Bensalem Himmich - The Polymath

“It exacted a terrible toll from me in that both my parents died along with a number of my shaykhs — may God have mercy on them all. Becoming an orphan in this way was to have a profound effect on both my sense of lineage and my scholarly career. Even though I was still in the prime of my youth, I could feel in my bones the onset of middle age. The sheer feeling of dejection that affected me manifested itself in both my heart and outward expression.

“The very sight of death in general and of wanton carnage in particular serves to remind people of the fact that they will all inevitably die. Every single day they are alive is potentially their last.

“My dear Hammu, I have seen things that no tongue can describe. I have seen graves overflowing with corpses too many to be encompassed by the eye. I have seen cities turned into wastelands peopled only by piles of rotting bodies, places populated only by the spirits of men crushed and resigned. I have seen terror writ large on faces and bodies cowering behind arches and walls. I have watched as tame animals and even predatory birds have fled from living and dead as fast as they can. And I have seen other unmentionable things that my memory has forever suppressed, silencing my tongue and its language faculties.

“I can recall that from the bottomless pit of terror I used to beg God to give me the power to put a stop to so much death by performing miracles and wondrous deeds. During my dreams, by night and day, I would feel myself granted this gift. I would set spirits free, put an end to misery, and devise cures. It was only when I woke up that I found myself ranting away while my soul returned to its habitual weakness.

“People of the time give this plague names associated with terror and rage: ‘the great perdition,’ ‘the dreadful disease,’ ‘the epidemic,’ or ‘fatal,’ or ‘mighty plague.’ So, Hammu, note down now some details about it that I have not been able to include in my previous writings.

“God knows best, but it appears that everything started in the region of the Mongol tribes and of the Great Khan. A series of wars there about a decade or more ago led to the accumulation of horrifying numbers of corpses, and the putrefaction they caused was carried by the winds to European territories, both east and west. Tunis was infected by commercial sea traffic from Sicily, aided and abetted by caravans over land and shifting wind patterns that spread it from one region to another.

“As far as I’m aware, there exist no records of effective specifications or official legal procedures aimed at counteracting the symptoms of plague or maintaining any kind of normal life in countries that are affected. The reason is that regimes in the Maghrib, and I suspect in the eastern regions as well, are, unlike their European equivalents, incapable of intervening to control the spread of the plague and taking steps to prevent its spread, most especially when those regimes are in the latter stages of decline or almost so. As a result, the knowledge that we possess on this particular topic is of no use to us in assessing the enormous impact of the disaster or its extent across time and place.

“When we consider accounts from chroniclers and annalists, we are no better off. Figures that purport to compute the number of dead and descriptions that more often than not include biased and irrelevant impressions force us to make up for their patent deficiencies with speculative and approximate estimates of the full scope of the disaster.

“What is abundantly clear is that the loss of population resulting from the plague has its maximum impact on the poor quarters. It is the weakest and most downtrodden segment of society that is hardest hit. The primary reason, of course, is the foul air quality, but as Ibn al-Khatib noted, it is also the result of ‘the fact that houses are cramped and built close together without any planning or attempts at proper preservation, due to rampant ignorance, and a complete lack of knowledge about such matters among the poorest classes.’

“On the other hand, wealthy people have fairly minimal exposure to the terrors of the plague, in large part because they stay inside their houses or else go to their estates in the countryside where they are far removed from the people most affected. Even so, they too are negatively impacted by the plague since the revenues from farming and estates diminish due to a fall in demand in the marketplace and the inflation of prices exacted by the rescuing hands of civilized society.

“My personal beliefs and the tenets of my legal school tell me that, absent a settled populace and incentives, there can be no real civilization. When a country is afflicted by plague, earnings, profitable employment, services, and all types of life support are negatively affected.

“At this point, Hammu, I have to mention the two postures that intellectuals adopt when confronted with plague and death.

“The first of them involves the implementation of basic medical procedures aimed at lowering the plague fever by using water and vinegar to freeze the blisters behind the ears and knees and under the armpits till they start to bleed and the noxious fluids dry up. This works only if the symptoms are external. However, if the fever hits the lungs, then there’s nothing medicine can do about it. In all cases, doctors are agreed that prevention is better than cure. The intelligent Muslim is enjoined to protect himself against the likelihood of contracting the plague before it happens and to take all possible steps to prevent its spread once it has struck. In such circumstances it is absolutely essential to follow the advice of medical specialists, such counsel being a gift from God Himself. Such advice may include improving air quality by using fumigants to lower pollution levels, maintaining bodily health by eating appropriate foods, keeping houses well aired, and supporting the community’s way of life by steering well clear of its more heedless and overcrowded activities.

“The second posture involves a resort to the consolation of faith, one that derives its effectiveness from the very weaknesses of the medical approach. This disease shows no discrimination in its hunger for death, and there is no cure. Faced with that reality, all mankind can do is to acknowledge it through the radical and absolute treatment that takes the form of faith. It is for that reason that a wide variety of judicial experts have opined that anyone who dies of the plague is a martyr in the path of God.

“This second posture is truly exemplary in the way that it provides support and comfort for the soul. It encourages people to read the Qur’an, to say prayers, and even to wear emerald rings embossed with some of the beautiful names of God Almighty: Ό God, Living, Prudent, Wise, Compassionate.’ Even so, the wisdom of such measures in no way vitiates or challenges the efficacy of medicine.”

“Master, shall I mention the advice that al-Tabari gives on this topic, namely putting an elephant’s tooth on children as a way of keeping the plague at bay?”

“Don’t bother with that. Note down instead that ‘prayer is the preferred weapon of the believer.’ But God Almighty has said: Say, O people, act in accordance with your station. I am acting, and you will know . The grounds for legalizing activity in this field associated with colossal disasters is to encourage the development of knowledge about the plague in its terrestrial aspects rather than its heavenly or other ones, and to prevent its spread among humanity as the result of ignorance and contagion. This should remain the case until such time as mankind can acquire the ability to overcome the disease or mitigate its effects.

“There are specialists in law and hadith who claim that the plague is caused by a pinprick from the jinn and who deny the possibility of contagion as being contrary to observation, feeling, experience, and research. Concerning such people I am reminded of an apt comment that Ibn al-Khatib made on several occasions: ‘Ignoring the things that science tells us is an act of malice, a taunt against God Himself, and an insult to the hearts of all Muslims.’