If in Brooklyn

Flyer by Nicholas DeBoer

Saints of Kufa at the fruit market

I am informed by my father, who was informed by his father, that Muhammad b. al-Hasan b. ‘Ali said: I am informed by Muhammad b. ‘Abd Allah b. Sulayman, [known as] Mutayyan, that Abu 'l-Muhanna al-Ta’i, [known as] Bunayn [or Buthayn] said:

Dawud al-Ta’i passed along the lane of ‘Amr b. Hurayth, where there were baskets full of ripe dates in even rows. On seeing them, his soul began to crave them. "Let's go," he said to his soul, and went to the vendor and said, "Give us one dirham's worth." "And where's the dirham?" the vendor said. "I'll give it to you tomorrow," Dawud said. "Go on about your business," the vendor said.
      A man [in the crowd] spotted Dawud and said to the vendor, "What did that man say to you?" The vendor said, "He said: 'Give me one dirham's worth of dates.'" At this, the man held out a sack holding one hundred dirhams, and told him, "Here. If he accepts one dirham's worth of dates from you, you can keep the rest."
      When the vendor caught up to Dawud, he was berating his soul, saying: "You, who are not worth one dirham in this world, you wish for Paradise?" The vendor said to him, "Come back, and take as much you need."
     "Get away from me," Dawud said, "I was just testing myself.”

From The Merits of Abu Hanifa by Ibn Abi 'l-‘Awam

⯁        

We are informed by ‘Abd al-Rahman that Abu Sa‘id al-Ashajj said: A man whose name I don't recall told me that

Sufyan al-Thawri passed along the lane of ‘Amr b. Hurayth, together with a man who gawked left and right at all the fruit on display. When they arrived at the gate of Musa ibn Talha [in the neighborhood of the Kunasa, which was Kufa's refuse depot], the man stepped in human excrement. Sufyan said to him: "Everything you were gawking at turns into this."

From Finding Faults and Findings in Favor [of Individual Hadith Narrators] by Ibn Abi Hatim al-Razi

A Sisyphus of Baghdad

I am informed by Tahir ibn Muhammad al-Ahwazi, who said:

I saw Abu Hayyan al-Muwaswas after he went from Basra to Baghdad. His only care was for the purchase of a wide-mouthed ceramic jug, which he filled with water from the Tigris and took to the canal of al-Sarat to pour it out. Then he would carry water back from al-Sarat and pour it into the Tigris. And from the time he came to Baghdad until his death, he did no other work but this. When night fell, he would set down his jug and weep over it, saying, "Dear God, lighten for me the task I am performing, and relieve me of it!"

I am also informed by Muslim ibn ‘Abd Allah, who said:

I saw Abu Hayyan al-Muwaswas when he came to Baghdad and conceived his passion for pouring water. He would carry it from one place to another to pour it out, and when asked about it, he would say, "If I don't do this every day, I'll die."

       And here is one of Abu Hayyan's poems (meter: munsariḥ):

       Weep no more for Hind, nor the level sands,
            nor springtime pastures known by you,
       but stop at Qatrabull and its amusements,
            tether there your camels from the trek,
       and stop in on the old man of the monastery
            whom People of the Book call the Qissis.
       He's not amassed a fortune. All that he owns
            is his crucifix and a bell.
       But he has a wineskin over his shoulder that he brings
            to be my portion, carrying it spout downward.
       On my first visit, I frightened him, and he quaked at me,
            so I mentioned Moses. "[How about] Jesus, though!" said he,
       and poured into my cup a bright, clear, unmixed stream
            from a vineyard where no grubs have breached the vine.

Abu Hayyan's speech became disordered at the end of his life when he went mad. But he was not disordered in his verse. This is the way of poets who suffer dementia late in their careers: their speech becomes profoundly incoherent, but when it comes to poetry, they transcend [the confusion in] their heads, and follow the traces that were familiar to them before their madness. 

From The Rankings of the Poets by Ibn al-Mu‘tazz

In Memoriam Peter Wilson

1945 — 2022

Regard the eddies

I was told by my father, on the authority of Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Yazīd, on the authority of Isḥāq ibn Manṣūr that

‘Abd al-A‘lā ibn Ziyād al-Aslamī said: One day I saw Dāwūd al-Ṭā’ī standing on the bank of the Euphrates in a state of amazement. "What has made you stop here?" I asked him.
       He said: "Look at the eddies in the river, and how they whirl in obedience to God’s command, be He exalted."

From the Ornament of God's Friends of Abu Nu‘aym al-Isbahani

Guest artist: Roberto Harrison

Roberto Harrison, "buffalo person for the morning" (2020). 
Pencil and ink on paper, 12.7 x 17.8 cm.
From the series Tec Alliance

Ever green

Ibn Khālawayh said: In the speech of the Arabs, khaḍir / khaḍira is used for just five things. (1) Al-Khaḍir is the name of a prophet, God's blessings and peace be upon him. He was called that because when he sat on a patch of ground, it sprang into greenness beneath him.

(2) Khaḍira is an epithet of the world here below. The Prophet of God, God's blessings and peace be upon him and his family, said: Al-dunyā ḥulwatun khaḍiratun ("This world is sweet and green").

