Tariq Ali - A Sultan in Palermo

‘It will not be so easy elsewhere.’

It began to rain and both men were drenched by the time they reached Ibn al-Kitab’s house. The Trusted One was shivering and his new friend insisted he change his tunic. A clean shirt and loose trousers were placed on the bed in an adjoining room where he could undress and dry himself. The Trusted One began to weep from a well of tears deep inside him. When he had recovered he changed into the dry clothes. They hung loose on him. He could not remember the last time he had worn a clean shirt or trousers. Beneath the uncouth bearded figure in a tunic that had never been washed was revealed the noble profile of an Amir.

In the front room, she was smiling with two young boys and a proud husband at her side. He kissed each boy on the head. Even her voice reminded him of Bulbula.

‘We are honoured by your presence, Trusted One. News of you had reached us many months ago, but we wondered whether you were real or an apparition. I’m glad you’re real. Please be seated. The children are going to bed and your meal is almost ready.’

The two men remained silent till Ibn al-Kitab showed him a book the sight of which made him stand up in excitement. It was Ibn Rushd’s The Incoherence of the Incoherent, a spirited defence of Reason as something separate from Divine Truth.

‘This was in the library?’

‘Yes. This is the one I cannot understand, however hard I try.’

‘It is difficult, but it is the most courageous text produced by our philosophers. I myself have only read extracts. May I borrow it to read while I am here?’

‘I was going to give it to you.’

Tears came to The Trusted One’s eyes. ‘It should belong to everyone. When the mosque has been rebuilt it will contain a small library for books other than al-Quran, which as Allah knows, we have read so often that we can remember each verse.’

Then she re-entered the room and he could no longer contain himself.

‘May I ask your name?’

‘Zainab.’

‘Forgive my abruptness. You remind me of someone I knew a long time ago in another life. You resemble her so strongly that with your permission I would like to ask you another question.’

Zainab’s face paled. ‘You may ask me whatever you like.’

‘You were born here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your parents have lived here always?’

‘Yes, except in bad times, when my mother obtained employment in Noto. Like my mother-in-law, she is an excellent cook.’

‘Do you know where she worked?’

‘Yes. It was only for a few years and before I was born, but she talked about it often enough. She worked for a merchant, a widower who had a very beautiful daughter. She died in sad circumstances.’

‘Could I trouble you for a bowl of water, please.’

He was trembling and they thought he was cold and gave him a blanket.

‘Is your mother still alive, Zainab?’

‘Allah be praised, she will be here very soon with our meal. When we told her you were coming she insisted on cooking. My father died a few years ago.’

‘Is her name Halima?’

Now it was Zainab’s turn to be surprised. Before she could question him, the door opened and they rushed to help the old woman bring the food indoors. She saw the Trusted One and came and touched his head and blessed him. Then he spoke in a voice she knew.

‘Halima, you did not recognise me?’

She almost dropped a pot and turned around. He hid his beard. Her voice became weak. ‘Ibn Zubair, is it really you?’

She was the only person left in this world who knew his real name. He embraced her and they both began to weep. When they had recovered he swore them all to secrecy.

‘The resemblance to Bulbula had alarmed me, but it was already dark when I first saw Zainab. I thought I might have been mistaken. I could not sleep properly last night. The wildest conjectures passed through my mind. Today when I saw her with her family, I was no longer confused. There was no room left for doubt. She looks exactly like her sister, except for the colour of her hair. Bulbula’s mother was a Greek and she inherited her hair, the colour of gold it was… remember?’

Halima nodded and kissed his hands.

‘Her father, may Allah forgive him, never recovered from her death. It was guilt that created the bad humours inside him. That’s what killed him. He left me all his money. I distributed it to the poor. Did he know about Zainab?’

‘No. Nobody knew till now.’

‘You should have told him. He would have been as pleased as I was to see her. It might have kept him alive. You and Zainab would have inherited a beautiful house in Noto and a small fortune.’

‘My husband would have killed me. Zainab was our only child — or so he thought — and he was so happy when she was born, even though he had prayed for a son. If only the merchant, who was not an unkind man, had allowed Bulbula to marry you, who knows what would have happened.’

‘If she had lived I would not be the man you see before you. She would have kept me close to her. I would be sitting in a library most of the day, reading, thinking, writing, but nothing more. In the life I chose I feel I have achieved something. In this village we have created an example that could spread. For a people to prosper, they must take their destiny in their own hands.’

Zainab had been waiting patiently till the Trusted One had finished speaking.

‘Umma, what happened?’

Her mother told her.

A dual pregnancy and Idrisi discovers an unusual cure for coughs and colds.

SEVERAL WEEKS LATER, NEWS of the events that had taken place in a village so small that it did not yet have a name reached Palermo. The merchants who carried the information described what had taken place in great detail, as if their own eyes had witnessed the Bishop being thrown into the flames and the Trusted One standing up to declare it as revenge for Philip. Then they would talk of how the Lombards had been hung naked from the trees, their legs and uncircumcised columns swaying in the wind and how, once the skin had been eaten by large birds, their skeletons had become bleached by the sun and polished by the rain. But they had been left in place as a mute warning to all infidels.

When Idrisi inquired whether they had seen the dangling skeletons with their own eyes, the merchant would admit it had been told him by a friend who had been told by another and before long the genealogy of the storytellers was so firmly established as to overpower the facts.

It has always been thus in our world, thought Idrisi, wondering if anything had taken place at all. Most legends contain a kernel of truth so it was clear that something must have happened. The problem was that news of the Trusted One’s exploits was feeding the delirium that had gripped the city since the public burning of Philip. One of the justiciaries who had thrown Philip’s body into the pit of fire had disappeared without trace. Fifteen days ago, a judge at the trial had died a natural death, but it was claimed in the qasr that he had been poisoned. What was undeniably true was that when his coffin was being carried to the cemetery, it had been attacked by a swarm of bees that emerged from nowhere. When the pallbearers were stung, they dropped the coffin in the street and ran away screaming in search of water. Even after the bees — may Allah bless them — had disappeared, the coffin had lain unattended for some time and young boys had dared each other to go and piss on it. They took it in turns to keep guard, with the result that over a hundred boys under ten years of age had drenched the wood with their rain. When the funeral procession was resumed the discomfort of the pallbearers was evident. Their wrinkled noses made the boys who were watching from their hiding places giggle with delight. In this febrile atmosphere the Trusted One and his military campaigns were discussed endlessly in the old city, each shop-keeper vying with his competitors to retell the most bloodcurdling stories.