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Al-Hariri's Maqāmāt

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Al-Hariri's Maqāmāt In Pursuit of Shadows: al-HarIrI’s Maqāmāt 171 DAVID J. ROXBURGH IN PURSUIT OF SHADOWS: AL-HARIRI’S MAQĀMĀT During a short visit to the town of Rayy, in Iran, al-Harith place. Al-Harith, the narrator of the story, follows the b. Hammam al-Basri encounters crowd upon crowd of preacher and “show[s] him a sharp glance.” When the people “spreading with the spread of locusts, and preacher notices al-Harith, he recites in verse: running with the running of steeds,” eagerly talking among themselves about a preacher,1 who, they tell I am he whom thou knowest, Harith, al-Harith, was even better than Ibn Samʿun.2 Even The talker with kings, the wit, the intimate. though al-Harith realizes that he will face a noisy, I charm as charm not the triple-twisted strings, bustling throng, he goes to the assembly place where At times a brother of earnest, at times a jester. Events have not changed me since I met thee, men of all ranks are gathered, “ruler and ruled,” “eminent Nor has vexing calamity peeled my branch; and obscure,” and finds an “old man, bowed and with a Nor has any splitting edge cloven my tooth; breast-hunch,” wearing a turban in a conical form But my claw is fixed in every prey: (qalansuwa) and a cloak (ṭaylasān), both external signs On each herd that roams my wolf is ravaging; of the man’s position as a preacher (fig. 1).3 The man So that it is as though I were the heir of all mankind, delivers a series of admonitions, exhorting the assembled Their Shem, their Ham, and their Japhet.5 company to abstain from greed and forbidden things, mend their ways, and live out their lives according It is through this poetry and the earlier discourse, an to religious precepts. This continues until sunset alternation between prose and poetry, that al-Harith approaches, when a petitioner comes forward and recognizes the preacher’s true identity—Abu Zayd al- claims that he has been wronged by an official and that Saruji—and credits him with a genuine act of piety ex- the governor—who is present at the assembly—has ceeding that of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd.6 Abu Zayd then leaves, refused to hear his complaint. At the wronged man’s “trailing his sleeves.” The story ends when, to al-Harith’s urging, the preacher admonishes the governor and then regret, Abu Zayd disappears from Rayy. launches into criticism of his behavior in a discourse This maqāma (assembly, session, or séance), named directed at the prince, who is also at the gathering. The for the town of Rayy, is the twenty-first of fifty.7 It high- basic premise of the preacher’s speech is that “the lights key features of the other forty-nine assemblies. As happiest of rulers is he whose people are happy in him.”4 in the majority of maqāmas (forty-nine out of fifty), al- The preacher publicly shames the governor and Harith is the narrator and serves as a witness to Abu persuades him to repent and redress the wrongs inflicted Zayd’s profound linguistic eloquence, broad knowledge on the petitioner. To make further amends, the governor of the history of literature and culture, and erudition in not only thanks the preacher but also gives him presents all areas of human inquiry, as well as their highly spe- and extends an invitation to his home. cialized vocabularies. Abu Zayd is the hero—though After the preacher finishes his discourse, he revels in one might also propose “anti-hero,” depending on the his success among the company and then exits the reader’s moral makeup and personal proclivities. In Muq30_Book 1.indb 171 1-11-2013 10:31:34 172 DAVID J. ROXBURGH Fig. 1. Abu Zayd preaches in the mosque before a crowd, maqāma 21, of Rayy. From a Maqāmāt of al-Hariri, copied and illustrated by Yahya b. Mahmud b. Yahya b. Abi al-Hasan b. Kuwarriha al-Wasiti, dated 7 Ramadan 634 (May 4, 1237), Bagh- dad (?), Iraq. