Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange (Hardcover Classics) (51 page)

This is the reward of good deeds, as a poet puts it:

Who acts well never goes without reward;

And kindness is not lost with God or man.

This is the end of the story. Praise be to the One God and blessings and peace be on the best of His creation, our lord Muhammad, his family and his companions.

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

They say – and God knows better – that al-Rashid had appointed his cousin Muhammad son of Sulaiman al-Zainabi as governor of Basra. Every year Muhammad would collect the city’s tribute, take it up to him in Baghdad and stay there for a month before going back to Basra.

One year he brought the tribute as usual and, on reaching Baghdad, he handed it over to al-Rashid. He then went to see Zubaida, his cousin and, after greeting her and presenting his services, he left and began to walk through Baghdad to look at the sights. On his way past
al-Karkh
he met an old man wearing white robes, with a linen turban and a belt around his waist. This man kissed the ground in front of him and said: ‘Master, your servant is a slave-dealer who sells girls. I have one who would be suitable for the caliph al-Rashid. I should like you to do me the honour of coming to my house so that I may be set apart from all my fellows in this age. No one else deserves the girl.’

When he heard this, Muhammad went with him to his house and took his seat on a couch in his room. After the man had sold a girl, a mamluk and a eunuch, he got up and, after fastening a curtain of gold thread, he raised it to show a chair of
Chinese iron
, on which was seated a girl like a shining sun in a clear sky. Her face was veiled and he asked for and was given her permission to raise it, showing a face round as a moon with tresses that hung down to her anklets.

Muhammad exclaimed: ‘By God, I have never seen anyone lovelier than this in the whole world. ‘More than that,’ said the trader, ‘she can both read and write; she is versed in literature and is an artist on the lute.’ He turned to her and said: ‘Lady, I am told that you have a lovely voice,’ at which she recited the opening
sura
of the Qur’an and other verses from it in a voice sweeter than the poetry of Ishaq al-Mausili. He
told her to go on, and she turned to a girl behind her and took a lute that she was holding. After touching its strings and testing it she sang:

Our dwellings may be far apart,

So that I cannot visit you,

But still this love of mine remains constant,

And God forbid that it should ever change!

‘By God,’ exclaimed Muhammad, ‘her beauty and her artistry fill me with wonder!’ The dealer began the auction, and the bidding started at a thousand dinars, going up until it stopped at two thousand. ‘Master,’ said the dealer to Muhammad, ‘you have made no bid for her.’ ‘Is no one going to go higher?’ he asked, and the dealer told him that they had all stopped, and no one would bid more. ‘How much is she worth?’ Muhammad asked, and the dealer said: ‘Three thousand dinars, and if you have the money, God bless you.’ He shook hands with Muhammad, who asked for an ink-well and paper on which three thousand dinars was noted as a charge to be paid by the caliph with an extra hundred dinars for the dealer.

Muhammad then got up and so did the girl who put on a wrap of Dabiqi brocade. He took her hand and passed her to a servant, who brought her to al-Rashid’s palace, where he himself asked al-Rashid’s wife Zubaida to keep her while he went down to Basra, and then to send her after him. ‘Cousin,’ she said to him, ‘you know of the caliph’s reputation with women. It may be that he will see and admire this girl and then distress both you and me by taking her himself, as there is no one to match her in his palace. So take her and go off without saying anything about her to anyone who might tell the caliph, lest he remove her from you.’ Muhammad realized that this was credible enough and so he took the girl away and put her on a barge, while he finished his business in two days, before taking his leave of the caliph.

He went down to Basra with the girl and installed her in his palace, showering her with favours and providing her with maids. He then married her and when he lay with her he discovered her to be a virgin and took the greatest delight in her. They remained like that for some time until one day she kissed his hand and, when he asked her about herself, she told him she was pregnant. ‘Praise be to God!’ he exclaimed, for he was a childless man, and he now distributed alms and gifts in his joy.

When the term of her pregnancy was completed she fell into labour, surrounded by midwives and nurses in the palace. The child to whom she
gave birth was a boy like a rising sun, and the good news spread throughout the palace, with people going to congratulate Muhammad and to ask him what the baby should be called. ‘Name him al-Ashraf,’ said Muhammad, and in his joy he distributed alms and had Basra closed down to universal delight. Almighty God, however, did not allow the child to drink any milk, and Muhammad, sorrowful and distracted, was sure that he was going to die. ‘See what you can do,’ he told his people, and they told him that at the palace gate was a slave-dealer who had a girl with a one-year-old black baby. ‘However this may be, bring the mother to me,’ ordered Muhammad, and they fetched the mother, who was black as pitch with a snub nose, red eyes and an unpleasant smell.

