Bensalem Himmich - The Theocrat

Anyone who does not carry excess to its uttermost limit comes close to the regions of whiteness and indolence. What an idiot!

The Logic of Intrigues

Every one of us is the other’s heretic!

So we are all heretics, fosterers of deviance and heresy. We are all heads, fascinated by the definition of proofs, adopting them as our own passions. We all follow the religion of emergence.

After God Himself your deity is your desires, except for those who are content to crawl and hide inside the trunk of their own shadows, covering their eyes with their hands and beseeching God to protect them from the possibility of chickens laying their eggs or of dynamic action against everything that is stagnant and cumbersome.

How Close to Me Are My Enemies!

The murder of confidants and insiders is definitely the best plan. Failing that, no despot can expect a stable rule, even if he behaves justly.

If the caliph fails to treat as enemies the people who enabled him to gain power, by adopting a neutral stance coupled with excessive caution, he will control neither custom nor authority. He should do his utmost to intimidate them and keep them at a distance; then they will not try to share his grasp on power.

There will be no peace for the caliph if he is not permanently suspicious of everyone; he must lop off his own shadow if it seems strange or ambiguous.

The caliph will never endure if he does not keep changing the list of his confidants and protectors, just as a snake keeps changing its skin.

Why Are You Not Satisfied?

The dust of the earth, that is the only thing that can fill the stomachs of human beings, except those on whom God shows His mercy! I have designated large swaths of terrain for you — Alexandria, al-Buhayra, and their environs — and filled your guts with a whole variety of things, enough to baffle the mind of the chief treasurer.

So why do you make a religion out of gluttony and greed? Why do you keep the gates of your own appetites and passions so wide open?

By God, if only you realized that each duty, each gift, each bribe I offer you out of my own abundant generosity is simply a debt I hold against you, one that ties your neck firmly to my authority and your loyalty to me. If you were even aware of that fact, you would hold a race to see who could run away from both me and my gifts the fastest. But you are like a load of rams, unaware and stupid.

Argue with Me, and I Will Take Pity on You

How extensive and fulsome are your talents for prostration and submission! In giving the matter due thought I have concluded that for you contentment is simply a substitute, a tissue on the fabric of your rancors and accumulated losses. I get the feeling that on the path to submission you bow to fates that existed before you. For you the entire burden and freedom lie in a concern with details.

Argue with me on this topic. Go on and argue, and I will take pity on you and reward you handsomely.

Learn to Be Extremists

“Do not blame me. There is no pact between you and me.

I must clash with the enraged,

Propel my steed away from the Tigris and Euphrates,

And reunify the faith after schism,” 2

Within worldly limits and the framework of mundane matters, your only currency is your defeats and self-destruction; sometimes the cause is a loss of your sense of identity in a reckless dependency, and at others it is mental exhaustion brought on by an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable.

By the lady Fatima, you will not find me offering you any alternative to this counsel: create your own essence and substance by selecting the keenest of cravings, by opposition, and by creative contradiction. Be extreme in everything; be extreme, and God forgive you all!

Hearts Closest to Me

I detest pomp in anything, not merely in worldly chattels but in language and vocabulary too.

For that reason, anyone who really thinks that I murdered Shaykh Jabbara the philologist because he knew three hundred words for dog in Arabic will find all that and more in the realm of exegesis. The hearts that are closest to mine are among the exegetes, those who compete with each other to produce alternative proofs and to expose virgin ideas to the light. They all grind and sweat, and in the end all they discover is what they started with, namely themselves — themselves just as they were and are, no one else.

You Must Be Patient with Me

Ever since I took control of events, everything about me has changed: the tone of my voice, and the way I sit, stand, and walk. My speech has altered too, and the ways I traffic in words, dreams, and reality.

Should I be too surprised when I have shouldered the burden of all of you? My dreams and waking hours are burdened by my efforts to bring your sins and continual reformulations under control.

By Fatima, all that remains is for you to seek refuge in patience and perseverance, hoping all the while that, with the disappearance of myself and the clear smoke, the signs of the luminous light may come!

By the eye that never sleeps, my autocratic rule and the usage of my trusty sword are both essential to your interest in order to cure you of, and protect you against, oppression; and so that Egypt may remain as it was and as I want it to be: a land inhabited only by a shepherd and his flock.

So fear me and do not ask to be rid of me. I am ever watchful of your deeds and intentions. Through spying and night watches I make a collection of the most malicious and gruesome of them, then I eradicate them without mercy.

My Tastes

From the biographies of prophets and messengers I have grown fond of long hair and beards, wearing wool, and riding donkeys. I intend to follow their example and to go even further, by letting my nails grow even longer, by traversing the length and breadth of desert wastes, and by giving the bald mountain of al-Muqattam the particular favor of prolonged sojourns and meditations. In that way only the most creative and comprehensive of imaginations will be able to take possession of me.

Indeed I Shall Nullify the Rule

There will be historians who will say that the deeds of al-Hakim bi-Amr Illah were inexcusable, and that my dreams and obsessions could not be explained.

A reasonable statement, not without justification, since I am the exception that nullifies the rule.

The rule consists simply of the mesh of your habits and customs.

And that very mesh is simply the product of your arguments and pygmy-like stupors!

Where Do I Get the Power to Do Evil?

When the ruler was asked from time to time why he did a certain thing, such as splitting open someone’s stomach and extracting the intestines to throw to the tame animals wandering around, he replied in a confident, aggressive tone:

“If you choose to ask me about the reasons for this action and others like it, then ask your God why He has power over everything. What is the wisdom in torturing animals and children, exhausting bereft mothers, or snatching away the souls of mortals in groups and throngs?

An inability to do evil paralyzes the will of God and the power of the one who rules in His name; without such attributes he will be deprived of absolute, total power.

Every ruler in God’s name (al-Hakim bi-Amr Illah) who fails to replicate God’s own attributes needs to be removed from his position. His tokens and signs of authority are spurious.”

Eliminating Drought

Every time your misgivings beset me or I see death spreading amongst you, I ride barefoot into the desert with a cloth on my head.

Here in the desert, whose expanses and borders are rid of you, here my anxieties diminish and I can recover my sense of self in the light of” the candles of beginning and destiny. Then I can see clearly the appropriate ways to eliminate the drought in my land and my mind.