked cap and put them on, and rode to see [the governor of Kufa, who was] ‘Isa ibn Musa. He told him, "I have a neighbor who was seized and imprisoned by the vice patrol yesterday, and virtue is all I know of him."
     "Bring out everyone detained yesterday by vice patrol, and let them greet Abu Hanifa," said ‘Isa. When the man was brought forth, Abu Hanifa called out, "That's him!"
      In private he said to his neighbor, "Young man, aren't you in the habit of singing every night:

      'They have forsaken me. What a hero they forsake'?

"Now tell me: have I forsaken you?"
     "By God, your honor, no," the young man said. "You've been kind and noble. May God reward you handsomely!"
     "You can go back to your singing," said Abu Hanifa. "It was congenial to me, and I see no harm in it."
     "I will!" the young hero said.

From the Book of Songs

Calligrapher unknown

  

   "And He taught Adam all the names…" The Noble Qur’an (2:31)

"In reality, it is not images of objects but schemata that ground our pure sensible concepts. No image of a triangle would ever be adequate to the concept of it... The schema of the triangle can never exist anywhere except in thought, and signifies a rule of the synthesis of the imagination with regard to pure shapes in space…. The concept of a dog signifies a rule in accordance with which my imagination can specify the shape of a four-footed animal in general, without being restricted to any simple particular shape…" Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (A 141/B 180), tr. Guyer and Wood

    

Rear cover of al-Muṣṭalaḥ al-naqdī fī «Naqd al-shi‘r»
(Literary-critical Vocabulary in the Naqd al-shi‘r of
Qudama ibn Ja‘far) by Idris al-Naquri. Casablanca:
Dar al-Nashr al-Maghribiyya, 1982.

 HANDS AT WORK 

Chevrons   

 

Resist-dyed textile fragment; cotton (detail). Yemen, ca. 9th century CE.  
The Textile Museum, Washington, D.C.  

It's worth repeating that texts are similar to textiles in many ways, and that no explanation of their likeness is wrong, least of all for artists, who can say what they feel. This overdetermination imposes the contrary of license onto historians. For historians, the surplus of analogies to be drawn between fiber art and language art should enforce skepticism, and the suspension of any connection that can't be demonstrated in the linguistic, poetic and material evidence of a given time and place, lest bare intuition substitute for cultural data.

I will demonstrate this principle using the fabric called musahham, that is, "arrow-patterned." This was a style of weaving practiced in Yemen that I identify with a description by Ibn Abi al-Isbaʻ: "On a robe that is musahham, each arrow points to the next, its specific color determined by the aptness of its pairing with the color of the arrows before and after it." This well describes the textile fragment conserved at George Washington University's Textile Museum under accession number 73.466:

   

Dimensions: 34.92 x 37.46 cm (13¾" x 14¾")

It also describes the the pattern called chevroned in English, from the French chevron meaning "rafter." Where two rafters meet under the ridge of a peaked roof, the angle of a chevron is formed. Herring-bone names it too, and in the textile vocabulary of English both terms are found. But the herring is a northern fish, and in traditional Arab architecture roofs are flat. So it is no wonder that in the textile vocabulary of Arabic, the head of an arrow (sahm) was made to serve instead.

Upon the medieval artifact's identification with the medieval description (unmade by anyone before this blog post, although I hinted at it on February 28) a different kind of scholar would dash into print. Naturally, I want full credit for identifying TM 73.466 as musahham weave, but for the purposes of Hands at Work, which is about the genealogy of weaving as a metaphor for poetry in Arabic, it's a collateral insight. Tashīm is not a metaphor, or any kind of figure of speech, but rather a syntactical achievement, observable in prose, poetry, and the verbal makeup of the Qur’an. And it is named after musahham weave. In al-Hatimi's Ornament of the Learned Gathering there is an uncelebrated passage that purports to give the origin of the poetic term:

     I said to ‘Ali ibn Harun al-Munajjim (d. 352 A.H./963 CE), "I've never
     seen a poet with better tashim than yours." "That's an idiom I came
     up with myself," he said. "Tell me about it," I said. The answer he gave
     described it uniquely, in terms borrowed from no one else:

