Arabian Society In The Middle Ages Part 7

"May thy wishes be abundantly fulfilled, whether at eventide or in the morning!"

"Well!" again said the Khaleefeh: "then what next?"

"But when the rattling breath struggles in the dark cavity of the chest, Then shalt thou know surely that thou hast been only in the midst of illusions."

Er-Rasheed wept; and Fa?l, the son of Ya?ya, said, "The Prince of the Faithful sent for thee to divert him, and thou hast plunged him into grief." "Suffer him," said the prince; "for he hath beheld us in blindness, and it displeased him to increase it."[129]

The family of the Barmekees (one of the most brilliant ornaments of which was the Wezeer Ja?far, who has been rendered familiar to us by the many scenes in which he is introduced in the "Thousand and One Nights") earned a n.o.ble and enduring reputation by their attachment to literature and the magnificent rewards they conferred on learned men. It was peculiarly hard, therefore, that literature contributed to their melancholy overthrow. Poets were employed by their enemies to compose songs artfully pointed against them, to be sung before the prince to whom they owed their power. Of one of these songs, the following lines formed a part:--

"Would that Hind had fulfilled the promises she made us, and healed the disease under which we suffer!

That she had once, at least, acted for herself! for imbecile, indeed, is he who doth not so."

"Yea! By Allah! Imbecile!" exclaimed the Khaleefeh, on hearing these verses: his jealousy was roused; and his vengeance soon after fell heavily upon his former favourites.[130]

One of the Khaleefehs having invited the poets of his day to his palace, a Bedawee, carrying a water-jar to fill at the river, followed them, and entered with them. The Khaleefeh, seeing this poor man with the jar on his shoulder, asked him what brought him thither. He returned for answer these words:--

"Seeing that this company had girded on the saddles To repair to thy overflowing river, I came with my jar."

The Khaleefeh, delighted with his answer, gave orders to fill his jar with gold.[131]

It has long been a common custom of Eastern princes to bestow dresses of honour upon men of literature and science, as well as upon their great officers and other servants. These dresses were of different kinds for persons of different cla.s.ses or professions. The most usual kind was an ample coat. With dresses of this description were often given gold-embroidered turbans, and sometimes to Emeers (or great military officers) neck-rings or collars (called ?o?s), some of which were set with jewels, as also bracelets and swords ornamented with precious stones; and to Wezeers, instead of the ?o?, a necklace of jewels.[132]

The following striking record will convey an idea of the magnificence of some of these dresses of honour, or in other words of the liberality of a Muslim prince, and at the same time of the very precarious nature of his favour. A person chancing to look at a register kept by one of the officers of Haroon Er-Rasheed, saw in it the following entry:--"Four hundred thousand pieces of gold, the price of a dress of honour for Ja?far, the son of Ya?ya, the Wezeer." A few days after, he saw beneath this written,--"Ten ?eera?s, the price of naphtha and reeds, for burning the body of Ja?far, the son of Ya?ya."[133]

Arab princes and other great men have generally been famous for highly respecting and liberally rewarding men of literature and science, and especially poets. El-Ma-moon and many others are well known to us for their patronage of the learned. Er-Rasheed carried his condescension to them so far as to pour the water on the hands of a blind man, Aboo-Mo'awiyeh, one of the most learned persons of his time, previously to his eating with him, to show his respect for science.[134] We have already seen how a Khaleefeh ordered the mouth of a learned man to be filled with jewels. To cram the mouth with sugar or sweetmeats for a polite or eloquent speech, or piece of poetry, has been more commonly done; but the usual presents to learned men were, and are, dresses of honour and sums of money. Ibn-'Obeyd El-Bakhteree, an ill.u.s.trious poet and traditionist who flourished in the reign of El-Musta'een, is said to have received so many presents that after his death there were found, among the property which he left, a hundred complete suits of dress, two hundred s.h.i.+rts, and five hundred turbans.[135] A thousand pieces of gold were often given, and sometimes ten, twenty, or thirty thousand, and even more, for a few verses; nay, for a single couplet.

The prodigality of Arab princes to men of learning may be exemplified by the following anecdote.--?ammad, surnamed Er-Rawiyeh, or the famous reciter, having attached himself to the Khaleefeh El-Weleed, the son of 'Abd-El-Melik, and shown a contrary feeling towards his brother Hisham, fled, on the accession of the latter, to El-Koofeh. While there, a letter arrived from Hisham, commanding his presence at Damascus: it was addressed to the governor, who, being ordered to treat him with honour, gave him a purse containing a thousand pieces of gold, and dispatched him with the Khaleefeh's messenger.

