Mercury of Babylon

Alchemy is the work through which gold and silver are produced without mining them. Its devotees say the first to speak of it was Hermes, the sage of Babel, and that when Babel's people were scattered he moved to Egypt and ruled it as a wise philosopher king. They credit him with a number of books on alchemical science, which he developed through theoretical research into the physical and spiritual properties of things. They also say he instituted the craft of making talismans, and credit him with a number of books on the subject, though the partisans of sempiternity date this craft and its origins to thousands of years before Hermes.

Abu Bakr al-Razi, who is Muhammad ibn Zakariya, says that no philosophical system is valid without a working theory of alchemy, and that no one ignorant of the science of alchemy can be called a philosopher. By this art, he says, the philosopher can do without other people, but they cannot do without the philosopher's scientific and practical insights. Some alchemists say their science was revealed by God, Magnified be His name, to a group of the work's devotees. Others say that God, be He Exalted, revealed it to Moses and Aaron the sons of ‘Imran, peace be upon them, and that they delegated the work to Korah, who enriched himself with gold and silver and waxed tyrannical. God, Blessed and Exalted be He, took note of this, and in answer to Moses's prayer, peace be upon him, He took the life of Korah amidst his treasures.

Al-Razi claims elsewhere that many philosophers were schooled in the work, including Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, and last of all Galen. Modern authorities have books and teachings on it, as did the ancients, and about these matters God knows best. In summarizing them here, I cannot be blamed, for I do not imitate either group.

On the Bablylonian Hermes. Accounts of him differ. Some say he was one of seven ministers appointed to protect the Seven Houses, with the house of ‘Uṭārid assigned to Hermes. Mercury in the Chaldaean language is named ‘Uṭārid, and by this name Hermes was called. For one reason or another they say he migrated to the land of Egypt, where he was the wisest man of the age, and that he ruled the place and fathered sons there named Ṭāṭ, Ṣā, Ushmun, Athrīb, and Qifṭ. After his death, he was interred at Egypt's capital in a construction called Abū Hirmis, now known as "The Two Pyramids." One pyramid houses Hermes's tomb, and the other his wife's—or, by another account, it is the tomb of the son who succeeded Hermes to Egypt's throne.

From the Fihrist of (Ibn) al-Nadim

Rebus erudire

When you ask the meaning of a word, whether from a native speaker or a scholar, the answer is sometimes in their actions and not their words.
      Al-Asma‘i said that ‘Isa ibn ‘Umar asked the poet Dhu 'l-Rumma about the meaning of naḍnāḍ. "All he did was flicker his tongue at me," ‘Isa said. Ibn Durayd reports this anecdote in Jamharat al-lugha, where he defines the verb naḍnaḍa as what a snake does with the tongue in its head, and says the snake is called al-naḍnāḍ for this reason.
      In his commentary on Adab al-kuttab, al-Zajjaji reports that when someone asked the poet Ru’ba about the word shanab [which is the dewy glow of a young person's teeth], he made them look at a pomegranate seed.
      Al-Qali reports in his Dictations that when al-Asma‘i was asked about the ‘awāriḍ of a man's beard [which cover his cheeks], he placed his hands on his cheeks above the ‘awāriḍ of his teeth [which are the bicuspids].

From Bringer of Light to the Language Sciences by Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti

Sharjah memories

Blue Souk, October 2023

Muwashshahat al-Nuniyya

This muwashshaha, in which Ibn al-Wakil incorporated hemistichs from the Nuniyya of Ibn Zaydun, is one of the most remarkable poems I have come across:

                Our death has been announced.
                The crier proclaims our sentence.
             Were we unschooled in sorrow, it would do us in

                The sea of love drowns
                all who try to swim it,
                     and all who fret and moon
                     the fire of love scorches.
                Many's the young hero
                whose sleep it takes away.
                     It racks and ruins bodies
                     and makes the days turn
             Lightless, when our nights with you were brilliant

                Dear confidant, mine own,
                stay a while and hear me out.
                     Beware of giving in to passion,
                     it'll burn you up.
                An ordeal to be avoided!
                So hear and spread the word.
                     The sea of love is bitter.
                     Heedless, we dove in
             And at once the crier announced our annihilation

                When hopes turn to fine young things
                you are in for disquiet.
                     My efforts were for
                     a gorgeous and inhumane lad.
                Though his only care was gift-getting,
                the favors he got he turned down.
                     And just as soon as he
                     favored me with caress or near miss,
             Morning replaced our closeness with separation

                I call on all that
                ties us together: Unless
                     you restore our union
                     and relieve my burning eyes,
                this life of isolation
                will grind me down.
                     Let it be the way it was
                     with my kin and brethren
             When the wellspring of our joys was unpolluted

                I call on the community
                that flees this lovelorn fool,
                     breaking faith with him
                     for no wrong done.
                It shouldn't be like this.
                It is a social ill.
                     They scant the damage done
                     by their estrangement
             Though ever was estrangement lovers' ruin

                O you who crowd my willow!
              "By the even and the odd,"
                     and the Ant and the Criterion,
                   "and the night when it passeth,"
                and al-Rahman and al-Hijr
                and the Bee, enlighten me:
                     Is it lawful in any religion
                     to kill a man with thirst
             For one whose pure love used to fill my cup?

                O seeker after rain!
                Turn aside at the wadi
                     of the people of Badr.
                     Mayhap your thirst
                will be quenched by a torrent
                if you stand among them and call out:
                   "Bring me to life,
                     and bring me kind word
             From a distant one whose word alone can revive me"

                My days go by
                as if they were years.
                     It used to be the
                     other way round.
                The days flew by like erotic dreams.
                I wish they'd never ended,
                     and a cup of
                     Mixed wine went flew
             between us, and the singers were singing our song

From The Whiff of Scent from a Green Bough of al-Andalus
by Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Maqqari

Fairuz and Wadi al-Safi, "Ghada Munadina."

From Qasidat al-Hubb (Baalbek, 1973).

Lyrics by Sadr al-Din ibn al-Wakil