Let me stop it there. You can dive into Ahmad Matlub's Dictionary of Rhetorical Terms if you're curious about the mysteries of tashim before my book comes out. The point here is that the poetic term's derivation from Arabic textile vocabulary is traceable to the first half of the 4th/10th century.
     "And so," an essentializing critic might say, "yet again we see that Arabic poetry is a form of weaving." They wouldn't be wrong, as long as they don't retroject poetic tashim into the pre- and early Islamic periods, when musahham was a word for textiles only. The earliest mention known to me is by ‘Umar ibn Abi Rabi‘a (d. 93/712), where he describes "buxom lasses in sheer wrappers and musahham mantles of resist-dyed weave." And no amount of sophistry can construe this as a metapoetic image.
      In fact, for all this poet's well-known delight in luxury garments, I have never found him to coin textile metaphors for his own versecraft. This owes at least partly to genre: early ghazal poetry (‘Umar's forte) is low on metapoetic self-reference relative to panegyric and invective poetry. It might also have something to do with the unique (and uniquely troubling) report that ‘Umar ran a shop at Mecca where seventy enslaved weavers were put to work. Perhaps weaving was too practical and prosaic a craft for ‘Umar to enlist in description of his own poetic art. Whatever the case, I bring him up as a caution against facile claims that Arabic poetry is always and everywhere represented as a form of weaving.

 

While renouncing essentialism is "best practice," it also means missing out on worthwhile intellectual adventures. Carl Schuster has very interesting things to say about chevron pattern as a primordial genealogical symbol ("a sort of female Tree of Jesse," he calls it), and where I read about chains of arrows as a means of celestial ascent in Neolithic rock art, I'm like "beam me up." Far, far be it from me to foreclose on the mystical semiotics of chevron pattern.

Nor do I presume to "intervene on" Art History as a discipline. I have much more to learn in this area than to teach. Having said that, let me also say that if historians of Islamic art realized how much information about material culture there is to be gained from early Arabic poetry—and only from early Arabic poetry—then they would spend more time reading it. They're definitely going to have to read Hands at Work.

Controversy of the sandals

          "You have gone grey before your time," they said.
               I said, "What greys my head is fear of earthquakes!
           Scalps whiten at the wrong you do to Taybah,
               and Radwa shakes, and the peaky mountains tremble."
           They said, "Black sandals are for Christians."
              "Then they follow the example of our Prophet,"
           I replied. "But the lot of you are clad in error,
               shod in what protects old ladies' feet.
           Red sandals are for women of the Maghreb,
               and in the East, yellow ones go with a trailing hem."
          "Ahmad in black sandals?" they protested.
               "This contrarian is sore confused."
          "What are the sandals that I wear among you?"
               I said. "Now put aside this fruitless strife."
          "But Ali dressed in yellow," they said.
               I said, "That Companion has naught to do with this."
           They said, "Oral and written tradition are in agreement:
               The Messenger's sandals were not the black of kohl,"
          "Pray tell," I asked, "what color were they, then?"
               Their answer to my question was "I do not know."
          "Do intelligent people deny what's well established,"
               I asked, "trespassing into what they're ignorant of?
           I marvel at such claims. They're based entirely
               on ways and means of tradition that are depraved.
           So many askers have I told about his sandals:
               'As to their blackness, my tradition is the road of roads.'"
          "Might you enlighten us," they said, "to this tradition?"
               I said, "Might I enlighten someone who's not a fool?
           Black was the color of the Messenger's sandals." To which,
               like ignorami who think they know a thing or two,
           they objected, and spoke against the truth in sight of God,
               and every mortal being from high to low.
           They broke the staff of Islam, rejecting sunna,
               and shredded centuries' worth of scholarly consensus.
           So I fought them until, fearing for their buttress,
               they slunk in shame and repentance to their homes.
           Helpless before the rampant lion of knowledge,
               they wrung their hands after their overthrow at mine.
           For I schooled them in the truth until they learned it,
               while they slept on it like idiots who drool.
           I schooled them in the truth until they learned it,
               whose education was a kitchen mule's.
           I schooled them in the truth until they learned it,
               who were no better trained than hyena pups.
           I schooled them in the truth until they learned it,
               and voided the vain humbug of their views.
           I strung pearls of truth and knowledge for safekeeping,
               and hung it round their necks devoid of truth,
           and guided them like lambs without a shepherd
               out of straying, clear of error, to the truth.

