A riddle and a mention

Last year, I tried to write a few paragraphs on ghazal poetry and its relation to the craft of spinning, called in Arabic ghazl. Before long, I had 9,500 words on my hands, and now I'm stoked for them to appear in Studia Metrica et Poetica, the open-access poetics journal from University of Tartu Press. For a magnificent editorial experience, I am grateful to Maria-Kristiina Lotman, and to Kalle Paalits for the patient typesetting, and to my friends and colleagues thanked by name in footnote sixty to "The Riddle of the Thread: On Arabic ghazal."

        

Also last year, I entered my translation of "The Palm Tree Sings" (1981) by Tahar Hammami into competition for the Stephen Spender Trust's Poetry in Translation Prize, and received a Commendation for First-Time Entrants. Whatever I can do to draw attention to Hammami's work won't resolve my debt to his 2003 monograph al-Shi‘r ‘alā al-shi‘r (Poetry on Poetry: A Study of [Arabic] Poetics up to the 5th c. A.H./11th c. CE in View of Poets' Verses About It), without which the book I'm writing would be a vain dream. Profound thanks to the poet's brother Hamma Hammami (Secretary General of the Tunisian Workers' Party) for his permission to reprint the Arabic text, and to Youssef Ben Ismail and Amani Alzoubi for their critical assistance.

Another Language of the Birds

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate     

The angel Gabriel, peace be upon him, said: Hearken unto me, Muhammad, and to the knowledge sent you by my Lord and yours, Who gave the birds their languages and deserves our worship.

O Muhammad, when the Rooster of the Throne gives voice, every rooster on earth responds by crowing. And when the white rooster crows, "Remember God, O heedless ones!" is what it says—or, by another account: "There is no God but God, and Muhammad is His prophet."
     When the frog croaks, "The Messiah is in the whorl of the cloud" is what it says.
     When the skylark calls, "God's curse be on the enemies of Muhammad and his family!" is what it says.
     When the francolin cries, "The Merciful is seated on His throne" is what it says.
     When the starling calls, "Dear God the Provider, give to me sustenance day by day" is what it says.
     When the hen cackles, "Death, murder, and plague!" are what it says, and after its throat is cut it stammers on until its blood is drained.
     When the wood pigeon calls, "To death your young are destined, to ruin what you build, and everything you gather is for others to inherit" is what it says.
     When the laughing dove cries, "If only humans were never created! If only they knew what they were created for!" is what it says.
     When the hoopoe calls, "Who shows no mercy in this world will be shown none in the next" is what it says—or, by another account: "Everything dies, and everything new gets old."
     When the shrike gives voice, "This world doesn't matter" is what it says.
     When the sandpiper calls, "Do good, and good will come to you" is what it says.
     When the swallow cries, "Everything alive will die, and everything new gets old" is what it says.
     When the dove calls, "Glory be to my Lord Most High, and praise to Him" is what it says. The white dove is a bringer of blessings, and was prayed for by Noah, peace be upon him. And when the grey dove calls, "Glory be to my Lord, the Benevolent!" is what it says.
     When the peacock cries, "There is safety in the silence of the taciturn" is what it says.
     When the kite screeches, "Everything perishes but the face of the Mighty and Everlasting" is what it says.
     When the parrot calls, "This is the world of perishable things; what lasts forever belongs to the next" is what it says—or, by another account: "Woe unto whom this world is a matter of concern!"
     When the vulture calls, "O child of Adam! Live and do as you please, and death will be the end of you" is what it says.
     When the eagle cries, "Remoteness from people is a form of sociability" is what it says.
     When the hawk shrieks, "For the intelligent, death suffices as a sermon" is what it says.
     When the black raven caws, "What happens after death.... (?)" is what it says.
     When the peregrine falcon calls, "I marvel at those who die happy" is what it says.
     When the roller cries, "Dear God, Who hears our plaints, enroll me in the champions of Your Chosen One!" is what it says.
     When the magpie calls, "All that drink water will taste death" is what it says.
     When the Jewish raven caws, "Hellfire! Hellfire! No one withstands Hell's fire" is what it says.
     When the owl hoots, "Death and destruction! Separate and disperse!" are what it says. When you hear it, say: "God suffices us, and is the best of overseers" until it stops.
     When the [blank in manuscript] calls, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" is what it says.
     When the duck quacks, "Glory be to our Lord! In You we seek refuge" is what it says.
     When the sparrow hawk cries, "The mercy shown me encompasses all things! Let the community of Muhammad enter the Garden, by Your mercy!" is what it says.
     When the partridge calls, "O King of Kings, liberate the community of Muhammad from Hellfire" is what it says.
     When the quail lifts its voice, "O peace! Save us, and we'll give safety to whoever comes in peace" is what it says.
     When the nightingale sings, "O Kindly, Caring and Majestic One!" is what it says.
     When the Barbary dove cries, "Glory be to Him Who brings dead bones to life!" is what it says.
     When the curlew calls, "This world is perishable! The world to come is everlasting" is what it says.
     When the jaeger cries, "O Living and Eternal God! 'No drowsiness overtakes him and no sleep'" is what it says.
     When the Anqa lifts its voice, "Glory be to the Creator of the seed of life inside of wombs!" is what it says.
     When the ostrich calls, "O child of Adam, do not forget the bleakness of the grave and the narrowness of the tomb!" is what it says.
     When the crane cries, "O sufficer! Spare me the evil of Adam's children" is what it says.
     When the philomel sings, "The time is near, all hope is lost, the task is perilous," is what it says.
     When the waterbird calls, "O Knower of all that is hidden and secret! You created me [in the Garden, where you spared me] from the ordeals of this world" (?) is what it says.
     And when the fly buzzes, "Who obeys God obeys Him in all things" is what it says.
     And when the hornet buzzes, "Give me power only over those who....(?)" is what it says.
     And when the bee buzzes, "O you who wield a cane, do not thrash with it, and be forgiving of the community of Muhammad, seal of the prophets" is what it says.
     And when the lion roars, "O You of hidden grace, Your grace is sufficient kindness" is what it says.
     And when the lizard is heard, "Trust in God is all you need" is what it says.
     And when the wolf howls, "O you of grievous violence! Your pity is as unseemly as your lack of it" is what it says.
     And when the gazelle calls, "O people! Be ever wakeful" is what it says.
     And when the elephant calls, "Glory be to You, Who are the Greatest" is what it says.
     And when the pig squeals, "O flock of retribution!" is what it says.
     And when the rabbit is heard, "O Giver of Security! O Absolute Authority!"is what it says.
     And when the cat meows, "O .... (?)" is what it says.
     And when the locust calls, "You reap what you sow" is what it says.
     And when the mare whinnies, "Glory to the Pure and Free of blemish, our Perfect Lord and Lord of angels!" is what it says.
     And when the cow moos, "O Keeper of the Garden! O Beneficent!" is what it says.
     And when the goat bleats, "O Merciful! O Compassionate!" is what it says.
     And when the mule groans, "God's curse be upon oppressors!" is what it says.
     And when the ass brays, "Cursed be collectors of the ‘ushr tax!" is what it says.
     And when the serpent hisses, "There is a predetermined time for everything that happens." is what it says.
     And when the scorpion hisses, "I am God's blessing upon the pious and impious alike" [is what it says].
     And when the fish cries, "Glory Be to the Living and Undying!" is what it says.
     And when the gnat whines, "O You, the Living when nothing else was! O you Whose knowledge none can equal when it comes to birds and eagles!"

