No art of memory

Memory is not an art, nor could it ever be. The arts are Memory's gift to us, but memory itself cannot be taught or attained by any art. It is an advantage that some receive from nature, or the luck of their immortal soul. Without it, humanity would have no connection to eternality, and nothing we learn could ever be taught, if Memory did not dwell within us.

Whether Memory should be called the Mother of Time or its Child, I leave to the poets, who can say what they want. But no one among the truly wise would be dumb enough to throw away their good standing by [claiming to train the memory through mystic arts, and] posing like a juggler in front of little kids—the kind of thing that gives actual pedagogy a bad name.

So how did the students of Dionysius of Miletus all have such prodigious memories? The answer is that his lectures were so enjoyable that his listeners craved to hear them again, and Dionysius, in awareness of his own charisma, was obliged to repeat them many times. They became stamped in the minds of his brightest students, who declaimed them to each other until all had memorized through practice what memory alone could not supply. This is how they came to be called the "Mnemonic School," and were credited with turning memory into an art. It's also why people say the declamations of Dionysius are a piecemeal corpus, augmented in different places by different individuals where Dionysius himself had been succint.

From Lives of the Sophists by Flavius Philostratus

Ahmad of the Seventh Day II.1

According to Abu Bakr ibn Abi 'l-Tayyib [as reported in the Book of Strangers of al-Ajurri], ‘Abd Allah ibn al-Faraj the ascetic told the story like this:

I needed a day laborer to do some work in my house, and went to market to look them over. At the end of the row was a sallow-faced youth dressed all in wool, with a big basket and a shovel in his hands. "Ready for work?" I asked him. "Yes," he said, and when I asked his fee he said, "A dirham and a daniq." "Let's get to work," I said.
     "On one condition," he said. "What's that?" I asked. "At the call to mid-day prayer, I'll perform my ablutions and go pray at the congregational mosque, and when it's time for afternoon prayer I'll do the same." "That's fine," I said.
      We went back to my house and came to terms on all that needed doing in each area, and he cinched up his waist and got to work. He didn't speak a word to me until the call to mid-day prayer, when he said, "O ‘Abd Allah, the muezzin calls." "You're free to go," I said. He went off to pray, then returned to his task, which he did expertly until the call to afternoon prayer, when he said again, "O ‘Abd Allah, the muezzin calls." "You're free," I said, and off he went to pray. He then came back and worked without stopping until the end of the day, when I counted out his wage and he went away.

Some days later, we needed more work done, and my wife said, "Seek out that young one, whose heart was in his work." So I went to market, where I didn't see him. When I asked around, they said: "You mean that sallow-faced unfortunate? We only see him on Saturdays. Always he sits at the very end of the row."
       I stayed away from the market until that Saturday, when I came upon him right away. "Ready to work?" I asked him. "You already know my wage and my conditions," he said.
     "And on God I rely for guidance, Exalted be He," I said.
      The man came and worked as he had before. When I counted out his wage, I added something extra, but he refused to accept, and when I pressed it on him he became irate and took off. I was pained at this, and followed after him, cajoling him until he accepted his stated wage and nothing more.

After a while, we needed work done again, and I went back on a Saturday but could not find him. "He's sick," they told me when I asked around. "He used to come on Saturdays and work for a dirham and a daniq. The rest of the week he lived on one daniq a day. But now he isn't well."
      I asked for his address, and was led to a room kept by an old woman. "Is this where the young day laborer lives?" I asked her. "He's sick," she said. "Has been for days."
      The state I found him in upset me. His head was resting on a brick of clay. I bid him peace, and asked if there was anything he needed. "Yes," he said, "if you accept my conditions."
     "If God wills," I said to him, "that's what I'll do. [Continued.]

From Characters of Integrity by Ibn al-Jawzi

Avant Abraham

"My opinion is that Adam never worshiped idols, but that he did worship planets, approximating through this form of devotion to what is higher than the planets and stronger than they." If you contemplate this statement by Yanbushad, you'll find that it excludes idolatry as a means of approaching the living, speaking gods. You'll also notice it's expressed as Yanbushad's opinion, and not a categorical declaration, even though he knew for a certainty that Adam was no idolater.

There is evidence for all I'm saying—to wit, that Yanbushad did not countenance idolatry, nor even perhaps the worship of the sun and moon—in his book On the seasons, where he says: "The earthly consequences of the seasons' rotation are not the work of a visible mover, but a Mover too subtle to be perceived with the senses." The passage ends in what seems like a barrage of digressions, deliberately interspersed with enigmas and double meanings, and this is how his beliefs are often stated, becoming clear only after diligent contemplation of the text.