Verses 22-46 of a 131-verse invective poem (meter: ṭawīl)
by Muhammad Mahmud al-Turkuzi al-Shinqiti,
dated 1307 A.H. (1889-90 CE)

With thanks to Zekeria Ahmed Salem

No two hearts

Mujahid said: "'God does not put two hearts in one man's bosom' was revealed concerning a man of Quraysh who claimed to have two hearts, as a boast of of his mental abilities. He used to say, 'In my bosom, there are two hearts, and each one of them has more intellectual capacity than Muhammad.' This man was from the Banu Fihr."

Al-Wahidi, al-Qushayri, and others say: "This was revealed concerning Jamil ibn Ma‘mar al-Fihri, a man of prodigious memory for everything he heard. 'Anyone who can remember so many things must have two hearts,' said the Quraysh. 'I have two hearts,' he used to say, 'both of which have more intellectual capacity than Muhammad.'
     "Jamil ibn Ma‘mar was with the idolaters at the battle of Badr when they were put to flight. Abu Sufyan saw him mounted on an ass, with one sandal fastened to his hand and the other to his foot. 'How's the battle going?' he asked him. 'Our people have been put to flight,' Jamil said. 'So why do you have one sandal on your hand and the other on your foot?' asked Abu Sufyan. 'I thought they were both on my feet,' said Jamil. And so his absent-mindedness was discovered, for all that he had two hearts."

Al-Suhayli said: "Jamil ibn Ma‘mar al-Jumahi was the son of Ma‘mar ibn Habib ibn Wahb ibn Hudhafa ibn Jumah—Jumah who was also called Taym. He claimed to have two hearts, and it was concerning him that the Qur’anic verse was revealed. He is also mentioned in this verse of poetry (meter: ṭawīl):

                How will I abide in Medina, after
                    Jamil ibn Ma‘mar seeks it no more?"

From al-Qurtubi's Comprehensive Judgments of the Quran

A short treatise on isolation

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

God's prayers be upon our master, His Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and companions, and upon them be peace.

It is narrated from ‘Umar ibn Jabir al-Lakhmi that Abu Umayya said:
     I asked Abu Tha‘laba al-Khushani about the Qur’anic verse: "O you who believe! You are responsible for your own souls." He said, "You're asking someone well-informed in the matter, for I asked God's Prophet, God's blessings and peace be upon him, about this same verse. He said, 'Abu Tha‘laba, command each other to do what's right, and forbid each other from doing what's wrong. But if you see that this world below is being preferred [to the world to come], and that avarice has taken over, and that everyone glories in their own opinion, then you are responsible for your own soul.'"
     Shaykh Sidi al-Mukhtar al-Kunti said: "Rightly it is said that the commentary in this hadith has come to pass in the present time, and that we are in Doomsday's courtyard, and the very staging-ground of Resurrection.

It is the year 1349 after the Prophet's Emigration, prayers and peace be upon him, (=1930 or 1931 CE) and O brother! Take care not to despise those who isolate from people in these times, for it is now necessary. Even in early times, there were people who isolated themselves in dread of wicked new practices that became prevalent in their day.
     In his book Jurisprudence of Essential Entities according to the True Meanings of the Qur’an, Shaykh Sidi al-Mukhtar al-Kunti, may God have mercy on him, says [quoting al-Ghazali's The Way for Worshipers to Make it into the Garden of the Lord of the Two Worlds]: "When one has ascertained that the harm that comes from socializing with people as religious duty stipulates is greater than the harm of abandoning that duty, then in that case one is excused from it. I saw in Mecca, may God protect it"—this is in one of al-Suyuti's books, may God have mercy on him—"I saw in Mecca, may God protect it, one of the senior religious scholars who practiced seclusion. He did not attend congregational prayers at the Holy Mosque, even though it was right nearby, and there was nothing wrong with his health. One day, I asked him about the infrequency of his attendance, and he gave the same excuse that I have indicated here, which is that being in the presence of the Curtain [covering the Ka‘aba] was not worth all the vices he had to come into contact with, and the negative consequences arising from going to the mosque and meeting people.
    "In summary, for one thus excused, there is no reproach. And excuses are up to God, be He Exalted, for he knows what is contained in every breast."

