Bensalem Himmich - The Polymath

“I accepted this secret deal because the ruler’s Hafsi forebears and my family had long been close friends with each other. However, it took no time at all for the entire scheme to be uncovered, whereupon Abu ‘Inan threw me in prison for about two years. It was during that time that I came to realize how much I hated the sultan in spite of his courage and resolution. Examining my own motives, I attributed them to two factors: first and most immediate was the fact that the Marini sultan had only ever appointed me to the most general and broad-based positions such as the one for which he recommended me to Ibn Tafrakin, the hajib who had exclusive control of Tunis right at the beginning of my involvement with administration; secondly there was the fact that the sultan had wrested the throne from his own father, Abu al-Hasan, stabbing him in the back and exiling him to the Masmuda mountains. That happened after Abu al-Hasan had failed in his bid to revive the Almohad movement and had tasted the bitter fruits of defeat in Qayrawan at the hands of an amalgamated force of Bedouin. As I wrote in my Book on the Lessons of History , following this disaster he returned to his native Maghrib. As long as I live, I will never forget the wonderful treatment I received from the religious scholars who were part of this great sultan’s coterie. It was they who fostered my ambition and my devotion to learning.

“The ruler of Bougie remained in prison until the last days of Abu ‘Inan. For my part, I received a promise of freedom in light of a poem of some one hundred lines in which I lodged a protest and begged for mercy. Fortunately I’ve forgotten most of it. However, I was only released when the amir was strangled by his own wazir , al-Fawdudi. When Sultan Abu Salim appointed me as private secretary I found myself returning to Granada and the Banu Ahmar. Once there, the amir, Muhammad V, and his minister, Ibn al-Khatib, afforded me the warmest of welcomes and the best possible hospitality. In 756, the amir commissioned me to travel with a ceremonial gift to the all-powerful king of Castile, Pedro Alfonso, in Seville, the city of my forebears. The purpose of the trip was to cement the agreement between the local amirs and the king so that he could act from a position of strength in his war against Aragon, they being enemies of the Muslims. While I was in Seville, I was welcomed and honored. There I encountered Ibrahim ibn Zarzar, a Jewish physician I had met before at the court of the Marini sultan, Abu ‘Inan. I recall that he confided to me stories about the ingrained cruelty of this king, Pedro, and the utterly debauched life that he led. He was able to confirm for me all the stories I had heard previously about the increasing level of violence that the rulers of both Aragon and Castile were wreaking on Muslims and Jews under their authority and even on people who had made a public gesture of converting to Christianity. A nasty and capricious tyrant, that was the picture he provided of Pedro the Cruel! How could I possibly fail to respond to him with a certain reluctance and with all kinds of genuine and contrived excuses when he offered to return to me the property of my forebears in Seville on condition that he be able to include me in his retinue?

“What’s the point of recording all this information? You can explain it, Hammu, by starting with a deterioration in my friendship in Granada with Lisan al-Din ibn al-Khatib and the fact that I was the only one assigned to such a lofty mission on behalf of the amir. Add to all that the fact that I went to Bougie in search of a more senior post, basing my hopes on the fact that I had previously supported its amir, Abu ‘Abdallah, during his own trials. In fact, no sooner had I arrived than I got exactly what I wanted. From Jumada al-Awwal in 776 till Sha‘ban of 777, I was exclusive occupant of the post of hajib . I used the opportunity to the fullest, lording it over everyone, so much so that my tone of voice hardened, my demeanor became totally pompous and inflated, and my every gesture was decisive and arrogant. How could it be otherwise when everyone kept haunting my door from early morning; heads and backs bowed and scraped before me, and the pomp of my station governing my every move?

“Fortunately for me, this self-delusion did not last more than a year and a half. It all went up in smoke when Abu ‘Abdallah was murdered by his nephew, Abu al-‘Abbas, the sultan of Constantine. As a result, I found myself compelled to align with the victor and acknowledge his authority at Bougie. However, as soon as the opportunity presented itself, I absconded and took refuge with various tribes, first the Dawawida, then at Biskra with the Banu Muzni.

“From this failure I drew two conclusions, the one practical, the other more theoretical. The first led me some two years later to refuse another offer of the hajib post at the hands of the sultan of Tlemcen, Abu Hammu. All I needed to do was to remind myself of the old proverb ‘The believer is never stung twice from the same hole.’ The second took the form of an idea that I promised myself to commit to paper just as soon as I found the free time and could manage to avoid any further involvement in the affairs of kings: ‘Of all people, scholars should stay as far away from politics and its machinations as possible.’ That’s exactly what I wrote on the front of a sheet of paper. On the other side I wrote the following: ‘The position of king is noble and much coveted, encompassing all worldly benefits, bodily pleasures, and psychological comforts. More often than not, it is the object of rivalry, and it is rare for anyone to ascend to it without first conquering someone else. As a result, enmity is fostered, and the end product is war.”‘

“To sum it all up then, Hammu, where scholarship is concerned, I’ve certainly made mistakes. On the other hand, in the political sphere, I’ve spread myself far and wide but have gone wrong on the details. But then, how can anyone expect to achieve anything satisfactory in an era so rampant with corruption?”

Al-Hihi paused for a moment. He was trying not only to rest his hand but also to alter the topic to something that would not involve his companion in so much self-criticism.

“Master,” he said, “infallibility belongs to God and His Prophet alone. Ordinary people are endowed with just a tiny portion of such qualities. Actually, your own particular portion is considerable. Any faults or slips of the tongue that you make are simply the product of your admirable quest for profundity.”

“You’re just trying to make me feel better. May your hand never be paralyzed!”

“Were that the case, I would not have allowed one baffling question to stay floating around inside my mind ever since I met you. It concerns your interest in your own family tree. Forgive me for asking you this, most especially because I know absolutely nothing about my own — maybe I don’t even have one. I do not dispute that you hail from the Hadramawt and trace your origins back to an Arab chieftain, a companion of the Prophet named Wa’il ibn Hajar, who was blessed, along with his offspring, by the Lord of Mankind. After he had been killed by the [Umawi caliph] Mu’awiya, among his descendants was Khalid Khaldun, your grandfather, who came to Andalus from the East. All that I do not dispute, but just for argument’s sake, I still ask myself what might have happened if you had not been born with such an illustrious heritage, with no family tree to bolster you. Do you think your overall prestige and intellectual ability might have been somewhat diminished?”

‘Abd al-Rahman fell silent for a moment and took off his turban. Then he gestured with his hand for al-Hihi to start writing.

“Note down that the only reason for mentioning my family tree at the beginning of Travels East and West was to quote the words of reliable genealogists. By no means did I intend any kind of arrogant boasting. How could that be when I’ve already penned a work about the way people’s basic traits go through transformations over time? Not only that, but I have also written things like ‘Honor and lineage come through a sense of rootedness. Such qualities are a reality to people with group solidarity, whereas to others the concept is more symbolic,’ and ‘Honor and lineage among converts and fake gentry have nothing to do with their lineage, but are only a consequence of their conversion,’ and so on. Furthermore, if I were somehow convinced that lineage conveyed some sort of distinction or prestige either on individuals or ruling dynasties, I would never have lamented the spread of artificial prestige, nor would I have recorded the way in which the Zayani amir Yaghmarasin shunned a group of sycophants who kept trying to convince him that he had sharif origins. His response to them (in the Tamazight language) went something like this: ‘Whatever gains I have made in this world have come through the sword, not lineage. Whatever advantage either of the two will bring in the world to come is for God alone to decide.’ What an eloquent and totally appropriate response that is! So, Hammu, have I managed to dislodge some of the questions that were preying on your mind?”