Classical Arabic Stories

An Anthology

Salma Khadra Jayyusi

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780231520270
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Literary
• Index: Literature

Short fiction was an immensely innovative art in the medieval Arab world, providing the perfect vehicle for transmitting dazzling images of life and experiences as early as pre-Islamic times. These works also speak to the urbanization of the Arab domain after Islam, mirroring the bustling life of the Muslim Arabs and Islamized Persians and reflecting the sure stamp of an urbanity that had settled very staunchly after big conquests. All the noises and voices of the Umayyads and Abbasids are here. One can taste the flavor of Abbasid food, witness the rise of slave girls and singers, and experience the pride of state. Reading these texts today illuminates the wide spectrum of early Arab life and suggests the influences and innovations that flourished so vibrantly in medieval Arab society. The only resource of its kind, Salma Khadra Jayyusi's Classical Arabic Stories selects from an impressive corpus, including excerpts from seven seminal works: Ibn Tufail's novel, Hayy ibn Yaqzan; Kalila wa Dimna by Ibn al-Muqaffa; The Misers by al-Jahiz; The Brethren of Purity's The Protest of Animals Against Man; Al-Maqamat (The Assemblies) by al-Hamadhani and al-Hariri; Epistle of Forgiveness by al-Ma'arri; and the epic romance, Sayf Bin Dhi Yazan. Jayyusi organizes her anthology thematically, beginning with a presentation of pre-Islamic tales, stories of rulers and other notables, and thrilling narratives of danger and warfare. She follows with tales of love, religion, comedy, and the strange and the supernatural. Long assumed to be the lesser achievement when compared to Arabic literature's most celebrated genre-poetry-classical Arabic fiction, under Jayyusi's careful eye, finally receives a proper debut in English, demonstrating its unparalleled contribution to the evolution of medieval literature and its sophisticated representation of Arabic culture and life.

VIII

Excerpts from Seven Major Classical Works

81

From Ibn Tufail, Hayy ibn Yaqzan

1. The Death of the Doe

Wasting and weakness were taking their toll on the Doe, until at last she was overtaken by death, her movements at an end along with all her actions. When the boy saw her in this state, he was overwhelmed by grief, his soul almost spent with sorrow. He took to calling, using the voice she always answered when she heard it. He called at the top of his voice; but he could spy no movement or change. He gazed at her ears and eyes, but could see no evident defect. He gazed at all her limbs, but could see nothing amiss. His hope was to find the site of the ailment and to remedy matters, so she could be restored to her former state. But all his efforts were in vain. What had led him to the attempt was his own experience. He had found that, when he closed his eyes or covered them, he could no longer see till the obstacle was removed. When he placed his fingers in his ears, he could hear nothing until the blockage was taken away. When he pinched his nose between his fingers, he could smell nothing till his nose was free again. Perhaps, he concluded, all the various perceptions and actions of the doe might have been hampered by impediments of some kind and, when these were removed, the perceptions and actions would return to normal once more.

When the boy gazed at all the Doe’s external organs and found no evident defect (even though the whole body had failed, with none of her organs spared), it occurred to him that the defect must have struck some organ invisible to the eye, hidden within the body, an organ whose function could not be replaced by any of these external ones. When that particular organ was struck, then the harm, the inability to act, became overmastering. If (he hoped) he could discover that organ, remove the defect that had overtaken it, then the organ would be restored to its normal state. The whole body would then benefit, and the functions would continue as before

He had noted before this, in the dead bodies of beasts and other creatures, that all the organs were solid, with no cavity, except in the skull, the chest, and the abdomen. Therefore, he concluded, an organ with the quality he sought was to be found in one of those three places only, the middle one of these three being the natural one, since all the other organs must surely be in need of it? Its abode must be in the center. When, moreover, he turned to examine his own body, he sensed such an organ to be in his chest, since it was the key to all his other organs, like the hand, the foot, the ear, the nose, the eye, and the head. He was conscious that these last were separate entities; and this meant, he thought, that he was somehow independent of them. He was conscious of a similar quality in his head; of this, too, he was independent. But when he reflected on what he felt in his chest, he did not think he could do without it for a moment. He had felt the same when fighting the beasts, taking special care to avoid attacks by their claws on his chest—being aware of the organ within it.

Having decided the impaired organ must be in the Doe’s chest, he resolved to search for it by exploring there, in the hope of finding the organ, spying the defect, and removing it. Might it not be, though, that his efforts would serve to make the impairment worse?

Then a further thought struck him. Had he ever seen other beasts restored to their former state, when brought to a condition like this? He could recall nothing of the kind. If he left her as she was, he reflected, there was no hope of her ever being so restored. If, though, he could find this organ and release it from its ailment, she might return to what she had been before. He thereupon decided to slit open her chest and explore what lay inside. He took some sharp pebbles, and some splinters of dry reed, which he used as knives, cutting through the ribs and the flesh till he came upon the diaphragm protecting the organs within. Something so strong, he felt, could only be serving to protect the organ he sought; if he could once pierce through it, then his goal would be reached. He strove to cut through, but his tools, mere pebbles and reeds, hampered his efforts. He sharpened the tools and went slowly through the diaphragm, which gave way at last, revealing a lung. For a while he thought this must be what he had been seeking, and he turned it around, looking for the place where the defect was.