(3) Whatever is said to be yours khaḍiran naḍiran ("green and flourishing") is free for you to take it. [The dual noun] al-khaḍiratān is heard in the expression for "Two things that are ever green: sakhbar and raiding"—[as if they were] two bushes, their freshness surpassing all other green things. In other words, one is impelled toward them both.

(4) Khaḍir is any green herbage that the earth puts forth, whether trees or panic grass or lush greenery [The IX^th form verb] ikhḍarra is used for this, and for a tree whose greenery is plentiful.
     The Prophet, God's prayers be upon him, said: "Refrain from those plants in your diet (khaḍirātikum) that have a strong smell," meaning garlic, onion, and leeks.
     Palm trees too are called khaḍir. And khaḍir can refer to a dish of tender greens. Ukhtuḍira, [a passive VIII^th form verb meaning "to be cut off in a state of greenness"] is said of someone who dies in their youth, leaving nothing finished. 

(5) And Khaḍir is the name of a tribal group.

From volume 5 of
The Book of "Not in the Speech of the Arabs"
by Ibn Khalawayh (Süleymaniye MS Shahid ‘Ali Pasha 2143, fol. 20v-21r)

Sultan Ezi is the Lord of the Cup

      

In 2017, I made a selection of poems by the caliph Yazid ibn Mu‘awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, and prepared "trots" of them for Peter Lamborn Wilson to versify in his book on the Yezidi religion. That book is now available from Inner Traditions (Rochester, VT), and [UPDATED MAY 23] I'm consoled that Peter lived to see it. Thanks to all who made it possible, especially Charles Stein, Renée Heitman, and Raymond Foye.

Alexander the Sleepless XIII

At the end of four days' travel, they arrived at the place where a large monastic community had for its chief Alexander's own brother, their archimandrite. Did his way of life accord with the Gospel of the Lord? It was Alexander's intention to find out. 

He brought a single member of his brotherhood up to the gates with him and knocked. "Patience," responded the gatekeeper in the ordinary fashion. "Let me notify the abbot, and then you may enter." But Alexander refused to wait, and followed him inside, to find out if the archimandrite would be roused against his gatekeeper. 

When his saintly brother, whose name was Peter, beheld him after thirty years, he recognized his sibling at once, for even in darkness it is natural to recognize one's own. And he fell at his feet, and hugged them, and begged Alexander to forgive what had taken place. But the blessed one spoke harshly and accusingly. "Our father Abraham received his guests personally and attended to them, and our lord Jesus Christ made it the law." And he shook the dust from his clothes and went back on the road. The most reverend Peter and all the brothers of his community were in tears as they begged him to stay, even if just one day, but Alexander declined. And with this lesson in true monastic poverty and divine love he left them, and set off for Antioch.

The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.37

Alexander the Sleepless XII

In the company of his brethren, whose hymn-singing continued without interruption, the blessed Alexander went all the way across the desert to arrive at Solomon's city—the city he built "in the wilderness," as it says in the Book of Kings, now called Palmyra. But when, from far away, the people of the city caught sight of the brethren drawing nearer in their numbers [....], they closed the gates. "Who could possibly feed all those men?" they said to one another. "If they come into our city, then all of us will starve."

At this, the holy man gave praise to God. "Trust in the Lord is better than trust in men," he said. "Take courage, brothers, for the Lord watches over us in unsuspected ways." And [sure enough,] the barbarians of those parts showed a humanitarian concern that was unparalleled. The brethren had abided in the desert for three days when, from a distance of four days' travel, there arrived a group of camel-riders sent to them by the Lord with supplies, in accordance with what the holy one had said. To God the brethren gave praise and thanks, and let others share in the bounty. It was so much more than they needed that they found themselves distributing the goods sent to them among the poor of that city.

Some eager members of the brethren formed a plan. As consolation for their recent sufferings, they wished to bring refreshment to the brethren in their great numbers, and so they disobeyed the holy one by preparing a mixed grill for the brethren's gustatory delight. But Alexander decided to give them a lesson in sublimating their woes. As soon as the feast was all prepared, he took up the parchments of the Holy Gospel as was his custom, saying "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will toward men," which was his habitual way of taking leave. With that, he gave word that the feast be left untouched, and went back on the road. And the brethren held back from all that was laid out for them, and got back on the road. 

From The Life of Alexander the Sleepless III.35-6

If in Boston

After an 18th-century MS of al-Qazwīnī’s ‘Ajā’ib al-makhlūqāt 

(The Wonders of Creation) illustrated in a workshop of Palestine. 