This concludes the treatise of The Language of the Birds.     

Bibliotheca Alexandrina MS Baladiyya 4952د, fol. 56v, by Anonymous

Houses of the unjust

By what logic are descendants liable for their ancestors? Do they not inherit their estates, and the gold and silver so often accumulated from unjust sources? That's sufficient cause, indeed the main cause for their liability. Their tribulations are shared with their ancestors' shades, who suffer along with them.

It is right for descendants to pay ancestral penalties, for it is into just such families that people worthy of their sufferings are born. Methodically, justly, and transcendently are all things woven together by Providence, divine Nature, and the gods guided by Fate! For there is a certain unity to be observed within a family. Among the seeds and principles of growth [of any type of plant] there is a commonality, and it is analogous to the commonality of souls in families like these, and the ills and blessings they incur. If, when we went to bed, we were to forget our lives of the previous day, then the life of one person—which might go on for seventy or eighty years—would seem to us to contain many lives. In families like these, there is a similar kind of coherence that is beyond our view, though it is certainly evident to the gods whom Fate guides, and to the spirits assigned by Chance to each of these families. And just as doctors don't rush into surgery to treat the malady threatening an individual patient's life, but wait until that patient is ready to go through it, neither do the spirits that oversee one family—quite the way Herodotus narrates that the penalty of the Lydian [tyrant Gyges] was expiated by his descendants five generations later.

Accursed deeds of long ago: To remedy a recent sin is relatively easy, but those committed long ago are harder to wash away, and cannot be cleansed without theurgic action. This too may be observed in medical practice, where maladies of recent origin are easier to recover from when they've only just struck, as long as the patient attends proactively to their care. Left to fester over time, the evil sets into the system like an indurated scar, becoming as it were a second nature. It is the same is with unjust deeds. A remorseful wrongdoer, who makes amends straightaway to the wronged party, thereby dissolves the unjust deed and becomes free of liability for the penalty. And when someone undoes the wrong committed by their father—by giving back a field he seized, let's say—not only is that person's liability removed, but the soul of the one who seized it is uplifted and relieved. And theurgic action is also helpful in such a case.

But take the case of a man who keeps a field he seized from those who cleared it. If it the property stays in his family, and his descendants continue to use it, the injustice becomes less obvious and harder to redress, and over time the evil is naturalized, so to speak. That is why the gods often issue prophetic commands [for those who petition the oracle] to go to this or that place and apologize to a certain person previously unknown to them, and to make amends to that person in order to recover their health, and put an end to their sufferings and pursuit by Furies. The gods issue this kind of prophecy not to abrogate justice, but in order to effect just outcomes and rectify our ways of life.

Theurgy, then, wherever it arises, restores the mad to health, and through them it saves many others. [The way it works is] like what they say about the man who was cutting down an oak tree, and when a nymph begged him to stop, he spared not the oak but cut it down, and was thereafter subjected to the Furies' retribution and afflicted with want of sustenance. Anything that fell into his hands was taken away, until an initiate told him to set up an altar to the same nymph, and with that his disasters came to an end. Another man, a matricide, was told by the god to find a land other than land that exists, and go live there. When he put together that this signified an island newly risen from the stream, he went and made his home upon it, and his castigation by the Furies came to an end.

From the Commentary on Plato's Phaedrus (244de) by
Hermeias of Alexandria

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