[And sometimes his beliefs went unstated.] "Oh sage," Yanbushad was once asked, "why do you spend your life in waterless desert wastes, instead of attending the festivals of your people and observing their devotions?" He said, "If their form of worship were agreeable to me, I would not be averse to what they practice in their temples, and I would follow their path."
     "May your lord have mercy on you," the asker said. "Let us know exactly where their path goes wrong, and we will follow yours." Yanbushad remained silent, and gave no answer. The man repeated his question several times, at which Yanbushad fixed his gaze on him without speaking, until the asker turned away, crying, "Yanbushad is mad! Mad, I tell you!"

There is further evidence for Yanbushad's beliefs in his conformity with the Book of Agriculture of Anuha, whose views he upheld against those of Tamithra the Canaanite. Against Tamithra, who propagated the worship of idols, and ruled that abstainers should be imprisoned and flogged, Yanbushad was sharply critical, and wholly uncritical of Anuha, the famous rebel against the idolatry of his people who was subjected to corporal punishment and imprisoned for his beliefs. When Yanbushad told the story of Anuha's maltreatment by the people of his city, he took relish in narrating their destruction, and how their own god sent a rainstorm to their country and drowned the place, along with the territories of the numerous Greek and Chaldaean nations. Anuha alone was saved, and sought refuge in Egypt, and when the Egyptians drove him away they too were destroyed by a terrible famine.

From Nabataean Agriculture by Ibn Wahshiyya

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

Another biter busted

Ahmad ibn Yahya Tha‘lab was one of Ibn Abu 'l-‘Abbas ‘Abd Allah ibn al-Mu‘tazz's teachers. It is narrated that, after some time apart, Ibn al-Mu‘tazz missed him sorely, and wrote to him (meter: rajaz):

      A man in fetters thirsts
      for water from cold rainclouds sent careening
      by the wind, unsullied, unmuddied,
      shed in abundance by dark cloud cover,
      wetting the rock and coating it like reflective glass
      that would flash if the sun hit it,
      unmixed rainwater, clean and pure—
      what passion equals his desire, if not mine for you?
      And yet I dread you. Unlocker of barred knowledge,
      you are the sharp-eyed language critic who,
      if he says, "That's no good," then it won't fly.
      Now we are apart, and far from one another,
      but recollection reunites us, even though we don't unite.

Tha‘lab answered his student: "May God prolong your life! You took the opening lines from that poem of Jamil's I dictated to you: (meter: ṭawīl)

      Women thirsting at a spring. Day and night
          they hover, weakened, shrinking from the blows of rods,
      never turning away and never getting
          close enough to touch cool water.
      On every drop, their eyes are fixed. The water-keepers' voices
          are all they hear. With death for a barrier,
      are they thirstier than I, who rave in love for you,
          despite the opposition of the foe?

"And you took the closing lines from Ru’ba ibn al-‘Ajjaj!" (meter: rajaz)

      Although you do not see me, I am
      your brother still. You need vigilance, and my eye is on you,
      and I love what it sees, whether or not you are seeing me.

Ibn al-Mu‘tazz was open to his teacher's reproach, and accepted it without resentment. It is said that, later on, Tha‘lab wrote to him (meter: basīṭ):

      Tell this to your brother. Although he's far away,
          and we are not together, really we are,
      for my gaze is on his mental image
          while our homes are far apart.
      God knows I cannot recollect him.
          How to recollect the one you never forget?

From A Selection from the Poetry of Bashshar by the Khalidi brothers

What the hoopoe said

Far from great in make, I did what Solomon could not, for all his never-to-be-equaled kingdom, and brought him knowledge of what he and all his host did not suspect. Everywhere he journeyed, as swiftly as he went I would go with him, pointing out where waters lay below the ground. Then there came the hour I was not there, and helplessly he stood before his retinue and said: "I do not see the hoopoe. Is it me, or has he gone missing? Harshly I will scourge him, or take away his life, unless he bring a lucid explanation." In his moment of need he missed me, and under color of his might he threatened to scourge or kill me—but a higher power said, "No, By God! I'll bring him back and put him on the right path."
        When I returned from Sheba and said, "I have knowledge you do not," his anger mounted. "Small offender, great offense!" he said. "Not only were you absent without leave, but now you claim more knowledge than I have!"
      "Give me protection, O Solomon," I said. "You have sought a kingdom that is never to be equaled, and I went seeking knowledge unsuspected by your host. With that, I come to you from from Sheba with a sure report." He said to me, "O Hoopoe, those who act rightly may be entrusted with royal missives. Go you forth with this one from me."
       Off I went, and back to Solomon I sped with the reply, and to his side he brought me near. After my time outside his inner circle, he brought me within, and in recognition of the need that I had met, he dressed my head in a crown of nobility. His orders for my death were abrogated, and the signs of my merits were openly proclaimed.