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. Arabe 5847, fols. 58b–59a. (Photo: © Bibliothèque nationale de France) numerous maqāmas, it is only Abu Zayd’s language— doing what he does; that through language he ensnares delivered mostly in oral discourse but sometimes also everyone he meets; he is unto a crowd of people what in written form—that gives him away. Sometimes Abu a wolf is to a sheepfold; and to emphasize his wide- Zayd’s identity is revealed to al-Harith in private, after reaching influence over humanity, Abu Zayd likens al-Harith has pursued Abu Zayd; at other times it is dis- himself to Shem, Ham, and Japhet, the sons of Noah and covered through a written note (ruqʿa) left by Abu Zayd heirs of mankind, all combined into one person.8 before his departure, and in still other maqāmas it is Although Abu Zayd uses his linguistic brilliance and told by al-Harith to the assembled crowd in Abu Zayd’s guile to dupe people, no one is ever really hurt as a result presence. The general purpose of Abu Zayd’s use of lan- but is instead deprived of money, valuables, other per- guage is alluded to in his final poem of maqāma 21, of sonal possessions, or the kindness expected in light of Rayy, where he mentions the various roles that he the hospitality they extended to a stranger. Those assumes: Abu Zayd opines that whether in seriousness tricked by Abu Zayd survive with bruised egos, their or in jest he is more beguiling than the “triple-twisted human frailties exposed.9 strings,” a reference to the treble-toned string of a lute; In maqāma 25, of Karaj (between Isfahan and that nothing and nobody have prevented him from Hamadan), al-Harith begins his narration by noting that Muq30_Book 1.indb 172 1-11-2013 10:31:36 In Pursuit of Shadows: al-HarIrI’s Maqāmāt 173 he had come to town to settle some business but that My yellow coins served my friends, my lances destroyed the winter weather was so severe there that he stayed my foes.10 indoors as much as possible. Work required that he leave his lodging one day and he came upon a crowd of But his fortunes changed and he lost his social status. people who had gathered around an old man nearly The man ends his poem with the final lines, “Who will naked, save for a turban wrapped from a handkerchief cloak me either with embroidered garment or ragged and “breeched with a napkin” (i.e., a loincloth). (Later coat/Seeking the face of God, and not my thanks?” and overpainting, perhaps a repair, has almost entirely con- reverts to a discourse composed of rhymed prose (sajʿ). cealed the naked man, who stands in the archway.) The It is here that the nearly naked man makes an allusion inadequately dressed man addresses the crowd in verse to the “winter with its kāfs,” and states that in prior (fig. 2): years he had always been able to prepare for “the cold weather.” Now, he remarks, “my arm is my pillow, my O people, nothing can announce to you my poverty skin is my garment, the hollow of my hand is my dish.” More truly than this, my nakedness in the season of cold. A person in the crowd challenges the man’s pedigree, So from my outward misery, judge ye now that he has proved his erudition—evident from his The inward of my condition, and what is hidden of my state. speech—to which the old man retorts, “A curse on him And beware a change in the truce of fortune: who boasts of mouldering bones! There is no glory but For know that I was once illustrious in rank, in piety and choice scholarship,” a sentiment amplified I had command of plenty, and of a blade that severed; by a verse on the same theme.11 The man then sat down, Fig. 2. Abu Zayd, nearly naked, stands in a doorway and recites poetry to a crowd, maqāma 25, of Karaj. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. Arabe 5847, fols. 74b–75a. (Photo: © Bibliothèque nationale de France) Muq30_Book 1.indb 173 1-11-2013 10:31:37 174 DAVID J. ROXBURGH collapsing into a shivering mass. It is at this moment cloak that warms; so be content with what thou hast that al-Harith, struck by literary elegances resembling learnt and depart.”17 Al-Harith spends the winter miss- those of al-Asmaʿi, takes a very close look at the man ing his fur coat. and recognizes him as Abu Zayd, who, he concludes, is In maqāma 31, al-Harith travels from his home to the using nakedness as a “noose for the prey.”12 Perceiving region of Syria (Sham) with the intention of trading. He al-Harith’s dawning recognition, Abu Zayd fears being pitches his tent at Ramla, where he encounters an exposed. On the spot he recites: “I swear by the shade encampment of pilgrims preparing to leave and con- of night and the moon, by the stars and the new moon- tinue their pilgrimage to Mecca. Al-Harith is moved to light, that none shall cloak me [laysa yasturunī] save one change his plans and joins them. When the caravan whose disposition is goodly, whose face is imbued with reaches Juhfa—the Syrian pilgrims’ station—the pil- the dew of benevolence.”13 Here, Abu Zayd’s choice of grims alight from their camels and start to unpack their the word for “cloak me” (yasturunī: from the verb satara) belongings; a partly clothed man emerges from the was an intentional ambiguity.
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