Bavarian State Library, Cod. arab. 463, fol. 181v

Mālik and the wolf

They say that one night, while Mālik ibn al-Rayb was out on a raid, a wolf attacked him in his sleep. He drove it off, but without success, for the wolf returned and would not give ground. So Mālik fell upon it with his sword, and slew it, and this is his poem about the incident (meter: ṭawīl):

  Hey wolf of the scrub, now the stock of human laughter:
      From east to west, report of you will spread from rider to rider.
  Bold-hearted though you were, you met the lion
      whose neck is strong, whose bite is stronger, 
  who never sleeps at night without the sword
      that's quick to violence in defense of people.
  Hey wolf, my stealthy nighttime caller:
      Did you take me for a dull-witted person?
  Several times I drove you off, and when you wore me down
      and would not be shooed away, I curbed your nuisance.
  And now, at the feet of the son of a noble dame, you are made carrion
      by a bright cutter that delivers from oppression.
  Many's the dubious battle where, had you been present,
      the memory of me amid the fray would scare you still,
  and the sight of my fallen foe in armor
      with his hands fixed in the earth [that he died clawing],
  worsted by the brave-hearted fighter whose
      opponents wish their hearts could flutter back to them,
          would be haunting you.
  With a sword of two sharp edges I leap, and toward death
      I walk proudly, where my peers dawdle like mangy camels.
  When I see death. I don't shrink from it in a deferential way.
      When I ride into narrow straits, it is by choice.
  But when my soul will tolerate no more, steer clear
      and back off, lest your entire community be scattered in terror. 

From the Book of Songs

When you remarry

    I wish no trace were left of their encampment.
        I would not then be saddened at the sight.
    When their camels stepped away, aboard their litters went
        gentlewomen like does of Urāq with wide eyes.
    Stopped at Dhū 'l-Jadāh, apart from menfolk,
        they cast off overclothes to play at leapfrog.
    [They travel in summer.] The sun rises on them
        almost as soon as it sets, but it's no affront to them.
    I wish the winds my message to their people would convey
        at Murj Ṣurā‘ or al-Andarīn.
    White cumuli that echo one another’s peal,
        with lightning bolting at us from cloudy banks,
    their mounded forms lit up by rearing ones,
        now in darkest night and now again—
    what are they, compared to beautiful Ghaniyya with her neighbor
        on the day of their departure, and beautiful Umm al-Banīn?
    And what are the eggs of the [ostrich,] bushy and confrontational,
        nursed on albumen until they hatch?
    Laid in one shape, all of them,
        white in color, with prenatal chicks contained inside,
    sheltered by a wing and brooded over,
        shielded underneath its plumage,
    in a safe spot on a high place fed by sweet breezes,
        where the north wind’s moan is sometimes heard,
    and the wadi of Na‘mān empties out
        into the graveled clay of al-Adyathīn.
    That is where yon citadel of wandering cloud unleashes,
        and the buzz [of flies around the ponds it fills] erupts like crazy.
    And what is the shine of the jeweler’s pearl,
        pried from its covering by the strong-willed [diver]?
    He keeps it wrapped in silks,
        and when he takes it out, eyes sparkle.
    Between the diver and the pearl come frightful sights:
        great fish and whales and other marine giants.*
    Avidly, he risks his life (nafs) for it.
        The desire in his soul (nafs) is strong and grasping.
    And noble mares are continually saddled
        for riding off to look at pearls in the [cool of] morn and evening.
    [I say to my beloved spouse:] After the saddle quits the withers
        of my mount, and events befall me as I deserve,
    stay clear of the wandering lowlife
        who calls on people after dark.
    He slurps a skin of cultured milk, then stoppers it
        and says, "It’s your turn to pour. I already shared mine."
    Beneath reproach, he reproaches others. Whether
        your flesh is lean or fatty, he chews it [behind your back].
    Constantly he lollygags around your door,
        as if tethered with a strap there.
    When times are hard, he’s useless.
        He has no camels fit for milking, nor any unfit ones.
    When I die? Get yourself the miser’s opposite,
        a young fighter with a lean midriff,
    one whose eyes dart like a falcon’s
        when he finds that all is not as it should be.
    Night for him is without darkness. He trusts
        in a fearless camel and races her [as if by day].
    His people are in debt to his brave actions.
        The women wish to have no other man.
    This is [my advice,] not some occult destiny I foretell
        to you who think that everything’s an omen.
    Let the outcry cease! My accuser makes a case
        out of whatever I just did, forgetting my prior exploits.
    [In youth], I wore a mantle of prestige, and then it was
        required of me to toil and soon be judged.
    Now my death is nearer than a phantom.
        Between my life and me it totters nigh.
    Many a day ends in disaster. And then
        sometimes those days are far between,
    [as on the night] I crept up and whispered to her: "Pay
        your uncle's son no mind [and come with me]."

A qasida by Ibn Ahmar al-Bahili (meter: wāfir)

*Two verses interpolated from Uncommon Words in Prophetic Hadith
  by Ibrahim al-Harbi

Adventures in Guest-Blogging II

I don't mean to brag, but a number of my friends have been featured bloggers on Harriet for the Poetry Foundation. Cedar, Rodney, Kasey, Alli, Brandon, Brandon, Matvei, Garrett, Thom, Marie, Asiya, Silvina, Sara, Patrick, Stephanie, Dana, Eddie, Hoa, Rodrigo, Joshua, and if I keep clicking back I'll be reminded of more.

This is all to say I'm glad to be blogging for Harriet finally, on the theme of Poetry and Translation. Thanks, Shoshana! My first post is up today.