Bensalem Himmich - The Polymath

Then did meteors take us downward ,

Or perhaps the eyes of the narcissus left a mark on us .

Footnote

Once al-Hihi had returned home and had something to eat and drink, he nestled in with his wife as he usually did. He described to her in great detail the traits of his new employer: his penetrating intelligence, his extraordinary ability to discriminate and to take a straightforward approach to things, and his resort to a wonderful sense of ambiguity that al-Hihi’s wife kept trying to get her husband to explain, but in vain. He tried to tell her that it lay in his willingness to wade into the arcane details of his own era but then to pull away whenever he felt the need to regroup and adopt a more detached perspective. When he noticed that his wife was not paying attention anymore but was busy delousing his head and rubbing his left hand (the one he used to take dictation), he told her that he might well continue in ‘Abd al-Rahman’s employ even without pay. She scoffed. “So what are we supposed to live on?” she asked. “On his blessings and emanations?”

When Hammu went to bed, he started thinking. “Why is the Master so intent on examining everything so closely?” he asked in an audible voice. His wife gave him a hug and blew out the candle. “You need to ask one of his most devoted lovers that question,” she replied.

The Night at the End of Rabi‘ al-Awwal

At the beginning of this session, the two men started talking. ‘Abd al-Rahman asked his scribe to write some of it down, but suggested that the rest of it should be left out, as they were mere passing thoughts with no enduring value.

It was al-Hihi who initiated the conversation. Putting aside any residual hesitancy, he plunged ahead with the question that he and his wife had failed to answer for themselves: Why was ‘Abd al-Rahman so bent on exploring things in such detail?

“My response to your question, Hammu — write it down if you like — is something I’ve thought about a good deal. The only answer I can come up with is that a desire to explore things in detail — in other words, the world of the intellect, of bases and principles — is what really attracts me the most. Without it, all that would remain are superficialities, mere froth, a veritable desert of banality and fancy.

“Just imagine for a moment that I was totally unaware of the profounder issues or chose to ignore them. Do you think I would be able to go beyond the realms of the superficial? I’d be spending my time on all sorts of leisure activities and binges. Were that the case — God forbid — I would be just like thousands of so-called ‘legal experts’ in this territory of mine, playing games with my particular school of law, stuffing my mind full of legal briefs and commentaries. Or perhaps I’d be writing accounts of the glorious exploits and deeds of the ruling elite; in which case, I’d be using gold ink to describe the lords of time and men, their official activities and leisure, and the way they fill their days and nights. Were that the case, I might well be a world traveler, collecting tales and marvelous exotic images on my way.”

“Master,” Hammu interrupted, “shall I refer the reader to Ibn Battuta’s Book of Travels at this point?”

“No,” Ibn Khaldun replied, “don’t bother about cross references. Watch your step with Ibn Battuta, and you’ll avoid making mistakes.”

“Tell me what you mean so that I can understand what your objections are.”

“The author of those Travels and I, Hammu, both have had good reason to bemoan the hardships of a grim era. Both of us have tried to depict it as best we can. Ibn Battuta did it by leaving his beloved family behind him and taking off on a long journey across the breadth of God’s world. For my part, I undertook a journey of a different sort, into the profundities that I’ve talked to you about. In other words, I’ve gone on a tour of a very particular and specific region, something totally human without at the same time being merely ordinary, something that is utterly different without being barbaric. Thus, each of us carries our own walking stick, which offers us support as we pursue faint glimmers of hope or imagine a life of ease along with all the difficulty and escape after hardship. I suggest that you come to terms with these facts and take note.”

“Master,” Hammu responded, “God creates what He wishes. In any case, I find myself more inclined to your kind of journey and recitation, even though I have to admit that when I was out of work I did consult the tales of the traveler from Tangier. Some of them made me laugh, they were so peculiar. I’d tell them to my wife, and she would keep saying ‘heaven help us!’ over and over again or else hurry away in distress. The one about Sudanese tribes, for example, who roll in the dirt as a sign of respect for their ruler — amazing; or another tribe using salt as currency; yet another that eats dog and donkey corpses and even human flesh — all of it amazing!”

“For sure, Hammu, mankind is a creature of habit and even perhaps a product of his environment. I wonder how many of the things we do would seem extraordinary to black- and yellow-skinned peoples!”

“The details provided by Ibn Battuta about those regions are certainly unforgettable: things such as the view among certain tribes that eating white people is harmful because the flesh is not ripe, while eating black people is fine because their flesh is.”

“In that case, Hammu, you have nothing to fear if you fall into their hands.”

“Then there’s the statement that the tastiest part of human flesh are breasts and hands. He goes on to record that during the month of Ramadan he saw with his own eyes servants, slave women, and girls stark naked with their pudenda showing. There are two reasons why that is amazing: firstly that they are naked; secondly that an inquisitive visitor is able to observe it. Wouldn’t it have been more appropriate for this Maliki legal scholar to avert his gaze, particularly in the month associated with personal abstinence?”

“Amazing indeed!” ‘Abd al-Rahman replied with a smile. “But why don’t you remember any other stories about Ibn Battuta’s journey that might serve a more beneficial function in your religious and secular life?”

“Are there any such stories?”

“There certainly are, provided you can forget about stories about nudity and eating human flesh. I’ll tell you one, so that you can take note. It’s the one Ibn Battuta tells at the court of Sultan Abu ‘Inan, the one in which he describes the generosity that the king of India, Muhammad Shah ibn Taghlaq, shows to his people, something quite extraordinary. Whenever he went on a journey, he used to compute the number of inhabitants of Delhi and give them all half a year’s pay from his private funds. Upon his return he would order catapults to be set up in fields so that sacks of dirhams and dinars could be tossed to the poor and needy.”

“An amazing tale indeed! Not least because it shows quite how preposterous the whole concept of India was in the Maghribi context. But Master, how was this story received by the sultan’s coterie?”

“With a good deal of nodding and winking. Actually, people were twiddling their fingers at their temples, and there was a fair amount of guffawing and raucous laughter as well.”

“The entire court is mean and despicable. It thrives on corruption and bribery! How else could such people respond to a tale of such generosity than with sarcasm and disbelief? But what is your feeling about this story, Master? It’s one that involves profound reflection, no doubt.”

“I’ve checked on it, then weighed it in the balance. I’d say that it’s probably more likely to be true than false.”