On his arrival at Damascus, he was conducted before Hisham, whom he found in a splendid saloon, seated under a pavilion of red silk surmounted by a dome of yellow brocade, attended by two female slaves of beauty unsurpa.s.sed, each holding a crystal ewer of wine. His admission during the presence of members of the king's ?areem was a very unusual and high honour: the mention of the wine will be explained in the next chapter. After ?ammad had given the salutation[136] and the Khaleefeh had returned it, the latter told him that he had sent for him to ask respecting a couplet of which he could only remember that it ended with the word "ibree?," which signifies "a ewer." The reciter reflected awhile, and the lines occurred to his mind, and he repeated them. Hisham cried out in delight that the lines were those he meant; drank a cup of wine, and desired one of the female slaves to hand a cup to ?ammad. She did so; and the draught, he says, deprived him of one-third of his reason. The Khaleefeh desired him to repeat the lines again, and drink a second cup; and ?ammad was deprived of another third of his reason in the same manner; and said, "O Prince of the Faithful, two-thirds of my reason have departed from me." Hisham laughed, and desired him to ask what he would before the remaining third should have gone; and the reciter said, "One of these two female slaves." The Khaleefeh laughed again, and said, "Nay, but both of them are thine, and all that is upon them and all that they possess, and beside them fifty thousand pieces of gold."--"I kissed the ground before him," says ?ammad, "and drank a third cup, and was unconscious of what happened after. I did not awake till the close of the night, when I found myself in a handsome house, surrounded by lighted candles, and the two female slaves were putting in order my clothes and other things. So I took possession of the property, and departed, the happiest of the creatures of G.o.d."[137]

In the beginning of the year of the Flight 305 (A.D. 917), two amba.s.sadors from the Greek Emperor (Constantine VII., Porphyrogenitus) arrived in Baghdad on a mission to the Khaleefeh El-Mu?tedir, bringing an abundance of costly presents. They were first received by the Wezeer, who, at the audience which he granted to them in his garden palace, displayed a degree of magnificence that had never before been manifested by any of his rank. Pages, memlooks, and soldiers crowded the avenues and courts of his mansion, the apartments of which were hung with tapestry of the value of thirty thousand deenars; and the Wezeer himself was surrounded by generals and other officers on his right and left and behind his seat, when the two amba.s.sadors approached him, dazzled by the splendour that surrounded them, to beg for an interview with the Khaleefeh. El-Mu?tedir, having appointed a day on which he would receive them, ordered that the courts and pa.s.sages and avenues of his palace should be filled with armed men, and that all the apartments should be furnished with the utmost magnificence. A hundred and sixty thousand armed soldiers were arranged in ranks in the approach to the palace; next to these were the pages of the closets and chief eunuchs, clad in silk and with belts set with jewels, in number seven thousand,--four thousand white and three thousand black,--besides seven hundred chamberlains; and beautifully ornamented boats of various kinds were seen floating upon the Tigris hard by.

The two amba.s.sadors pa.s.sed first by the palace of the chief chamberlain, and, astonished at the splendid ornaments and pages and arms which they there beheld, imagined that this was the palace of the Khaleefeh. But what they had seen here was eclipsed by what they beheld in the latter, where they were amazed by the sight of thirty-eight thousand pieces of tapestry of gold-embroidered silk brocade, and twenty-two thousand magnificent carpets. Here also were two menageries of beasts, by nature wild but tamed by art and eating from the hands of men: among them were a hundred lions, each with its keeper. They then entered the Palace of the Tree, enclosing a pond from which rose the Tree: this had eighteen branches, with artificial leaves of various colours and with birds of gold and silver (or gilt and silvered) of every variety of kind and size perched upon its branches, so constructed that each of them sang. Thence they pa.s.sed into the garden, in which were furniture and utensils not to be enumerated; in the pa.s.sages leading to it were suspended ten thousand gilt coats of mail. Being at length conducted before El-Mu?tedir, they found him seated on a couch of ebony inlaid with gold and silver, to the right of which were hung nine necklaces of jewels, and the like to the left, the jewels of which outshone the light of day. The two amba.s.sadors paused at the distance of about a hundred cubits from the Khaleefeh, with the interpreter. Having left the presence, they were conducted through the palace, and were shown splendidly caparisoned elephants, a giraffe, lynxes, and other beasts. They were then clad with robes of honour, and to each of them was brought fifty thousand dirhems, together with dresses and other presents. It is added that the amba.s.sadors approached the palace through a street called "the Street of the Menarehs," in which were a thousand menarehs or minarets. It was at the hour of noon; and as they pa.s.sed, the mueddins from all these minarets chanted the call to prayer at the same time, so that the earth almost quaked at the sound, and the amba.s.sadors were struck with fear.[138]

The Orientals well understand how to give the most striking effect to the jewels which they display on their dress and ornaments on occasions of state. Sir John Malcolm, describing his reception by the King of Persia, says, "His dress baffled all description. The ground of his robes was white; but he was so covered with jewels of an extraordinary size, and their splendour, from his being seated where the rays of the sun played upon them, was so dazzling, that it was impossible to distinguish the minute parts which combined to give such amazing brilliancy to his whole figure."

