Bensalem Himmich - The Theocrat

Al-Misbahi sat there, humble and withdrawn. He had to make every possible effort to keep an all-enveloping panic under control while he looked for a means of escape. With a superhuman effort he managed to unlock his tongue.

“My lord,” he said as he mopped his master’s brow, “if my presence disturbs you or disrupts your solitude and contemplation, then should I ask your permission to leave?”

“Leave when I have the greatest possible need of history? You want to escape? It’s as if you are not convinced by my guarantee of safety. Apart from you, who else is there who can inform time and future generations about me?”

“There are still a few pages I need to write with your assistance, my lord. I’ve already completed the fortieth volume of my history which is entitled ‘Book of the History of Egypt, Its Qualities, Its Wonders, Its Rareties, Its Curiosities, and the Regions and Monuments Within It, Along With Biographies of Governors, Commanders, and Caliph Imams, Forebears of the Commander of the Faithful, Who Lived There and Elsewhere.’”

“What are these few pages, Mukhtar?”

“Something quite simple: grandees and notables whom you condemned to death. I’ve already had the privilege, my lord, of linking all these death sentences to the relevant legal arguments and sections of the Shari’a law. I have cited al-Hamadhani where he says, ‘When water is stagnant for a long period, it turns fetid: if the surface looks calm, decay is on the move.’ However, my lord, I must admit that I haven’t been able to fully understand two, or rather three, instances. The first one concerns your tutor, Abu al-Tamim Sa‘id ibn Sa‘id al-Fariqi.”

“Do you remember the way Ibn ‘Ammar used to parade his bigotry in front of me?’ It was the same with that crafty devil, Burjuwan, with his sword and thousand pairs of silk trousers. Al-Fariqi was just like them and others too. They all conspired to dominate me and retain power for themselves. They kept annoying me, so I took revenge.”

“But my lord,” the historian noted, “al-Fariqi had no part of either sword or bigotry. Quite the contrary, he was simply a giver of wise counsel.”

“The kind of counsel that shackled my hands and turned abstraction into drivel. In politics, advice about how things should be is utterly useless in the context of dismal daily realities. Even so, al-Fariqi wasn’t executed because of the ideas that earned him his salary, but because he insisted on inflicting his overbearing presence on me. His too many words of advice and warning prevented me from doing my job, and he kept interfering in all kinds of affairs and markets that were none of his business.”

“One day, my lord, I was fortunate enough to be present at one of those moments when you lost your temper with him. ‘The only lessons I learn,’ you roared at him, ‘come from my own efforts. The past is what I create through my deeds, my seals, and my monuments; there is no other. I append it to the world’s memory as a token of my survival after death.’ I have recorded that dictum of yours in my history. But let me ask you, my lord, about the other al-Fariqi, Malik ibn Sa‘id, the chief judge …”

“If that judge — God shame him! — were to rise from his grave now, I’d slay him all over again. When I put you in charge of the salary bureau, Mukhtar, you saw for yourself how he disclosed my secret correspondence and perused all the information forwarded to me.”

“That’s perfectly correct, my lord. However you pardoned him for that particular infraction. At your command I sent him a strongly worded letter of reprimand.”

“And do you think he changed his ways? Oh no, he carried right on with his duplicity and deceit. He devised ruses of every kind and fondly imagined they would somehow escape the notice of my spies and informers. It is proven beyond any doubt that he had sex with women who came to him with complaints; in fact Satan tempted him to infiltrate my own harem. He even started flirting with my sister. Sitt al-Mulk. Before I had him executed, I asked him during his trial what was the difference between a man and woman. Mukhtar, have you an idea how that crafty rogue answered my question? “Men have a sexual organ,” he replied, and then continued like someone touched by the Devil in person, “and women are one great sexual organ.”

Al-Hakim leaned over and whispered these tidbits into the historian’s ear, while the latter sat there begging God’s forgiveness. The historian continued with his questions.

“My lord,” he asked, “as long as we’re on the topic of judges, can I ask you about your choice of fire as the means of getting rid of‘Abd al-‘ Aziz al-Nu‘man, the chief judge? Wasn’t executing him a sufficient form of revenge for the scandals he perpetrated?”

“Mukhtar,” al-Hakim replied, “the only outrages he committed that you know about were bribery and his regular tendency to cause trouble and incite people against me. As you’re well aware, he gave secret support to Abu Rakwa and all other rebels too. He was the worst of descendants of the best of forebears. My sentence of execution was totally justified, as it was for his partner and relative. ‘Ali al-Husayn ibn Jawhar. I only gave orders for his body to be burnt because the wretch used to rob and harass orphans. I was merely executing God’s promise, I le being the best of promisers: Those who unjustly consume the property of orphans will taste fire in their bellies and will mast in hellfire .

“May God shed light on your deeds, my lord,” said the historian. “Now there’s just one more case that worries me; I can’t understand the real causes. It involves the way your general, al-Fadl, was killed. Since he had succeeded in defeating Abu Rakwa’s army and saving you from a potentially enormous danger, he certainly didn’t fail you….”

“Mukhtar,” al-Hakim interrupted as he paced the room nervously, “you should not be like everyone else, content merely to scratch the surface of things. God protect you, look deeper. You will discover that al-Fadl had no real role in my defeat of Abu Rakwa was the enormous amount of money that was spent from both state coffers and my own resources, money that made it possible for me to dragoon mercenaries from a variety of countries and races. Look still deeper and do some research. You’ll discover that J only managed to capture the rebel by giving in exchange gifts and supplies to his protector, the king of Nubia. In total I spent more than a million gold dinars. If I hadn’t resorted to such stratagems, they being the only ones I still had at my discretion, I could not have offered any opposition to Abu Rakwa’s army. But for that, Mukhtar, my superficial historian, I would not be here now giving you this explanation.”

“You are right, Commander of the Faithful! Please excuse my inadequate research and faulty understanding,”

“My other reason for killing al-Fadl was that he murdered Abu Rakwa without my permission and thus deprived me of the opportunity to give him an affectionate welcome. All he left me was a head with nothing to say. Ah, Mukhtar! How much I’d looked forward to talking to Abu Rakwa and debating with him! I relished the possibility of exposing the confused ideas and visions inside his head. If only I’d been able to do what al-Fadl made impossible, if Abu Rakwa had debated with me about his reasons for rebelling against me! If he’d won me over, I’d have made him my heir apparent.”

“Would that have been legal, my lord?”

“The law always sides with whatever is most correct and beneficial. Didn’t I decide not to make my legitimate son, al-Hasan, heir and instead selected my cousin, ‘Abd al-Rahim ibn Ilyas? That broke the chain of dynastic succession to the imamate and favored the upright over the twisted and the capable over the weak.”