Amin Maalouf - Leo Africanus

Many of the citizens are rich, particularly the merchants, who are very numerous at Timbuktu. The prince treats them with respect even if they are not of the country; he has even given two of his daughters in marriage to two foreign merchants because of their wealth. All sorts of things are imported to Timbuktu, particularly European textiles which are sold far more dearly than at Fez. For commercial transactions minted money is not used, but little pieces of gold; smaller payments are made with cowries, shells from Persia or the Indies.

I passed my days wandering round the suqs, visiting the mosques, endeavouring to enter into conversation with anyone knowing a few words of Arabic, and sometimes in my room in the evenings noting down what I had observed, under the admiring gaze of Hiba. Our caravan should have stayed a week at Timbuktu, before making for Gao, the residence of Askia, on the last stage of our journey. But, most likely because of the exigencies of the journey, my uncle fell ill once more. The quartan fever seized him once more on the evening before we were due to depart. Once more I was at his bedside night and day, and I must say that more than once I lost hope that he would be cured. The lord of the city sent his own physician, a very old negro with a white beard around his face, who had read the works of the Orientals as well as those of the Andalusians. He prescribed a strict diet and prepared various concoctions of which I cannot say whether they were effective or simply harmless, since over a period of three weeks my uncle’s state of health exhibited neither permanent improvement nor fatal deterioration.

At the end of the month of Shawwal, although still extremely weak, Khali decided to return to Fez without delay; the summer heat was about to begin, which would prevent us from crossing the Sahara before the following year. When I tried to dissuade him, he explained that he could not stay away for two years on a mission which was supposed to have been accomplished in six months, that he had already spent all the money which he had been allotted as well as his own, and in any case, if the Most High had decided to call him unto Him, he would prefer to die among his own family than in a foreign land.

Was his reasoning sound? I cannot allow myself to judge after so many years. I cannot deny however that the return journey was an ordeal for the whole caravan, because after the seventh day my uncle was unable to keep himself on the back of his camel. We would still have retraced our steps, but he forbade us to do so. Our only recourse was to lay him on a makeshift stretcher, which guards and servants took it in turns to carry. His soul departed from him before we reached Taghaza, and we had to bury him in the burning sand at the side of the road; may God reserve him in His ample gardens a more shady haven!

912 A.H.

24 May 1506 — 12 May 1507

I had left Fez in my uncle’s baggage train, with no other function than to follow him, listen to him and learn as I went behind him; I returned that year in charge of an unaccomplished mission, a caravan adrift and the most beautiful woman who had ever grown up in the Numidian desert.

But the heaviest thing to bear was a letter. On the way from Timbuktu I had seen Khali writing it. He took advantage of the briefest stop to take out his pen and inkwell from his belt and scribble slowly with a hand that his fever made trembling and uncertain. All our companions watched him from a distance, without disturbing him, thinking that he was putting down his impressions of the journey for the benefit of the sultan. After his death I found the letter while looking through his papers, rolled up and enclosed with a golden thread, which started with these words:

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, Master of the Day of Judgement, He who sends to men whose lives are drawing to a close signs in their body and in their mind to enable them to learn to know His resplendent face.

It is you, Hasan, my nephew, my son, to whom I address myself, you to whom I leave as an inheritance neither my name nor my small fortune, but only my cares, my mistakes and my vain ambitions.

His first bequest was the caravan.

Its resources are running out, its way home is still long, its commander is dying, and it is towards you that the men will turn, from you that they will expect the most just orders, the wisest opinion, and that you lead them home safe and sound. You must make every sacrifice to ensure that this voyage ends in dignity.

By the time we reached the first oases, I had to replace three sick camels, purchase fresh provisions, pay for the services of two guides who left us at Sijilmassa, give several dirhams to the soldiers to make this stage of the journey agreeable and pacify them until the next one, present several gifts to the notables with whom we stayed, and all this out from a purse that contained only eighteen dinars, all that was left of a sum which my uncle had borrowed from an Andalusian merchant who had come part of the way with us on the journey out. I could also have borrowed some money myself, but because of our hasty departure from Timbuktu no merchant had had the opportunity to come with us, so that I became, with my lack of means, the least poor of travellers. I resolved to sell some of the various presents received by Khali along the way, particularly the two slaves given him by the lord of Ouarzazat, and they fetched about forty dinars. In order to be able to keep Hiba without incurring reproaches or sarcastic remarks, I let the rumour circulate that she had become pregnant by me without my knowing it, but I had to sell her horse, a piece of useless adornment which would only hinder our crossing of the desert.

My uncle presented his second bequest to me by means of a parable from former times. ‘A bedouin woman was asked one day which of her children she loved the most. She replied: “The sick one until he is cured, the smallest one until he grows up, and the traveller until he returns.” ’ I knew that Khali had long been concerned for the future of Fatima, the youngest of his daughters, who had been born in Fez the year before we came, and whose mother, the only wife whom Khali had ever had, had died while bringing her into the world. The child had been brought up by my grandmother, and then after her death by my mother, as my uncle never remarried, probably fearing that a stepmother would not treat his daughters fairly. Aged twelve at the time of her father’s death, Fatima had always seemed sickly, grumpy and entirely unattractive. Khali had never asked me directly to marry her, but I knew that she was intended for me, since it is part of the natural order of things that a cousin should take one of his girl cousins for his own, sometimes the fairest, but often the one who could least easily find another husband.

I therefore resigned myself to doing so, knowing that I would thus fulfil one of my uncle’s dearest wishes, that he should not leave any of his daughters unmarried when he died. For the four eldest ones he had proceeded methodically; the oldest had been assigned the largest room in the house, and her sisters had no other charge but to attend to her, like servants. She was the only one entitled to new clothes, or jewels, until the time came for her to be married. Her place in the best room had then been taken by the next youngest, who took all the honours; the others had followed, except for Fatima, who was still too young and had been reserved for me.

My final bequest concerns you by right, since it is about your mother, who has already lived under my roof for ten years, refusing, like myself, to remarry. She is no longer young, and her only happiness would be if your father were to take her back. I know that he would like to do so, but Muhammad has the failing of taking wrong decisions hastily and correct ones too slowly. I did not tell you before, but, the evening before we left, casting all pride aside, I put the question to him directly. He replied that he had thought about it constantly since the time of our reconciliation. He had even consulted an imam, who explained to him that he could not remarry a woman whom he had divorced, unless she herself had remarried in the meantime. I then suggested that Salma should contract a marriage with one of our friends, who would agree not to consummate it and would repudiate her immediately. I also told him the story of a prince of Andalus, who wanted to take back his former wife and could not bear the idea of seeing her united to another, even in a fictitious fashion. He asked a qadi in his entourage who found a solution for him which was more worthy of a poet than of a doctor of the law. The woman was to go to a beach at night, and lie down naked, letting the waves flow over her body as if giving herself to the embraces of a man. The prince could then take her back without infringing the Law. Our discussion became drowned in laughter.