Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded, with Risible Rhymes. Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī
and to government accompanied by ignorance, oppression, and other things of the same sort that are not in accordance with the Law. Thus the answer now is clear, the truth made to appear.
11.3.12
The poet’s words tajī l-wajbah contain an elegant literary device called “distribution,” which consists of the poet’s “distributing” one of the letters of the alphabet in each, or most of, the words of a line of verse, as in the following verse by al-Ṣafī al-Ḥillī, may God have mercy on him, from his Embellished Ode in the Prophet’s Praise (Al-Badīʿiyyah):167
Muḥammadu l-muṣṭafā l-mukhtāru man khutimat
Bi-majdihī mursalū l-raḥmāni li-l-umamī
Muḥammad, the Named, the Nominated,
With whose majesty the messengers of the Merciful to men were made complete
—where he repeats the letter m in every word of the line. Our poet managed to work the letter j into just two words.
11.3.13
In the same vein is what happened once concerning a man who was a fryer of fish by trade. He was in love with a beautiful woman and had a young servant boy who was extremely quick-witted and a master of correct speech. One day he sent this boy to her to ask her to come to his home. The boy went to her home and told her that his boss wanted her. She accepted and was about to set off with him when her husband turned up. The boy made himself inconspicuous, took off without anyone noticing him, and made his way back to his boss, whom he found frying fish, as was his wont, with people all around him placing their orders. So as to make the man understand the situation while concealing it from those present the boy accosted him with words rhymed and metered. He said to him, Yā muʿallimī fuq lī, min dha l-samak fa-qlī. Jat tajī fa-jā. Law lam yajī la-jat. Wa-lākin tartajī lammā yarūḥ tajī (“Boss, hear my cry! Of this fish now fry! She was going to come, but he came. Had he not come, she would have come. But she hopes, when he goes, to come”).
11.3.14
These words are to be explained as follows:
yā muʿallimī fuq lī (“Boss, hear my cry!”): that is, “Boss, hearken to what I say, and listen well to it and understand it!”
11.3.15
min dha l-samak fa-qlī (“Of this fish now fry!”): he came up with these words to make the people around think that he wanted a portion of fish or that he was asking him to hurry up with the frying (note the “augmentative consonantal paronomasia” between the words fuq lī (“hear my cry”) and fa-qlī (“now fry”)!).168
11.3.16
jat tajī (“She was about to come”): that is, she wanted to come and obey your summons
11.3.17
fa-jā (“but he came”): that is, her husband, at the moment that she wanted to go; then he said
11.3.18
law lam yajī (“Had he not come”): that is, her husband,
11.3.19
la-jat (“she would have come”), which is originally la-jāʾat, which the boy elided for the meter; that is, she would have presented herself and not disobeyed your order. He continues by saying:
11.3.20
wa-lākin tartajī (“But she hopes”): that is, her coming will be in accordance with her hope (rajāʾ), which means the occurrence of a thing agreeably to the will of the one who requests it
11.3.21
lamma yarūḥ (“when he goes”), meaning her husband, and leaves the place free
11.3.22
tajī (ilayk) (“to come (to you)”); and what you want will come to pass. The relevant citation lies in his words jat tajī fa-jā, etc., for he repeats the letter j in every word, as you can see.
11.3.23
If it be asked, “Is it forbidden by religion for the peasants to honor the Christian by coming and entertaining him and sending him the wajbah when he comes to a village to collect its taxes, abasing themselves in front of him and obeying his every command and prohibition, most of them indeed being at his service, and are they sinning in so doing, or what is the situation?” we reply, “The response is that a Muslim is forbidden to serve an infidel, just as he is forbidden to honor him, submit to him, or abase himself before him, and the one who does so sins in that respect, unless he does so out of fear of some harm or injury from him as a result of the infidel’s being set in authority over him and given charge of his affairs, or is compelled to have recourse to him in a matter such as the Christian’s collection of taxes in the villages of the countryside and elsewhere, for they monopolize this business; indeed, some tax farmers hand control of everything to do with the village to the Christian, who rules it through beating and imprisonment and the like, so that the peasants are so frightened that they never come before him without trembling.
11.3.24
“As it happened in the days of the Master and Initiate of the Almighty, Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd, God benefit us through him, when the sultan handed over control of the entire province of Egypt to a certain Christian for the collection of taxes. The latter used to visit the province with a great procession of servants and retainers and pass through the settlements collecting their taxes. He would ride his horse and dismount only when he had to eat and drink and stop for the night, so evil was he and so great the harm he brought. His horse had stirrups of steel plated with gold, to which he had attached two iron spikes that projected about a hand’s breadth. He would summon someone and the man would come, trembling with fright, and stand next to his horse, while the Christian, from the back of his horse, would speak roughly and brutally to him, telling him, ‘Pay the taxes you owe this minute!’ If the man did as he was told that was that, but if he did not he would strike him with the spikes, stabbing him or slashing his sides, so that he died. Such was his way with Muslims, God’s curse upon him! It happened that this same Christian went to the village of Shaykh Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd, God have mercy upon him, and summoned one of the shaykh’s followers who had a balance to pay on the tax on land that he cultivated. When the man came before him, he said to him, ‘Pay what you owe!’ but the man replied, ‘Give me till the end of the day.’ The Christian was about to put his stirrups to work and strike him with the spikes and kill him when the man turned and fled, the Christian in hot pursuit, until he came to the shaykh and threw himself down before him. The shaykh, who at the time was burning lime in a kiln (for that was his profession when he was young), asked what was the matter and the man told him the story. Before he knew what was happening, the Christian was towering over him. ‘Give him till the end of the day!’ the shaykh told him. However, the Christian replied to the shaykh with angry words, at which the shaykh became filled with fury and zeal for the defense of the Muslims and attacked him, grabbing him by the neck of his garments, so that he became like a sparrow in the shaykh’s hand. Then he said to him, ‘Accursed wretch! Your life has been long and the harm you do to the Muslims has become excessive. Now your name is expunged and every trace of you obliterated!’ and he bore down on him until his back snapped and he threw him into the oven of the kiln, where he was consumed. Then he directed a look of fury at the men who were with the Christian and God cast terror into their hearts and they turned and ran till they reached the sultan and told him of the matter. Incensed, the latter sent for the shaykh, who proceeded until he reached the audience chamber. When he presented himself before him, the sultan said to him, ‘What drove you to burn the Christian?’ ‘And what,’ replied the shaykh, ‘drove you to put him in authority over the Muslims and order him to do them harm?’ At this the sultan’s fury increased, and he was about to strike the shaykh a blow on the head, when the shaykh made a sign to the chair on which the sultan was seated and it moved beneath him and he was spilled onto the ground in a swoon, and the chair itself started to spin through the Citadel