I say: Take care, O brother, not to despise those who take their faith and flee, and pray in seclusion in their homes, leaving the mass of humanity behind, since this is necessary practice of the end times. Prayer in isolation is now made licit, given the deficiency of prayer-leaders in our time, and this is according to requisites laid down by scholars.
     In the commentary by Muhammad Mayyara on The Helpful Guide of Ibn ‘Ashir, which is entitled The Pearl of Great Price, he says regarding the necessary education of the prayer-leader: "Fourthly, he must know the fundamentals of prayer, which are the necessary recitations and other regulations whose inobservance makes prayer go wrong. On the subject of recitation, Ibn al-Qasim says in the Compilation of Imam Malik: 'If one with correct knowledge of the Qur’an is led in prayer by one without correct knowledge, they must never allow it to happen again.'" The end.

Ahmed Baba Institute (Timbuktu) MS 17632 (fol. 1r, 1v-2r, 2v).
Author unknown.

Enslaved men and blacksmiths in the poems of Jarīr

         al-Bayzār "Plowman" : The name of a slave
         Baghthar "Not Too Bright" : The name of a slave
         Thu‘āla "The Fox" : A slave of Mujāshi‘
         al-Jaythalūṭ [Unspecific term of abuse] : A slave
         Dāsim "Mindful Worker" : The name of a blacksmith
         Za‘‘āb "Bearer of Heavy Loads" : A blacksmith belonging to Ṣa‘ṣa‘a
         al-Zubbayyān (sic) [al-Waqbān?] :
               A slave belonging to [Ṣa‘ṣa‘a's mother] Qufayra
         Shuqār "Red" : The name of a slave
         Ibn Ṣam‘ā’ "Son of the Woman with Dainty Ears" : A freedman
         Ḍāṭir "Big Guy" : A slave
         Qunābir (sic) : A slave
         Masrūḥ "Easy-going" : A blacksmith belonging to
               Ṣa‘ṣa‘a and Qufayra
         Makḥūl "Sooty" : A slave belonging to Taym
         Hurmuz [A royal name of Persia deriving from Ahura Mazda]:
               A slave belonging to Qufayra

A prosopography by Dr. Nu‘mān Muḥammad Amīn Ṭāhā, editor of
Muḥammad ibn Ḥabīb's Commentary on the Collected Poems of Jarīr

 HANDS AT WORK 

The Poison Shirt 

 

Resist-dyed textile fragment; cotton (detail).
Yemen, 10th century CE. Metropolitan Museum of Art

Anyone who reads Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years by Elizabeth Wayland Barber will be struck by chapter 10's surmise that the deadly poison robes of Greek mythology had a basis in chemical fact. Tetraarsenic tetrasulfide is a soft red mineral called realgar (> Arabic rahj al-ghār "powder of the mine," being the sandarakē of the ancient Greeks), which like other compounds of arsenic would be excellent dyestuff if it weren't lethal to the touch. Not right away (as in the story of Medea's rampage at Corinth), but over time: Barber estimates it would take a month of wearing realgar next to the skin to kill a person, and this might be reflected in the protracted throes of Heracles, which went on long enough for him to avenge himself while still alive.

Francisco de Zurbarán, The Death of Hercules (1634)
Oil on canvas, 136 x 167cm (53½" x 65¾"), Museo del Prado

A recent article by Teddy Fassberg on the "The Greek Death of Imru’ al-Qays" confirms that the poet's legendary assassination by poison robe (al-Jahiz calls it a shirt) derives from the death of Heracles. But other iterations of the motif in Arabic are independent of this tradition, e.g., the punitive "robes of fire" tailored in the Islamic afterlife for unbelievers to wear. Here I would like to share an original, unconventional example of poisoned cloth in Arabic poetry—the poetry of Jarir (d. ca. 110 A.H./728 CE), which is basically a 40-year torrent of invective against his contemporary poets. And invective is the main type of poetry that textile metaphor was used to describe.

