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

made a sign with his hand, and everything returned to its place, after which he gestured towards the king, who awoke from his swoon and, when he had revived, kissed the shaykh’s hands and said to him, ‘Pardon, My Master! Ask of me what you will!’ The shaykh replied, ‘All I want from you is that you never again set a Christian in authority over the Muslims. Should you do so, you will perish.’ ‘I hear and obey!’ said the sultan. Then the shaykh descended from his presence, to the accompaniment of the utmost honor and love, and proceeded to his village. Thereafter, this practice remained in abeyance for a while, and no Christian was set in authority over the Muslims with regard to the collection of taxes or other matters, until the rulers were forced to have recourse to them for their acuteness and talent for accounting; so they put them in charge of these matters up to our day. Similarly, the Jews have taken over the practice of medical science, so that the two groups have come to hold sway over our money and our lives. How well the poet put it when he said:

      A curse on both Christians and Jews!

      They’ve got what they wanted by stealth:

      They’ve made themselves doctors and clerks

      To divide up our lives and our wealth!

      11.3.25

      “Thus one is permitted to associate with them and obey them if he fears that they might harm him or his dependents in any matter, religious or secular, that depends on such contact and that he is compelled to undertake. Under such circumstances, there is no harm in making friends with them. Master ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Dīrīnī, God benefit us through him, was punished for frequenting the Christian of his village, and he said:

      They blame me, my friends, for befriending Copts,

      Though never, by God, did I love them in my heart!

      But I’m one of those who hunts for his living in their land,

      And hunter and dogs cannot live apart!

      “On the other hand, the person who has intercourse with them on the basis of affection and friendship for no compelling worldly objective or fear of any harm that they might do should probably be counted among those referred to in the words of the Prophet, may God bless him and give him peace, ‘He who loves a people shall be marshaled with them on the Day of Judgment.’”

      11.3.26

      ʿalayya (“to me”): meaning to himself and no other.

      11.3.27

      yaḥīf (“he does wrong (to me)”): that is, he turns against me and treats me unjustly, charging me with more than I can bear. This injury was more severe for him than the others, namely, the previously described harm caused by the lice and the nits and so on, because it originated with his relatives. The poet says:

      Relatives (aqārib) are like scorpions (ʿaqārib), so avoid them,

      And depend not on father’s or mother’s brothers.

      How many of the first will bring you grief

      And how devoid of good are the others!

      Observe how this clever poet used ʿamm (“father’s brother”) and khāl (“mother’s brother”), changing the letters on the first to make it into ghamm (“grief”) and employing the second to mean that they are “devoid” (khālī) of boons, and how he managed to work in both paronomasia and punning.¹⁶⁹

      Another poet said:

      The enmity of kith and kin

      Is like a fire in a forest when there’s wind.

      11.3.28

      ʿAlī,¹⁷⁰ God honor his face, said, “Enmity is among relatives, envy among neighbors, and affection among brothers.” The origin of the enmity among relatives is to be found in the story of Qābīl’s murdering Hābīl,¹⁷¹ as a result of which enmity among brethren and relatives has continued down to these days of ours, the root cause of it all being envy—and “may the envious not prevail!”¹⁷² In the Tradition it says, “Two alone are to be envied: a man on whom God bestows wealth and who uses it to defeat his perdition through good works, and a man on whom God bestows knowledge and who instructs others in it.” The poet says:

      Though they envy me, I blame them not—

      Good men before me have felt the evil eye.

      Let me keep mine and them keep theirs,

      And he who is the more vexed by what he finds can die!

      And another said:

      May your enemies not die but live

      Till you have had the chance to make them livid,

      And may Fate not deprive you of an envier,

      For the best are those who’ve been envied!

      11.3.29

      Next the poet moves on from complaining about his paternal cousin Muḥaylibah to complaining about the latter’s nephew Khanāfir, who brings him even more trouble than his cousin. He says:

      TEXT

      11.4

       wa-ʾayshamu minnū ʾibnu-khūhu Khanāfir

       yuqarriṭʿalā bayḍī bi-khulbat līf

And more inauspicious than him is the son of his brother Khanāfir.

      He draws tight around my balls a palm-fiber knot

      COMMENTARY

      11.4.1

      wa-ʾayshamu (“and more inauspicious”): from shuʾm (“calamity”) or from tayshimah.¹⁷³ The word is originally ashʾam,¹⁷⁴ on the pattern of ablam (“more/most stupid”) or aqṭam (“more/most given to passive sodomy”). The proverb says, “More of a jinx (ashʾam) than Ṭuways,”¹⁷⁵ and one says, “So-and-so is mayshūm (‘possessed of the power to jinx’)” or dhū tayshimah, that is, possessed of strength and tyrannical powers and capable of doing great harm to others. Shūm wood¹⁷⁶ is so called because of its strength and hardness. The Arabs use “jinxing and infamy” (al-shuʾm wa-l-luʾm) in their flytings.

      11.4.2

      It is said that Jaʿfar al-Barmakī built a magnificent palace and embellished it with all kinds of silks and so on and stayed there some days. Gazing one day through one of its windows, he beheld a Bedouin writing on the wall of the palace two lines of verse, as follows:

      Palace of Jaʿfar, may ill fortune and infamy engulf you,

      Till the owls in your corners make their nest!

      When the owls nest there, from sheer delight,

      I’ll be the first to offer condolences, if under protest!¹⁷⁷

      —so Jaʿfar said, “Bring me that Bedouin!” When the man was in front of him, he asked him, “What has driven you to do as you have done, and what has made you call down ruin upon our palace?” The man told him, “Poverty and need have driven me to it, and a brood of young lads that I have sired, like the chicks of the sandgrouse,¹⁷⁸ that whimper from the pangs of hunger. I came to beseech your charity and plead for your favor and I have dwelt a month at the gate of this palace, unable to come in to you. When I despaired, I called ruin down upon it and said, ‘So long as it remains prosperous, I shall benefit nothing by it. But if it turns to ruins, I may pass by and take from it a piece of wood or some of its embellishments that I can make use of.’” Jaʿfar smiled and said, “Our ignorance of your presence has prolonged your waiting and caused harm to your children. Give him a thousand dinars for seeking us out, and a thousand dinars for dwelling so long at our gate, and a thousand dinars for calling ruin down upon our palace, and a thousand dinars for our clemency towards him, and a thousand dinars for a brood of young lads that he has sired, like the