Horn and thorn

THE PARTISAN OF THE ROOSTER: The rooster is characterized by boldness and resilience at the encounter—qualities of people who can withstand the blows of whips and staves, and are steadfast in the clash of arms. He is a wily strategist, adept at feints and dodges, as are also necessary in war. His skills are honed, and once he decides how best to plant his ṣīṣiya [which is his spur] in the eye of another rooster, his aim is inerrant, and he goes in for the kill.

People wonder at the slaughterer, whose art is proverbial for inerrant throat-cutting, and at the meat-cutter's skill at separating joints. This is where the proverb comes from: "He goes right to the stabbing-place, and does not miss the joint," said in praise and dispraise [of blunt-spoken people]. The rooster excels at this, and is quick to pounce, lifting himself high in the air with his sharp and uniquely-placed weapon.

Only the rooster is so outfitted. The horn of the oryx bull is called ṣīṣiya after the rooster's weapon. And the defensive fortifications at Medina are called ṣayāṣī [which is the word's plural form]. God says, be He Exalted and Magnified, said: "He brought their backers from the People of the Book down from their ṣayāṣī..." [This is because defensive munitions can be considered weapons, and vice versa:] An armed man is called in Arabic dāri‘ "armored" and dhū 'l-junna "covered." The horn that the bull gores with is much bigger than the rooster's ṣīṣiya, which is likewise a defensive weapon. So when men made towers to be their strongholds, forts and coverts, in the way of shields and helmets and coats of mail, they called them ṣayāṣī.

They gave the name ṣīṣiya to the weaver's barb because of its shape, despite its greater length. Weavers use it to even out their warp and weft, and defend against the misalignment of their weaving. It fits in the hand like a weapon, and could be used to strike a person if one wished. Durayd ibn al-Simma said (meter: ṭawīl):

     You see him touched by hostile spears
         the way a stretched weaving is struck by ṣayāṣī.

The Arabs used to call the scorpion's barb a shawka. The rooster's spur can also be called shawka, by analogy to the shawk of the date palm [which are its "thorns"]. A person afflicted with erysipelas is said to be "struck by al-shawka," because the condition is commonly brought on when a date palm thorn breaks the person's skin. Al-Qutami called the barb of the scorpion its "thorn" (meter: ṭawīl):

     He travels on through frost of night, until his extremities
         [ache and tingle] as if attacked by scorpions' thorns.

A thorn is slim at the tip and wide at the base. For this reason, a mare [if it is small in the chest and big in the rump] may be called sullā’, which is another word for "thorn," heard in the description of ‘Alqama ibn ‘Abada (meter: basīṭ):

     A thorn of a horse, like an old Nahdite's staff: [the frog of her hoof]
         adheres there, tough as the gnawed pit of a date of Qurran.

Erroneously, some people call the the scorpion's barb a ḥuma. Ḥuma is in fact the creature's venom, and that of wasps and hornets with their stingers, and the fangs of vipers and other venomous snakes. The word is not used of botanical poisons. Some creatures carry venom in their proboscis, like the mosquito and the biting fly, and others, including spotted geckoes and certain spiders, transmit it in their bite. The bite of the tick can be grievous, and the tarantula's can kill. Bedbugs and scorpionflies aren't so deadly, and in our considered view not all these animals can be said to carry ḥuma.

Two who died from poisonous bites are Safwan Abu Jusham al-Thaqafi and Da’ud al-Qarrad, and ahead will come a chapter on this subject, if God wills, be He Exalted.

A man or boy who, from a surfeit of lust, can't stop playing with his member unless actively or passively engaged in coitus is a ṣīṣiya. Even a eunuch may be so called. "Nothing but a ṣīṣiya," people say of a man addicted to sodomy—an expression that evokes the excitability of the rooster and the hardness of his spur.

From The Book of Animals of al-Jahiz

Alexander the Sleepless XXIII

Over a half century of ascetic rigor, the Blessed One suffered unceasing oppression, nakedness, hunger, and thirst, and rejoiced in them. He taught the word of truth bluntly and outspokenly, gathering up multitudes and ferrying them to Christ, as his disciples do today. He was brilliant at it, and to the blessed and untroubled end of his labors, when a saintly sleep at last came over him, he was outpaced by no one. He was laid to rest in Bithynia, at a place called Gomōn [which Janin locates here, but van Esbroeck says was here].

Through the Blessed One's intercessions after taking leave of life, the order attracted still more disciples. I have already told of their renown, not just locally but all over creation, and of the monastery founded by the leaders of the brotherhood, the aforementioned Monastery of the Sleepless Ones, so named for their unceasing and unsleeping doxology. It is an institution worthy of his way of life. Here were his blessed, saintly remains translated, and in order that God, Who loves humankind, might demonstrate right there that that He honors those who honor Him, and that everything the Blessed One did was in accordance with His will, these holy relics work miracles every day. Meanwhile, those of unclean spirit cannot endure the mention of his name, and react as if burned by the sound of it.

As proof of our brotherly love and affection, and caring only for the truth, we have despite our incapacity for the task [set forth the Blessed One's virtues] as we saw them. By the Lord, our hope is that the Holy Spirit will inspire others with more knowledge than we to expound it more clearly, as an edifying boon to those who would follow this way of life. May it happen that we all become disciples worthy of him, and may his intercessions guide us to what he shares in now, by the good will and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

          

The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.52-4            

Ahmad of the Seventh Day I.3

[‘Abd Allah continued:]

The caliph returned to his seat, and they brought water to soothe his face. "How did you come to know him?" he asked me.
      I told him the whole story, and he went back to weeping. "That was my first-born son," he said. "My father al-Mahdi decreed my marriage to Zubayda, but my eye was caught and my heart was captured by a woman of another class. We married in secret, and when she bore me a son I settled them in Basra. And one of the things I gave her was this ring. I told her, 'Stay hidden until you hear that I've been made caliph, then come to me.'
     "After I assumed the Caliphate, I inquired after my wife and son, and was told that both had died. I had no idea my son was still alive! Where," he asked me, "did you bury him?"
     "I interred him in the Cemetery of ‘Abd Allah ibn Malik, O Commander of the Faithful," I said.
     "I need your help," he said, "Wait for me after sundown outside the palace gate. I'll come down in disguise to visit his tomb." So I waited, and he came out in disguise with a crew of eunuchs. He put his hand in mine, and at a shout from him, the eunuchs retreated. I brought him to the tomb, where he wept away the night until the dawn, rubbing his head and beard against the slab and calling out, "My son! You have given guidance to your father!" And I wept with him, out of pity.
      And then he heard a voice. "I think I hear people talking," he said. "Yes," I said. "Morning has broken, O Commander of the Faithful, and the dawn rises."
     "I am giving the order that ten thousand dirhams be disbursed to you.," he said. "Inscribe your family members and loved ones among my own, as is your right for seeing to my son's burial. And when I die, I will tell my successor to keep up what's coming to you, as long as your progeny are alive."
      He took my hand again, and up to a short distance from the palace we walked hand in hand, to where the eunuchs were waiting. As the company entered the palace, the caliph said to me, "See to all I have told you, and wait for me here at sunrise. When I see you, I'll summon you up to talk some more."
     "If God wills," I said. And I never went back.

       

Another version of ‘Abd Allah's story is reported by a different chain of narrators, and it goes like this: [Continued.]

From Characters of Integrity by Ibn al-Jawzi; cf. The Lamp that Sheds Its Brightness on the Caliphate of al-Mustadi’ by the same author