Metaphors of weaponry would seem more appropriate to the purpose, and sure enough, spearheads, arrows, and flung stones—missiles that inflict damage from a distance—are common figures for the social injuries that abusive verse can do. For Jarir, these were either too tame or old hat; in any case, his metaphors draw on more intimate forms of harm, two in particular. One is poison, and the other is amputation of the nose (jad‘), brought together in these verses (meter: kāmil):

      I prepared for the poets a fatal poison,
         serving the last of them with the first draught,
      laying my branding-iron on al-Farazdaq,
         and docking al-Akhtal's nose while al-Ba‘ith yelps out loud. 

On the subject of facial mutilation, Hands at Work has a lot to say. It was characteristically an enslaved person's ordeal, and a slave's marking in the ancient Near East, including Greece which is how we got the word stigma. But poison is what's at issue here. Again and again, Jarir brags of forcing his rivals to drain cups of it. Exactly what kind of poison, I wish I knew, though it has little bearing on the metaphor. Poison is Jarir's figure for the efficacy of his poetry, i.e., its power to diminish the social capital of his rivals through abuse and taunting, and this metaphor is easy to understand. That weaving should be a figure for the same thing, indeed a traditional, conventional figure, is relatively counter-intuitive, and that is why Hands at Work had to be written.

The poison cloth of Jarir is woven from these two metaphors. Small wonder that it comes with facial mutilation bundled in, along with casual prejudice against metalworkers (so typical of nomadic societies of the Near East), making these verses a "quadfecta" of Arabic invective poetry (meter: kāmil):

      O son of blacksmiths, long have you tested me,
         and long have I pulled free where thongs are tied.
      What comes of my eternal return to al-Farazdaq? Be it known
         that what Mujashi‘ gets is nothing to celebrate.
      Mujashi‘'s nose has been docked by poems
         of poison whose weft was woven on the beam of a loom.

Does Jarir's toxic weave allude to the death of Imru’ al-Qays? If so, he doesn't make it obvious. It seems to result inadvertently from the cramming of three metapoetic images into a single line. But I'm not one to insist. The important thing here is that textile craft is very far from signifying pro-social artistry or aesthetic beauty. For Jarir, it is an instrument of deadly abuse, more like Clytemnestra's "net of Hades" than the fancy carpet Agamemnon walks in on. What makes a net admirable is its efficacy, and this is what Jarir boasts of in his poetry: its power to incapacitate the foe, leaving them unable to answer (meter: basīṭ):

      I repaired to the grave heaped over Marran
         when a delusional poet confronted me in anger.
      His hauteur had gone unchallenged, and amid his sons
         who were likewise haughty, he embroiled us in unrest.
      By us was the oppressor beat back and refuted, and led away
         in cuffs of leather that were stoutly plaited.

  

Now for three notes to the above. (1) I have a new book of poems out, and on pages 12-13 there is one called "The Poison Shirt" whose inspiration by Jarir is unmistakable.

  

(2) As someone who always credits my secondary sources, I am pleased to acknowledge a valuable article by Abdulkarim Yakoub and Samar Eskander, "al-Ṣinā‘a al-shi‘riyya fī mafhūm al-shu‘arā’ al-Umawiyyīn" (Poetic Craft as Understood by Poets of the Umayyad Era), appearing in Majallat Dirāsāt al-Lugha wa-Ādābihā (Syria) 12 (2014), 139-62, where the first two passages from Jarir are cited. The third is in Ibn Qutayba's Big Book of [Verses with Obscure] Meanings, where last installment's verse by Aws ibn Hajar also appears.

   

(3) Previewing unpublished research like this is not without risk. An unethical competitor might follow the leads I have indicated, and steal into print with them before I'm through. But anyone tempted to make uncredited use of the material in these date-stamped blog posts may be assured that, like a second Jarir, I will dump poison all over you, and your career will be finished, and that will be that ©