Bensalem Himmich - The Theocrat

Al-Hakim found himself at a total loss in confronting this ever widening uprising and the efficiency of its publicity machine. He started blaming his own assistants and started describing his cohorts of young officials as transvestites and tarts’ offspring. He got the idea of wreaking dire punishment on some of them as a kind of object lesson to others. The first of them to get this kind of treatment was Lu’lu’, the police commander. One notable morning, al-Hakim summoned him to his presence and proceeded to lambast him in the foulest terms.

“Lu’lu’, you pearl of disaster and foul stench,” he said, “there you were a slave in irons, and I set you free. You were clanking around in chains, but I freed you and gave you high position. Now you repay me by being utterly incapable of curbing the populace’s rowdiness or quashing the sources of these verbal assaults on holy and sacred institutions. So, just before I kill you, tell me: what are your last words — God shame you?”

In spite of his enormous frame Lu’lu’ looked like a naughty child, quivering with fear. “My lord,” he stuttered, “I ask your protection. Give me a day or two, and I’ll bring you the rebellion’s leaders and those responsible for distributing the leaflets.”

“You’ve already brought me many severed heads,” replied al-Hakim, “but the majority of them were obviously women and children. They have no role in such things.”

“But, my Lord, it is precisely women and children who are the source of the entire problem!”

“But you’ve selected half of them from families that have sworn allegiance to me and are secretly committed to my cause.”

“When rebellion is rife, my lord, it is hard to make distinctions. It’s almost impossible to avoid implicating innocent people.”

“No, no, you piece of black mush, you’re more stupid than a blind woodcutter; more impotent than a barren palm tree, Get out of here. You’ve got just two days to come back with something better than a donkey’s horns!”

A day went by, then another two. Finally Lu’lu’ appeared again before al-Hakim and was forced to kiss the ground. Then he stood up and started laughing.

“By God, my lord,” he said, “it’s a losing battle! No sooner do you grab one leader than he’s replaced by others. You can destroy tons of leaflets and placards, but they’re replaced by double that and more. This kind of struggle is unprecedented. You strike with the sword, and it’s as though you’re hitting water; you raise the level of violence, and all you get back is scoffs and sarcasm. So here’s my neck for the executioners to trim. Now with complete conviction I can simply repeat exactly what it is that placards and mouths keep saying: Death is so common that it’s laughable; so let some of us die so that tyranny can be brought to an end.”

“Cut out his tongue first,” yelled al-Hakim, “then tear him limb from limb. Watch and take note!”

With that he rushed off to the Muqattam Hills, followed by two guards and a young chamber-boy. He had hardly reached his favorite spot before telling the guards to convey orders to his slaves that they were to wash Lu’lu”s body and bury him with full honors in the cemetery. “Now,” he told the boy, “show me your moon.” With that the boy stripped and bowed down before his master who spat in his anus and then left him there, sitting on a rock.

Al-Hakim started pacing up and down inside his residence. He was tormented by grim thoughts that crowded his vision with vivid tableaux filled with unending disaster and concentrated misery. Time itself seemed to have slowed down, as though enmired in an enormous slimy bog. Al-Hakim passed the time by making authoritative gestures or begging for evening to come in anticipation of nightfall. Such was his impatience that he used to go to a nearby outcrop of rock that was covered with fig trees and wild plants.

“You people of Egypt,” he yelled, “so renowned for your tambourines and oily beans, I tell you all, by Him who entrusted me with dominion: I will never deal with you as weakly as that eunuch Lu’lu’. Today you can insult my dignity and high standing, but you’ll eventually come to appreciate my lineage at the point of a sword and my nobility in the expanse of my treasures. Your only means of escape will come when you remind yourselves that my great ancestor, heir of the Prophet, lives among the clouds where his voice is thunder and his whip lightning.”

Al-Hakim now yelled to the young boy to go and bring his historian, Mukhtar al-Misbahi. Within the hour the historian was standing on the outcrop waiting for al-Hakim to recover his consciousness. To avoid the tedium of waiting he recorded a document that included as much as he could understand of al-Hakim’s ruminations as he sat there on the ground:

By my right to incandescence and whirlwind

I who am repressed have need of fires.

By the right of the dragon that sheds its skin and crawls

I shall leave to oblivion and rubbish heaps

My soul’s mournful state

And kindle fire against humor and rebellion.

When the historian could no long follow what al-Hakim was saying, he cleared his throat, then stood in front of al-Hakim and kissed the ground.

“Your august majesty summoned me,” he said, “so here I am answering the call. My paper is open and ready for whatever subtle, glorious words and clear, solid proofs you wish to have faithfully recorded.

“So recite to me, my lord, whatever you wish, and I will use it to ennoble the wheel of time and polish the memory of future generations.”

Al-Hakim now got to his feet and moved toward the historian. He made him stand where he was while he snatched the papers and tore them up, then spoke to him, “Fear God, Mukhtar,” he said in a melancholy tone. “Bow down to Him alone, not to the one you mention. Desist from elaborate rhetoric; it neither helps nor cures anything. The crisis has now become so great that both history and strategy are useless.”

“May God protect you from all evil, my lord, and save you from every adversity.”

“Very well, Mukhtar! Pray for me as best you can. In these recalcitrant times I only meet people who want to curse and scoff at me. Look at me, my friend! See how I have aged and how the procession has passed me by. Or do you think I’ve been in power too long? Tell me, great sage and officer of endowments, how old am I today?”

The historian looked astonished at what he was hearing. He started counting, using his fingers. “My lord,” he replied hurriedly, “today you’re two months short of thirty-six, no less and no more. At such an age men are at the peak of their capacities.”

“Shrewdest of documenters,” al-Hakim said, “that’s the way it looks on the surface. But my inner age is three times that or more. I’m the only one to feel the impact and suffer its scars. For the most part your papers will never be able to truly capture living realities or the severing of links and hearts. You will only fill your pages with froth and peels.”

“You seem somewhat depressed and caustic tonight, my lord. Shall I send for your doctor and have you sit in violet oil?”

“Neither medicine nor drugs can help me today. The only thing that can alleviate my illness and lighten my mood is fire. My sorrow is too immense to be understood, too enormous to be excused!”

Al-Hakim kept repeating these last words over and over again. At nightfall he suddenly emerged from his trance. With a deep sigh he hurried to his observatory and looked through the glass. “My unlucky star hasn’t risen yet,” he muttered. “How crafty it is!” With that he went into his retreat-house followed by his historian. The two men sat facing each other; between them were two candles that gave off a flickering light. For a long time silence reigned as al-Hakim let thoughts and ideas rage inside him; his mind was totally preoccupied by flashes of vision. He started muttering some of these thoughts, although he seemed somewhat reluctant to reveal them to his historian. “Were I to say what possesses me and shakes my mind and being, to reveal my private conversations with my Lord and my strange passion for my sister, the sultana, to apply brilliant rhetoric and the ultimate in clarity in order to simplify my message and revelation, I would still never manage to penetrate the circles of my historian’s consciousness and understanding. This historian is a phony esoteric, an opportunist who goes to enormous lengths in his servile flattery!”