When she was brought to al-Ashraf she took him on her lap and drew out her breast, which was like a sack of barley, while her teats were like black dung. She brought one up to the baby’s mouth as God the Great and Glorious had willed and used her fingers to put it into his mouth. He drank his fill until the milk dribbled from the sides of it to the astonishment of Muhammad. ‘By God,’ he exclaimed, ‘how strange it is that he drinks from this black girl and leaves untouched the milk of all the wet-nurses!’

The black girl then took charge of al-Ashraf and suckled him with her own son, al-Anjab, until both of them had grown, when Muhammad provided them with a teacher. They were taught to write, and they studied literature, grammar, Arabic and everything they might need, after which they learned to ride, to shoot and how to act courageously. They grew up well, and Muhammad loved them dearly and was struck by how fond they were of each other. Because of his treatment of the black boy, people thought he must be Muhammad’s own son, and the boy himself used to call al-Ashraf ‘my brother’. By the time they were twelve, he was like a tower and looked twenty years old, with enough pitch blackness for twenty bathhouses.

One day Muhammad was sitting with al-Ashraf’s mother, ‘Alam al-Husn, when he took a sheet of paper, dipped his pen in ink and wrote: ‘In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful; these are my instructions to whoever reads this note. I am Muhammad son of Sulaiman al-Zainabi. The only child of my body is my son al-Ashraf, the inheritor of my wealth and the perpetuator of my race. As for the black al-Anjab, I bought him and his mother for eighteen dinars. He is my son’s slave, to be sold or freed as my son wishes, and no one is to suspect me of being his father.’

Muhammad wrote this in his own hand and then folded the paper and told ‘Alam al-Husn that he entrusted it to her and she should keep it with her. ‘Master,’ she said, ‘may good befall you! What is this?’ He said: ‘Take it and say nothing. No man can escape death, for this is a path that all must tread.’ She took the paper, set it in an amulet and placed it amongst her books.

Three years after this Muhammad died, and Basra was handed over to his cousin Abu Ja‘far. Al-Anjab, his mother and their maids remained in the palace, while al-Ashraf, who was of a generous disposition, started eating, drinking and making lavish gifts. This angered al-Anjab, who went to his black mother and asked her what she thought of his brother’s behaviour. ‘Are you mad,’ she said. ‘Do you think that al-Ashraf is your brother?’ ‘What?’ he exclaimed, and she told him: ‘My son, you are his slave and I am his slave girl, as his father bought us both for eighteen dinars. He can sell you or free you as he wants, for the authority is his. Your father was a negro herdsman and his was a noble ‘Alid.’ ‘What am I if I am not his brother?’ exclaimed al-Anjab, who found this hard to bear, and he asked her whether she was the only person who knew about this and when she said ‘yes’ he left her.

Ten days later he came back and told her that he wanted to spend the night with her, and she cordially agreed. When they both had eaten he got up to wash his hands, and she spread him out a bed. As he slept she slept nearby, but he got up in the night and, as she lay sleeping, he took hold of her throat like an
‘ifrit
, squeezing it until he had killed her. He then laid out her corpse and covered it over before leaving her room that same night. Next morning her maids found her dead and went to her mistress, shrieking: ‘Lady, al-Anjab’s mother is dead.’ This distressed the lady, and she had the corpse shrouded and buried.

Al-Anjab waited for some days after this before going to al-Ashraf, whom he greeted, before saying: ‘Know, brother, that we held the sultanate, but I am not pleased that it has gone to our cousin, and this leaves me distressed.’ ‘Why is this?’ asked al-Ashraf, ‘for the earth belongs to Almighty God, and He bequeaths it to whichever of His servants He wishes.’ Al-Anjab told him: ‘After the deaths of our master and my mother, I can no longer stay in Basra.’ ‘What do you want?’ asked al-Ashraf, and al-Anjab told him that he wanted to take what he had inherited from his father and to go to Baghdad while his uncle al-Rashid was still caliph. Al-Ashraf agreed and went to tell his mother what he had said. She exclaimed with an oath: ‘Al-Anjab is no brother
of yours! He is your slave who was bought by your father together with his mother for eighteen dinars, and if you wanted you could take him this instant to the slave-dealer and sell him.’ ‘Mother, what are you saying?’ he exclaimed, and she said: ‘Yes, my son. Now go, guard what is yours and say no more. Otherwise, if you don’t want to tell him, then put him off.’

