Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded, with Risible Rhymes. Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī

go to market without a veil;

      Don’t lower lashes o’er a forelock

      And don’t display upon your temple a scorpion curl,

      For as you are, you slay the weak, drive the lover to delirium,

      And leave the Muslims’ judge in dire travail!

      The youth in turn bowed his head in silence for a while and then recited:⁶⁶

      We had hoped to see justice between us,

      But after hope there followed despair.

      When will the world and its people go right

      If the judge of the Muslims fucks boys in the rear?

      11.1.14

      min ʿuẓmi mā shakā (“from all that he has suffered”): that is, from the thing, or indeed the things, he has to complain of. He expresses his complaint out loud in the hope that the Almighty will release him from his sufferings and restore him to his former life of ease, for when things are at their worst they are not far from getting easier, and though the gate be strait, it opens onto larger spaces. Says the poet:

      How many a night of woes like ulcers

      I have tended, till I won through to day!

      The blows of fate pass young men lightly by

      And dissipate, and in their thoughts they do not stay.

      There are different categories of complaint. There is the complaint to God, which is praiseworthy, and the complaint to one of His creation, which is blameworthy, unless the complainer place his trust entirely in the Almighty and rely on Him, seeking His help to repel whatever misfortunes may have befallen him—in which case there is no harm, though it is preferable for him to have patience and resign himself to God’s will, in which case God will grant him relief. The Almighty has said, «And give good tidings to the patient!»⁶⁷ and also, «Verily, along with hardship there shall be ease.»⁶⁸ Among the verses of Master Yaḥyā al-Buhlūl,⁶⁹ may the Almighty benefit us through him, are:

      When things get tough,

      Think on «Have we not dilated …?»!⁷⁰

      Remember one “hardship” between two “eases”⁷¹

      And neither mourn nor feel elated!

      11.1.15

      Next the poet decided to enumerate the things that had befallen him, one after another, beginning with the worst and the most important, so he says:

      11.1.16

      min al-qilli (“of want”), with an i after the q and no vowel after the l;⁷² that is, my gravest and greatest complaint is of qill (“want”), which is a paucity (qillah) of food and drink (the ah having being dropped for the meter)⁷³ and also of inadequate clothing and of the great toil and exhaustion required by the struggle to make a living. In the Tradition it says, “Poverty may bring one to the verge of denying one’s faith,” meaning that it may come close to forcing one to deny his faith because it leads to dissatisfaction with providence and displeasure with his material state and this may drag him into denying his faith. Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd, God have mercy upon him, said of poverty:

      By my life, poverty has dealt me a cruel stroke,

      And reduced me with it to confusion and dismay.

      If I go public with my plaint, I violate my privacy;

      But if I don’t confess my need, I fear I’ll die!

      And it is said that four sayings were written on the crown of Chosroes Anūshirwān: “Justice If It Lasts Brings Prosperity”; “Injustice If It Lasts Brings Ruin”; “The Blind Man Is as Dead Though He Be Not Buried”; and “Poverty Is the Red Death.”⁷⁴ The people of the countryside use the word to cast aspersions on a poor man. They say that so-and-so is fī qill (“in a state of want”), and sometimes they add another word and say fī qill wa-ʿatrah, that is, in a state of struggle and exhaustion and the performance of foul deeds and awful doings. It is an expression used by the people of the countryside. One of their poets says:

      Abū Jāmūs—his state

      Makes people weep; he’s quite lost face:

      He runs around and finds nothing,

      And lives in want and disgrace (fī qillah wa-fī ʿatrah).

      11.1.17

      The word qill is of the measure of ghill (“rancor, spite”) or ẓill (“shadow”) and derives from qalqalah (“agitation, convulsion”) or from qullah (“water pitcher”), with u after the q, or from qawlaq (“leather money pouch”). The word ʿatrah, with a after the ʿ and no inflectional vowel at the end, is of the measure of zubrah (“small penis”); take a zubrah and weigh it against a ʿatrah, and you’ll see there’s no difference at all. The word means “the performance of acts of corruption and deficiency in religion” and so on. They say, “So-and-so is an ʿitr,” that is, one who does such things.⁷⁵ As for ʿathrah, with th, it is the singular of ʿatharāt (“slips, mistakes, sins”), which belongs to the chaste language, in which case the meaning would be that the sins of one who is mired in such a state are many; thus the sense is the same. Qill occurs in the language of the Arabs, as in the anecdote that a city man invited a Bedouin to a meal, and brought him out a bowl of food and a little bread. As often as the Bedouin took a mouthful, the city man would say to him, “Say, Bedouin, ‘In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate!’” and he kept repeating the same until the Bedouin was abashed and got up without eating his fill and left. Then, a few days later, the Bedouin left his dwelling and saw his city friend, so he took him and sat him down in his house and brought out a large bowl full of bread and meat with broth and said to him, “Eat, city man, and knock it back! There’s no blessing in paucity (qillah)!” that is, “there’s no blessing in paucity of food when accompanied by stinginess, whether you say ‘In the name of God’ or not, even though He be the source of that blessing, for what matters is an ungrudging spirit, even though its owner be poor,” for generosity comforts the heart and covers many a flaw. As the poet says:⁷⁶

      If your flaws are become well known to men,

      And you’re inclined to find for them a cover,

      Assume a mantle of liberality, for any flaw,

      They say, by liberality may be covered over

      —and, as the common saying has it, “Whatever the flaw, generosity covers it.”

      11.1.18

      A Silly Debate: What is the wisdom in deriving qill from qawlaq, or from qullah, or from qalqalah, and how do they fit with one another, and what do these words mean? The Fatuous Response: qawlaq⁷⁷ is the name for a leather thing that is made to keep money in and tied onto the belt on the right thigh; some coffee waiters and others use it. The derivation of qill from qawlaq comes from the latter’s crampedness and its lack of room, since qill denotes a cramped life and lack of ease; thus it fits the meaning from that perspective. As for its derivation from qullah (“water pitcher”), with u after the q, this could be for one of several reasons. It may be because water is retained within it, in which case want and lack of good fortune are analogous to the presence or absence of the water. Alternatively, the fit may lie in the actual narrowness of the qullah and the fact that the water has to pass through narrow holes in order to come out,⁷⁸ and that, when submerged in water, it makes a gurgling sound, as though it were complaining to the water. As the poet says:

      The mug makes a gurgle because it’s in pain:

      It protests to the water what it suffered from the flame.

      This process