A whimsical story is told of a King who denied to poets those rewards to which usage had almost given them a claim. This King, whose name is not recorded, had the faculty of retaining in his memory an ode after having only once heard it; and he had a memlook who could repeat an ode that he had twice heard, and a female slave who could repeat one that she had heard thrice. Whenever a poet came to compliment him with a panegyrical ode, the King used to promise him that if he found his verses to be his original composition, he would give him a sum of money equal in weight to what they were written upon. The poet, consenting, would recite his ode; and the King would say, "It is not new, for I have known it some years;" and would repeat it as he had heard it. After which he would add, "And this memlook also retains it in his memory;" and would order the memlook to repeat it: which, having heard it twice, from the poet and the king, he would do. The King would then say to the poet, "I have also a female slave who can repeat it;" and on his ordering her to do so, stationed behind the curtains, she would repeat what she had thus thrice heard: so the poet would go away empty-handed. The famous poet, El A?ma'ee, having heard of this proceeding, and guessing the trick, determined upon outwitting the King; and accordingly composed an ode made up of very difficult words. But this was not his only preparative measure, another will be presently explained, and a third was to a.s.sume the dress of a Bedawee, that he might not be known, covering his face, the eyes only excepted, with a litham (a piece of drapery) in accordance with a custom of Arabs of the desert.

Thus disguised, he went to the palace, and having asked permission, entered, and saluted the King, who said to him, "Whence art thou, O brother of the Arabs, and what dost thou desire?"

The poet answered, "May G.o.d increase the power of the King! I am a poet of such a tribe, and have composed an ode in praise of our Lord the Sul?an."

"O brother of the Arabs," said the King, "hast thou heard of our condition?"

"No," answered the poet; "and what is it, O King of the age?"

"It is," replied the King, "that if the ode be not thine, we give thee no reward; and if it be thine, we give thee the weight in money of what it is written upon."

"How," said El-A?ma'ee, "should I a.s.sume to myself that which belongs to another, and knowing, too, that lying before kings is one of the basest of actions? But I agree to this condition, O our Lord the Sul?an."

So he repeated his ode. The King, perplexed, and unable to remember any of it, made a sign to the memlook--but he had retained nothing; and called to the female slave, but she also was unable to repeat a word.

"O brother of the Arabs," said he, "thou hast spoken truth, and the ode is thine without doubt; I have never heard it before: produce, therefore, what it is written upon, and we will give thee its weight in money, as we have promised."

"Wilt thou," said the poet, "send one of the attendants to carry it?"

"To carry what?" asked the King; "is it not upon a paper here in thy possession?"

"No, our lord the Sul?an," replied the poet; "at the time I composed it I could not procure a piece of paper upon which to write it, and could find nothing but a fragment of a marble column left me by my father; so I engraved it upon this, and it lies in the court of the palace."

He had brought it, wrapped up, on the back of a camel. The King, to fulfil his promise, was obliged to exhaust his treasury; and to prevent a repet.i.tion of this trick, (of which he afterwards discovered El-A?ma'ee to have been the author), in future rewarded the poets according to the usual custom of kings.[139]

In the present declining age of Arabian learning (which may be said to have commenced about the period of the conquest of Egypt by the 'Othmanlees), literary recreations still exert a magical influence upon the Arabs. Compositions of a similar nature to the tales of the "Thousand and One Nights" (though regarded by the learned as idle stories unworthy of being cla.s.sed with their literature) enable numbers of professional story-tellers to attract crowds of delighted listeners to the coffee-shops of the East; and now that the original of this work is printed and to be purchased at a moderate price, it will probably soon in a great measure supersede the romances of Aboo-Zeyd, E?-?ahir, and 'Antarah. As a proof of the powerful fascinations with which the tales of the "Thousand and One Nights" affect the mind of a highly enlightened Muslim, it may be mentioned that the latest native historian of Modern Egypt, the sheykh 'Abd-Er-Ra?man El-Jabartee, so delighted in their perusal that he took the trouble of refining the language of a copy of them which he possessed, expunging or altering whatever was grossly offensive to morality without the somewhat redeeming quality of wit, and adding many facetiae of his own and of other literati. What has become of this copy I have been unable, though acquainted with several of his friends, to discover.