Having first found one of the two lungs to one side, and seeing the lung so placed, when he had supposed the organ he sought to be squarely in the center of the body, he went on with his exploration, in the middle of the chest, till he found the heart, wrapped in the toughest of membranes, connected to the lung by tight ligaments on the side where he had begun his incision. “If,” he said to himself, “this organ should have the same conditions on the other side, then it is truly in the center, and this must be my goal, especially being set, as it is, in such a noble place, with such a comely form, with a firm grip and strong flesh, protected by a screen of the kind I have seen with none of the other organs.”

He explored the other side of the chest, seeking the diaphragm protecting the ribs, and he found a lung in a place similar to the one on the first side. Now, more than ever, he was certain this organ must be his goal. Bent on revealing it, he cut into its membrane, and with effort and perseverance, exhausting all his means, he contrived to win through.

Coming to the heart, he found it sealed on every side. He looked closely, searching for any visible defect, but found none. Then, pressing it, he felt a cavity. “It may be,” he thought, “that my final goal lies inside this organ, where I have not yet come.” So he cut through the heart to find two cavities, one on each side. The one on the right was filled with clots of congealed blood; the one on the left was quite empty. “My goal,” he then said, “can only lie in one of these two chambers. As for the one on the right, I see it contains only this congealed blood. It could hardly have congealed before the whole body reached its present state.” He had already observed how, when blood flows, it clots and congeals. “And this blood,” he reflected, “is like any other blood, which I might find in any other organ; it is not particular to one or the other. Clearly my goal does not lie here. It is linked to this place I find myself unable to do without for a single moment since the time I began my search. As for the blood, it is like the blood I have lost many times when wounded by beasts or stones. I was not truly harmed then, or impeded in any of my functions. Therefore, this chamber does not contain my goal. As for the left chamber, this I find quite empty; yet surely it cannot be so without reason. Each of these organs, I have seen, exists for its own special purpose. How can a place of such dignity exist to no purpose? I can only think that what I sought lay there, before it departed and fled its abode. Then this body lost its powers, lacking all perception and motion.”

When he found that the dweller in this abode had departed, before the place fell into ruin and was left to that state, it seemed to him unlikely that the dweller, after so much damage and destruction, would return. The whole body now became base and worthless in his eyes, compared to the thing he was sure must have dwelt there for a time before going on its way. Now he exerted himself to reflect on this thing: its identity and form; its connection with the body; its destination; the exits it had used when leaving the body; the cause of annoyance if it had left against its will; the reason why, if it had left willingly, it had found the body unpleasing and had resolved to depart.

All these things surged in his mind. He no longer had any care for the body before him. The mother who had nursed him so tenderly was, he now realized, not this disabled body but that departing thing, the source of all those actions. This whole body, therefore, was akin to a tool, or the club he used in fighting beasts. His interest moved from the body, for which he felt no more passion, to the possessor and mover of that body.

2. Hayy’s Vision of the Divine Light

After deep trance, utter loss of self, and true spiritual attainment, he witnessed the highest sphere, which had no physical body. He saw an essence, free of matter, which is neither the essence of the One, the Truth, nor the essence of the highest sphere, nor different from either. It appeared like the image of the sun reflected in a polished mirror. It was neither the sun, nor the mirror, nor different from either. He saw the essence of that immaterial sphere graced with a reflection, a splendor, a beauty too great to be described in spoken words, too delicate to be clothed in letters or sound. With the highest pleasure and joy, happiness and delight, he viewed the essence of Truth, Glory be to His Majesty.

He viewed, too, the sphere next to it, the sphere of the fixed stars, whose essence was likewise free of matter. It was like the image of the sun reflected in a mirror that bore the reflection of another mirror facing the sun. This essence, too, was graced with splendor, beauty, and delight, very much like the one he had witnessed in the highest sphere.

Next to this, in the sphere of Saturn, he witnessed an immaterial essence that was neither like the ones he had seen before nor different from them. It was like the image of the sun reflected in a mirror that bore the reflection of another mirror facing the sun. In this essence, he saw what he had seen in the ones before: splendor and delight. In each succeeding sphere, he witnessed an essence free of matter, which was neither like the essences he had seen before nor different from them, not unlike the image of the sun reflected from one mirror to another, in a regular sequence following that of the spheres. In each of these spheres he witnessed a beauty and glory, delight and joy, the like of which no eye has seen, no ear heard, no heart known; until he came to the world of generation and corruption, which is all contained within the sphere of the moon. This he found to have an immaterial essence neither different from the essences he had seen before nor similar to them. This essence had seventy thousand faces, and each face had seventy thousand mouths, and each mouth had seventy thousand tongues, ceaselessly praising and glorifying the One, the Truth. In this essence, which he perceived to be multiple but was not, in fact, he saw the same perfection and delight as he had seen in those essences before. This essence appeared like the image of the sun reflected on the face of shimmering matter, a reflection from the last mirror to receive the reflection in the sequence before, beginning from that first mirror facing the sun itself. Then he saw a separate essence; were it possible for the essence of seventy thousand faces to break into parts, we would say this essence was a part. But this essence had come into being out of nonbeing. And, had it not been designated to his own body, when it came into being, we would have said it did not exist. Within this rank he saw essences like his own, belonging to bodies that had existed, then diminished, and to bodies that were still with him in existence. These were infinitely numerous (if it were possible to say so), or were all unified (if it were...