Now if you are of the sort who can accept advice, you will clean up your way of life, disburden your conscience, sweeten your character, beware your Creator, and adopt the best manners even if they are of the beasts. There is no place among the perspicacious for one who does not know how to interpret the creaking of a door, the buzzing of the flies, the barking of dogs, or the creeping vermin of the dust, and has no grasp of what is signified in the traces of the clouds, the flicker of the mirage, or the lightning that lights up the gloomy mist.

From Revelation of the Secret Wisdom of the Birds and Flowers
by 'Izz al-Din ibn Ghanim al-Maqdisi

His throne and lenticular cloud

ABU ‘UBAYD SAID: In hadith it is recorded that the Prophet, God's blessings and peace be upon him, said: "God's throne rests on the shoulders of Israfil, who is humble as a waṣa‘ in His presence."

Ahmad ibn ‘Uthman reported this hadith to me on the authority of Ibn al-Mundhir, who heard it from ‘Abd Allah ibn al-Mubarak, who heard it from Layth ibn Sa‘d, who heard it from ‘Uqayl on the authority of Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri, who reported it with full isnad.

Al-waṣa‘ is said to be the runt of a sparrow's brood of chicks, or a species of bird resembling the sparrow, only smaller.

ABU ‘UBAYD SAID: In hadith it is recorded that the Prophet, God's blessings and peace be upon him, was asked by Abu Razin al-‘Uqayli: "Before our Lord created the heavens and the earth, where was He?" He answered: "He was in [the type of cloud called] an ‘amā’, with a void below it and a void above."

Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq al-Farisi and others have related this hadith to me on the authority of Hammad ibn Salama, who heard it from Ya‘la ibn ‘Ata’, who heard it from Waqi‘ ibn Hudus (Hushaym corrects this name to ‘Udus in the isnad of a separate hadith), who was the nephew of Abu Razin and heard it from him directly.

According to al-Asma‘i and others, in the speech of the Arabs al-‘amā’ is a white cloud with horizontal extension. Al-Harith ibn Hilliza said (a variant of his Mu‘allaqa's 25th verse, meter: khafīf):

      Against the blows of fate, we're like the stony fastness
          whose summit the ‘amā’ leaves open space for.

He means by this a high mountain peak that parts the clouds. The "fastness" of al-Harith's people is their unassailability and security in strength, meaning that their defenses are stronger than whatever fate throws at them. And Zuhayr said, describing gazelles or oryx (meter: wāfir):

      They spy the lightning, and their brows are wetted
          when the South Wind's path is showered by the ‘amā’.

      We interpret this hadith according to the speech of the Arabs, and defer to their understanding. Only God knows the size and scale of His ‘amā’ and what it was like. The ‘amā that is "blindness" has nothing to do with the meaning of the hadith.

From Uncommon Vocabulary of Prophetic Hadith by
Abu ‘Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam

Two by Ibn al-Maghribi

There was a Hanafi jurist named Baqbaq who installed himself at the Mustansiriyya Madrasa, and when the professor Kamal al-Din ibn al-Ibari died a few days later, Ibn al-Maghribi composed this mawali about him:

          Can you recite from memory a thousand rulings by Quduri?
          How about a thousand lines of Abu Hafs?
                [Ibn al-Ibari was equal to it,] but without cribsheets
                 old Baqbaq gets lost
          You're a bird of evil omen in human form,
          and bad vibes are your only share
                If you'd only pull up stakes and travel on—
                Hey screech owl! Disappear to anywhere

And in jest he addressed these verses to a friend of his (meter: sarī‘):

          Well done, my hoopoe of Bilqis!
              Well done, my permit of Iblis!
          My spy amid the sodomites
              and to the youth my go-between!
          Up now, to the monastery!
              Drink with me to clanging bells,
          where liquid gold that flows in cups
              is ransomed by what's hard and cold.
          The branches on the spreading tree
              are clothed in beauty, don't you see?
          When joy comes to your frowny face
              the cloud of gloom above our heads
          will be made shade of wings of doves
              and peacock tails in fans outspread

From Choice Notices of the Historical Record by Ibn Shakir al-Kutubi

Asking for a friend

I'm intrigued to discover how much of al-Safadi's Tadhkira (Memoranda) is still extant, including parts 27–30 which are currently for sale, separately bound in morocco leather (except for part 27 which is incomplete and appears to be loose). Hopefully, the buyer won't disappear with them, but make them available to the public. Somewhere there is someone who needs this manuscript more than Gollum needs the ring, and would do wonderful things with what they find there. And they don't have €144,200 to blow. I know this because with regard to part 23 I am that someone. Let me explain.