The letters of Muslims are distinguished by several peculiarities dictated by the rules of politeness. The paper is thick, white, and highly polished: sometimes it is ornamented with flowers of gold; and the edges are always cut straight with scissors. The upper half is generally left blank, and the writing never occupies any portion of the second side. A notion of the usual style of letters may be obtained from several examples in the "Thousand and One Nights." The name of the person to whom the letter is addressed, when the writer is an inferior or an equal, and even in some other cases, commonly occurs in the first sentence, preceded by several t.i.tles of honour; and is often written a little above the line to which it appertains; the s.p.a.ce beneath it in that line being left blank: sometimes it is written in letters of gold, or red ink. A king writing to a subject, or a great man to a dependant, usually places his name and seal at the head of his letter. The seal is the impression of a signet (generally a ring, worn on the little finger of the right hand), upon which is engraved the name of the person, commonly accompanied by the words "His [_i.e._ G.o.d's] servant," or some other words expressive of trust in G.o.d and the like. Its impression is considered more valid than the sign-manual, and is indispensable to give authenticity to the letter. It is made by dabbing some ink upon the surface of the signet and pressing this upon the paper: the place which is to be stamped being first moistened by touching the tongue with a finger of the right hand and then gently rubbing the part with that finger. A person writing to a superior or an equal, or even to an inferior to whom he wishes to show respect, signs his name at the bottom of his letter, next the left side or corner, and places the seal immediately to the right of this: but if he particularly desire to testify his humility, he places it beneath his name, or even partly over the lower edge of the paper, which consequently does not receive the whole of the impression. The letter is generally folded twice in the direction of the writing, and enclosed in a cover of paper, upon which is written the address in some such form as this:--"It shall arrive, if it be the will of G.o.d, whose name be exalted, at such a place, and be delivered into the hand of our honoured friend, etc., such a one, whom G.o.d preserve." Sometimes it is placed in a small bag, or purse, of silk embroidered with gold.

Many persons of the instructed cla.s.ses, and some others among the Arabs, often take delight and show much ingenuity and quickness of apprehension in conversing and corresponding by means of signs and emblems, or in a conventional, metaphorical language, not understood by the vulgar in general and sometimes not by any excepting the parties engaged in the intercourse. In some cases, when the main metaphor employed is understood, the rest of the conversation becomes easily intelligible, without any previous explanation; and I have occasionally succeeded in carrying on a conversation of this kind, but I have more frequently been unsuccessful in attempting to divine the nature of a topic in which other persons were engaged. One simple mode of secret conversation or correspondence is by subst.i.tuting certain letters for other letters.

Many of the women are said to be adepts in this art, or science, and to convey messages, declarations of love, and the like, by means of fruits, flowers, and other emblems. The inability of numbers of women in families of the middle cla.s.ses to write or read, as well as the difficulty or impossibility frequently existing of conveying written letters, may have given rise to such modes of communication. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, in one of her charming letters from the East, has gratified our curiosity by a Turkish love-letter of this kind.[140] A specimen of one from an Arab with its answer, may be here added:--An Arab lover sent to his mistress a fan, a bunch of flowers, a silk ta.s.sel, some sugar-candy, and a piece of a chord of a musical instrument; and she returned for answer a piece of an aloe-plant, three black c.u.min-seeds, and a piece of a plant used in was.h.i.+ng.[141] His communication is thus interpreted. The fan, being called "mirwa?ah,"

a word derived from a root which has among its meanings that of "going to any place in the evening," signified his wish to pay her an evening visit: the flowers, that the interview should be in her garden: the ta.s.sel, being called "shurrabeh," that they should have sharab[142] (or wine): the sugar-candy, being termed "sukkar nebat," and "nebat" also signifying "we will pa.s.s the night," denoted his desire to remain in her company until the morning: and the piece of a chord, that they should be entertained by music. The interpretation of her answer is as follows.