After remaining silent for a time al-Ashraf raised his head and said: ‘Mother, I cannot break his heart.’ ‘If you don’t,’ she told him, ‘this bastard will lose you your kingdom and your wealth.’ He paid no attention to her but sent for the trustees as well as al-Anjab. He then produced all that his father had left him in the way of gold, silver, utensils and dinars and divided them in two, telling his father’s trustees to give al-Anjab his share. They then divided the deeds covering properties and split these between themselves, but al-Anjab said: ‘I am going to Baghdad, so what can I do with properties? Buy them from me.’ When al-Ashraf had bought them for sixty thousand dinars, al-Anjab went up to Baghdad in a barge. On arrival he did not go into the city but went to the western side, where he bought a house with balconies overlooking the Tigris, together with mamluks and eunuchs.

One day he was sitting on his balcony drinking and listening to singers, when three boats belonging to al-Rashid’s vizier came into view. The vizier heard the singers and asked whose house this was. ‘It belongs to al-Anjab the son of Muhammad son of Sulaiman who was lord of Basra,’ he was told. ‘Praise be to God!’ he exclaimed. ‘Does the grandson of Sulaiman come to Baghdad, buy a house and live in it without us knowing that he has come or meeting him? This is wrong. Steersman, put in to the bank.’ This was done, and the vizier and his chamberlain left the boat and went to knock on the door of al-Anjab’s house. When a eunuch came out to ask who was there, they said: ‘Go in and tell your master that the vizier is here.’

The eunuch went to al-Anjab and said: ‘Master, the caliph’s vizier has come and is at the door.’ Al-Anjab got up, wearing a shirt of fine gold-embroidered linen and a headband set with gold and, quicker than lightning, he opened the door, saying: ‘In God’s Name.’ The vizier entered with his chamberlain and, on looking, he saw a man black as pitch. ‘Praise be to Almighty God the Creator!’ he exclaimed. ‘Muhammad the son of Sulaiman was a white man with a reddish-fair complexion, but God has given him this black son, and He creates what He wants.’

The vizier took his seat on the dais with al-Anjab sitting in front of
him and he said: ‘Sir, what is this wrong you have done us by coming to Baghdad and not telling us so we could come to meet you and present our services? That was not right.’ Al-Anjab said respectfully: ‘I did not want to burden you or the noble caliph by telling you that my brother al-Ashraf and I have parted because of our inheritance. He did not give me my proper share but only what he wanted, but I did not want a quarrel, which would have pleased our enemies and saddened our friends. So I took what I had and came here to live under the shadow of my master and cousin, al-Rashid, may God grant him long life.’ ‘In God’s name,’ said the vizier, ‘come to my house so that we may finish drinking there.’ Al-Anjab suggested leaving this to another time, but the vizier swore by al-Rashid that he must come that same day. He took al-Anjab by the hand, and the two of them embarked on the barge and sailed to the vizier’s house, which overlooked the Tigris.

Al-Anjab sat on a balcony, while the vizier produced plates of food as well as fruits in vessels of gold and silver, together with singers. They drank for two days and two nights, and the vizier, who was drunk, took a pillow, put it under his head and fell asleep, leaving al-Anjab in a state of perplexity. Just then one of al-Rashid’s eunuchs came in, carrying a note. Al-Anjab, whom he saw seated there like a mountain of pitch, asked him what he wanted, and he said: ‘I have a note from our master al-Rashid for the vizier.’ ‘Hand it over,’ al-Anjab told him, ‘so I can give you a reply.’ The eunuch did this, and when al-Anjab opened it he read: ‘The vizier has caused us unease. Why has he stayed away, although he has been sent for, and people are calling for help? I have heard that my cousin al-Anjab, the son of Muhammad, has come to Baghdad without our knowledge. Come yourself and bring him with you so that we can find out why this was. Goodbye.’

Al-Anjab stretched out his hand and opened the ink-well, took a sheet of paper and wrote: ‘From the servant al-Anjab son of Muhammad son of Sulaiman to the High Court. It was to you that I came. This vizier of yours to whom you have entrusted your affairs made me ashamed by sending me fifty letters telling me to come and saying: “This al-Rashid cannot do anything except through me. He is under my control, but I do not like him, as he is a treacherous man and is plainly planning a coup against me. I propose to forestall him and give the throne to you, as it is only you who are fit to hold the caliphate.” Your servant is only here to tell you to be on guard against this vizier. Look into the matter, for yours is the supreme authority.’