Bensalem Himmich - The Polymath

Sha‘ban’s genuine and kind offer touched me deeply and made me feel somewhat happier. With a certain amount of effort I forced myself to start reading books again, things that had been waiting on my desk for some time. I also made some additions to the dictated texts which my late amanuensis, Hammu, had written down during those seven nights, and some marginal notes concerning my correspondence with the late Lisan al-Din ibn al-Khatib and my journey to see the king of Castille, Pedro Alfonso, some four decades earlier.

At the end of Rajab in this same year, Sha‘ban heard a gentle tap on the door at about midday. His heart in his mouth, he rushed over to open it. There, right in front of him, stood Umm al-Banin with her jalabiya, veil, and other familiar features. He could not stop himself from kissing her forehead and hands and yelling out her name in welcome and in thanks to God who had responded to his prayers. When he brought her up to my private quarters, they both found I was doing my prayers, so they waited till I had finished. However, I deliberately prolonged the wait till there was complete quiet and the only sound to be heard was me reciting my prayers. With that, Sha‘ban went to the kitchen to prepare drinks and sweets and get lunch ready. When he returned with his tray, I was still performing prayers and intercessions. Once I had finished, I started reciting some of the short suras from the Qur’an in an audible voice, and followed them with other litanies and prayers. At long last, I turned to face my wife.

“You did me wrong, my wife,” I told her with tears in my eyes. “You believed all the stories about my death. You should have waited till my corpse was brought back. You should have planned burial rites in accordance with my station. You did me wrong, my wife!”

My wife leaped up and kissed my hands, then burst into tears. She asked Sha‘ban who was on his way back to the kitchen to vouch for the fact that her brother had played a big part in her decision to leave. Everyone had assured her that people who fell into the Mongol monster’s hands were sure to die. She went on to say that, as soon as she had received my letter, she had immediately made plans to come back here along with two families from the Fez nobility who were traveling to the holy places to perform the minor pilgrimage.

“And where’s my daughter, al-Batul?”

“With my mother, revered pilgrim. When you left, her health deteriorated. Thanks to my mother’s potions, she’s much better now that she’s in Fez. My closest friends advised me not to subject her to the rigors of such a long journey.”

“But she has to come back. Without you and her this house is an unbearable wasteland!”

“It’s the same with our home in Fez, O lord of men! No delight, no pleasure. I’ve returned so you can see me as you’ve known me. I’ve come to beg you, by our lord Idris, to come back with me to the city of that pious saint.”

“That’s very difficult, Umm al-Batul, and will require some thought.”

After a period of silence, she told me she had promised the Fez families that she would be returning with them to Fez by boat from Alexandria at the end of Dhu al-Hijja. There were five months ahead, and that was quite enough to make preparations for the journey. For the time being there was no need to discuss the matter.

“From now till then,” I said, “there’s always God, the Wise Arranger. Sha‘ban, bring in the lunch.”

My faithful servant came in with lunch, all smiles and thanks to God. He spread it out in front of us and justified the amounts by saying that this was a festival day. I found my appetite again, a sure sign that my spirit had returned. I started asking my wife to eat and made an effort to erase all signs of annoyance from my expression. When I managed to smile for the first time, she went away for a moment and returned with gifts in the form of a burnous, prayer mat, rosary, and several bottles. I made do with taking the burnous, which was exactly like the one that was stolen from me, and handed the rest to Sha‘ban with due thanks to Umm al-Batul for her kindness.

The remaining five months of 806 I devoted entirely to household matters; I worked on finishing them all as though I was going to die the next day. I sold as many of my possessions as possible, and used a legal stratagem to deed my house and its furniture to Sha‘ban. I was equally anxious to satisfy Umm al-Batul’s needs and turned every night I spent in her company into a night of all nights.

Every day I spent in the tender care of my wife, I struggled to rid my mind of the notion that my inevitable death was drawing ever closer. She never lost an opportunity to talk about our daughter and make me long for Fez and a life of ease there. When the time came for her to go back, I accompanied her to Alexandria. With many, many kisses, I said farewell, promising that I would join her in a few months. I then handed her over to the care of the noble families returning by boat to Fez.

In the first week of Sha‘ban in the following year, just as I was putting the final touches to my preparations for departure, I heard that Timur had died. Even so, I did not celebrate. It was at precisely this point that I received a new decree appointing me judge for the fifth time. I had no choice but to accept, all in the hope that I would soon be dismissed. In fact, it was only about four months before I was indeed dismissed yet again. I gave thanks to God and wrote to tell my wife that I would soon be joining her.

At the beginning of Dhu al-Hijja my caravan of possessions — books and clothes — was ready to leave. I thought of asking the sultan for permission to perform the pilgrimage, my intention being to use the return journey as a way of heading quickly and secretly to the Maghrib. However, at this point the winds blew the wrong way, and my intentions were thwarted. I came down with a severe and totally unexpected illness that confined me to bed. The illness was very grave and had a terrible effect on my spirits which were already floundering in a swamp of misgivings and foul odors. But for Sha‘ban who took tremendous pains to look after me, I would simply have given up and waited for the fates to make their judgment.

For the first five months of 807 I kept feeling alternately hot and cold, with permanent pains in my joints. The expressions on the faces of the few visitors I had made clear quite how ill I really was. On such occasions I said very little, but asked them not to spread word of my illness so that God could decide how to finish something that was already determined.

At the beginning of Rajab I received a letter from Umm al-Batul in which she reassured me that both she and our daughter were well and begged me to travel soon. Those sweet, impassioned words of hers were a kind of prelude to a stage when I started to convalesce. Ever so gradually, I started being able to wash myself for prayers and perform them at the right times. My appetite returned, and with it my desire to read. Had I been able to write, I would have noted down all the scattered, incoherent thoughts in my foggy mind about a world as envisaged by a tired and sick old man whose entire universe was bounded by his bed and house. All that was an incipient project that I thought I might compose some time soon, provided time came to my aid and God prolonged my life.

By the beginning of Sha‘ban I could move about and even walk around the quarters close to my house. For an hour or two every morning, I used to walk through streets and markets, looking at people and objects with a kind of curiosity and longing, as though I were rediscovering them after a long, compulsory absence. Sha‘ban would often accompany me to make sure I was comfortable and to give me whatever good advice was needed to ensure my safety. When I felt strong enough, I went to see Faraj and told him of my desire to perform the pilgrimage and my longing for the noble Ka‘ba and the holy places. But the drunken sultan gave a hearty laugh. “You’re clearly unwell, Wali al-Din,” he said. “I want to remove all your worries by reappointing you as judge. Through my generosity your health will be restored. Do not ask me for anything else.” Had he not left immediately, I would have clearly indicated my unwillingness to accept the position and my longing to escape his clutches.