The piece of an aloe-plant, which is called "?abbarah" (from "?abr," which signifies "patience"--because it will live for many months together without water), implied that he must wait: the three black c.u.min-seeds explained to him that the period of delay should be three nights: and the plant used in was.h.i.+ng informed him that she should then have gone to the bath, and would meet him.[143]

A remarkable faculty is displayed by some Arabs for catching the meaning of secret signs employed in written communications to them, such signs being often used in political and other intrigues. The following is a curious instance.--The celebrated poet El-Mutanebbee, having written some verses in dispraise of Kafoor El-Ikhsheedee, the independent Governor of Egypt, was obliged to flee and hide himself in a distant town. Kafoor was informed of his retreat, and desired his secretary to write to him a letter promising him pardon and commanding him to return; but told the writer at the same time that when the poet came he would punish him. The secretary was a friend of the poet, and, being obliged to read the letter to the Prince when he had written it, was perplexed how to convey to El-Mutanebbee some indication of the danger that awaited him. He could only venture to do so in the exterior address; and having written this in the usual form, commencing "In shaa-llah" (If it be the will of G.o.d) "this shall arrive," etc., he put a small mark of reduplication over the "n" in the first word, which he thus converted into "Inna," the final vowel being understood. The poet read the letter and was rejoiced to see a promise of pardon; but on looking a second time at the address was surprised to observe the mark of reduplication over the "n." Knowing the writer to be his friend, he immediately suspected a secret meaning, and rightly conceived that the sign conveyed an allusion to a pa.s.sage in the ?ur-an commencing with the word "Inna," and this he divined to be the following:--"Verily the magistrates are deliberating concerning thee, to put thee to death."[144] Accordingly, he fled to another town. Some authors add that he wrote a reply conveying by a similar sign to his friend an allusion to another pa.s.sage in the ?ur-an:--"We will never enter the country while they remain therein."[145] It is probable that signs thus employed were used by many persons to convey allusions to certain words; and such may have been the case in the above-mentioned instance: if not, the poet was indeed a wonderful guesser.

It is commonly believed by the Muslims (learned and unlearned) that all kinds of birds and many (if not all) beasts have a language by which they communicate their thoughts to each other; and we are told in the ?ur-an[146] that Suleyman (Solomon) was taught the language of birds.[147] I thought that I could boast of an accomplishment very rare in Christian countries, in having learned in Egypt somewhat of this language; for instance, that the common cry of the pigeon is "Allah!

Allah!" ("G.o.d! G.o.d!"); that of the ringdove, "Kereem! Towwab!"

("Bountiful! Propitious!"--an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n addressed to G.o.d); that of the common dove, "Wa??idoo rabbak.u.mu-llezee khala?ak.u.m yeghfir-lak.u.m zembak.u.m!" ("a.s.sert the unity of your Lord who created you, that He may forgive you your sin!"): but I afterwards found that several specimens of this language were given by Ez-Zamakhsheree, and had been published in Europe.[148] The c.o.c.k cries, "Uzkuru-llaha, ya ghafiloon!" ("Commemorate G.o.d, O ye negligent!"): the ?a?a (a kind of grouse), "Men seket selim!" ("He who is silent is safe!") The latter, however, would do better if it did itself attend to the maxim it utters; for its cry (which to the uninstructed in the language of birds sounds merely "?a?a! ?a?a!"--its own name) tells where it is to be found by the sportsman, and thus causes its own destruction.--Hence the proverb, "More veracious than the ?a?a."

An Arab historian mentions a parrot which recited the Soorat Ya-Seen (or 36th chapter of the ?ur-an), and a raven which recited the Soorat es-Sijdeh (or 32nd chapter) and which, on arriving at the place of prostration (or verse which should be recited with prostration), would perform that action, and say, "My body prostrateth itself to Thee, and my heart confideth in Thee." But these are not the most remarkable cases of the kind. He affirms that there was a parrot in Cairo which recited the ?ur-an from beginning to end. The Pasha, he says, desiring to try its talent, caused a man to recite a chapter of the ?ur-an in its presence, and to pa.s.s irregularly from one chapter to another, with the view of leading the bird into error; but, instead of this being the result, the parrot corrected him![149]

FOOTNOTES:

[123] Mishkat el-Ma?abee?, ii. 424. This of course alludes to _Arab_ unbelievers. [For a fuller account of ancient Arab poetry, with examples, see my Introduction to Lane's "Selections from the ?ur-an,"

xiv.-x.x.xi. 2nd ed. S. L-P.]

[124] Genesis ix. 5.

[125] Lettres sur l'Histoire des Arabes avant l'Islamisme, par Fulgence Fresnel (Paris, 1836, pp. 31 ff.); an author who is at present [1837]

devoting talents of the very highest order to the study and ill.u.s.tration of the history and literature of the early Arabs, and to whose conversations and writings I must acknowledge myself indebted for the most valuable information.

[126] El-Is?a?ee.

[127] El-Is?a?ee.

[128] El-Is?a?ee.

[129] Fakhr-ed-Deen, in De Sacy, Chrestomathie Arabe.