     
Last page of part 27 of al-Safadi's Tadhkira, courtesy INLIBRIS     

Taqi al-Din ‘Ali ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ibn Jabir was a poet of Baghdad known as Ibn al-Maghribi. He died in his forties in the year 1285, so at the time the Mongols took over he was in his teens. He was what they call a "secretary poet," that is a civil servant who wrote poetry on the side, as opposed to a "court poet" whose whole entire job was poetry. But his work was much esteemed, and was published in one volume by his friend Qawam al-Din Turki, probably after the poet's death. I have no hope that this volume will ever be recovered.
      What's left of Ibn al-Maghribi's poetry is preserved in biographical dictionaries. There are fewer than a dozen poems and (with two panegyric exceptions) they are all bangers. I've done several of them (1, 2, 3) and am committed to translating them all, but if someone else jumps in I won't mind because they're obscenely difficult.
      They're also kind of obscene. His poetic specialty was mujun "drollery" and khala‘a "boasting about stuff that can get you in serious trouble." These aren't genres, exactly, but modes, of prose as well as poetry, which brings me to the favor I am asking.
      Ibn al-Maghribi is credited with a prosimetrum treatise called "The Epistle of the Two Luminaries," which is how I'm translating Risalat al-Nayyirayn for the time being. It seems to be about a love triangle. The "luminaries" are the sun and moon. Ibn Abi Hajala quotes two bits from it in Diwan al-Sababa, and you can read them here.
      It pains me to report that Risalat al-Nayyirayn is listed on the title page of Universität Tübingen Ma VI 70, and must have been contained in the forty pages now missing from that manuscript. The only other trace of it to surface is in al-Safadi's biographical entry for the poet: "Ibn al-Maghribi also has an epistle known as 'The Two Luminaries,' written in the style of Ibn al-Wahrani—an excellent treatise which I copied into part 23 of my Tadhkira."

       
Title page of part 28 of al-Safadi's Tadhkira, courtesy INLIBRIS       

Other parts of the Tadhkira are out there. Part 14 is prized for its selection of Ibn Daniyal's poems and has been published. Chester Beatty MS 3861 contains it, together with parts 24–26, and hipsters know where to find the microfilm. I found one unnumbered part at the National Library of Iran without trying. Karabulut shows parts of it in Cairo and Istanbul, Brockelmann has them at the Bodleian, the Escurial, the British Library, the Forschungsbibliothek Gotha, some God-forsaken "Ind. Off." and at this point my impatience has summated.
      I don't know if manuscript research seems fun or glamorous but it's not. You spend most of your time looking at screens. There is no limit to the amount of time I could lose to the search if it became my project, and so I am going public with this rant of a plea, or "crowd sourcing" it, if you will. If you or someone you know is sitting on part 23 of al-Safadi's Tadhkira, please reveal it. I don't need to be the one who locates it, but I do need to edit and translate Risalat al-Nayyirayn. I know how entitled this sounds, but Ibn al-Maghribi and I are way past that. Send the manuscript to my work email, or writing dot gathering dot field at gmail dot com, and doubly you will be on the right side of literary history, helping out two mujun poets at the same time.

Windblowed

This verse is by Jamil (meter: ṭawīl):

      I wish I had the power to forget her! But
          every way I go, it's like Layla's there.

It's been said that he would absent himself from [Buthayna] for fear the Evil Eye would turn her against him:

Abu Ahmad [al-Hasan ibn ‘Abd Allah al-‘Askari] learned these verses of his from [Abu Bakr Muhammad] al-Suli, who heard them from both Ahmad ibn Yahya [Tha‘lab] and Ahmad ibn Sa‘id al-Dimashqi, who heard them from al-Zubayr [ibn Bakkar], and he taught them to me (meter: ṭawīl):

      She stuck with me long enough for me to dread the Eye.
          Two days I stayed away, fearing separation.
      I found it hard. It tested my endurance, but not hers.
          My darling found my absence no vexation.

In this vein, Abu Ahmad taught me some eloquent verses by Ibrahim ibn al-‘Abbas [al-Suli], which he heard from [the other] al-Suli, who heard them from both Tha‘lab and Abu Dhakwan, who heard them directly from the poet (meter: ṭawīl):

      A passing East wind buffets the scrubland lodger.
          The stirring of that wind just breaks my heart,
      that East wind lately come from where my beloved is.
          What soul is safe from passion where the beloved used to stay?
      And now there dawns awareness of despair inside of me,
          with the sensation of your strike against my soul.

Ibrahim "raided" this motif from Dhu 'l-Rumma, who said (meter: ṭawīl):

      When wind kicks up from the direction
          of Mayy and her people, I am kicked by longing too,
      and passion wrings the tears out of my eyes.
          What soul is safe from passion where the beloved used to stay?

Al-‘Abbas ibn al-Ahnaf had a different take on it (meter: ṭawīl):

      North winds of heartbreak
          are all I see from you, Zalum.
      When you break us up through no fault of mine,
          they'll lay fault for it with you.
      My complaint is old, her rebuff nothing new,
          but the shock of it is ever renewed.

From The Register of Poetic Motifs by Abu Hilal al-‘Askari

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