On the seventh day (Um Asya said), which also happened to be the day of the Ramadan feast, she ordered I should be given five hundred dinars; and I received a further thousand from her entourage. So, I now had two thousand five hundred dinars. She also presented me with more than thirty suits of clothes, and I received, from what had been prepared for the feast at their palace, enough food to make up three sumptuous meals. I went home and sent my sister the food for one of these, and she came to see me, congratulating me and filled with shame.
“You criticized me,” I told her, “for saying ‘lend me.’ And all the time I was going to pay you back from this. Never belittle those God favors, those who have trust in Him and in His recompense.”
Thereafter, Um Asya gained a good deal of money from Khumarawayh and rendered many great services to the dignitaries of the city.
From Abu Jaʿfar Ahmad ibn Yusuf, Al-Mukafaʾa (The Recompense), ed. Ahmad Amin and ʿAli ʾl-Jarim (Cairo, 1941).
22
Yazid and Habbaba
Habbaba was owned at first by the famous Umayyad poet al-Ahwas. Yazid ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, the brother of the caliph then ruling, heard her singing and bought her for four thousand dinars. His brother the caliph, though, when he heard of this, decided to indict him.
Yazid was already married to Suʿda bint ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUthman and to Rabiha bint ʿAbd Allah ibn Jaʿfar. He had grown deeply attached to Habbaba, but, fearing the indictment, he suppressed his regrets and sold her to a man from Ifriqiya. In due course, when he himself became caliph, Suʿda sent a freedman of hers in search of Habbaba.
The freedman was told she was in Medina, and he looked for her there, only to learn she had moved on to Egypt; and, when he looked for her in Egypt, he was told she had moved on to Ifriqiya. In Ifriqiya he spoke to her master and strove to coax him into selling her. The man refused at first, but—when the envoy told him the caliph would otherwise seize her by force—eventually agreed to sell her for a hundred thousand dirhams.
As the envoy was passing with her through Mecca, around two hundred men came out to see her off, and they asked her to sing for them. She sang two verses to them, then wrote down their names; and later, when she showed the list to Yazid, he sent each of the men a thousand dirhams.
When she arrived in Damascus, Suʿda dressed her in fine clothes and endowed her lavishly with jewels and perfumes. She then approached the caliph.
“God,” she said, knowing what was in his heart, “has granted you the caliphate. Is there anything else you desire?”
“No,” he replied.
“I have a notion even so,” she went on. “Tell me, and perhaps I can help you to your wish.”
“Habbaba,” he said.
“And would you,” she asked him, “recognize her if you saw her?”
“Yes,” he answered.
With that she took him by the hand and conducted him to Habbaba. He was filled with joy, and Suʿda’s standing rose greatly in his eyes. Habbaba had pledged that, whatever Suʿda wished for from the caliph, she herself would ensure she acquired it, and that Suʿda’s son should be appointed successor to the caliphate. This Habbaba fulfilled.
Rabiha, for her part, had bought the singer Sallama, who had been with another man from Medina. Yazid had seen her and had felt a deep love for her, too. When the two singers had come into his keeping, he said:
Now the search is over, there is no more parting;
As if a man settled happy after long absence.
His regard for Habbaba grew when he entered one day and heard her singing behind a curtain:
Your love, Yazid, almost brought death to me;
Before we met once more, would have destroyed me.
He lifted the curtain and, finding her seated with her face to the wall, realized she had not seen him. He flung himself upon her, and she became very precious to him.
Habbaba was the most beautiful woman of her time; and she combined gentleness and knowledge, together with adroitness in literature, in the use of musical instruments, and in singing, having learned all the singing from such famous singers as Maʿbad, Jamila, Um ʿAwf, and others. Before becoming caliph, Yazid would visit Um ʿAwf and suggest particular verses to her. Now he asked Habbaba to sing them. Habbaba, not wishing to malign Um ʿAwf directly, combated Yazid’s devotion for Um ʿAwf by singing as follows:
The heart would have only Um ʿAwf and her love,
An old woman. Whoever loves old women is brought down.
Yazid laughed at this.
“Who,” he asked, “made these verses?”
“Malik,” she told him.
One day he asked her and Sallama to sing to him what each thought he desired to hear; and, if one of them guessed correctly, she could ask for whatever she wished. Sallama sang first, but was not successful. Then Habbaba sang as follows:
A troop from the Kinana tribe around me
In Palestine, swiftly mounting their steeds.
These were in fact the verses he had in mind, and he told her to ask for whatever she wished.
“I wish you,” she said, “to give me Sallama and all her possessions.”
“Ask for some other thing,” Yazid said. She, though, insisted.
“Very well,” Yazid said at last. “You have gained Sallama and whatever she owns.”
Sallama was much cast down by this, since she had been such a fine student when studying music with Maʿbad, who had instructed her in turn to train Habbaba. She reminded Habbaba of this.
“You will see nothing but good,” Habbaba told her.
Yazid then asked Habbaba to sell Sallama to him. She freed her accordingly and asked Yazid to betroth himself to her, and he married her. One day the two singers disagreed over a tune improvised by Maʿbad on two verses of the poet Jarir. Yazid called upon Maʿbad himself to act as arbiter, telling him he favored Habbaba’s argument. And Maʿbad came down on Habbaba’s side.
“You only decided like that,” Sallama said, “because of her standing.” Then, gazing at the caliph, she said: “Permit me, Prince of the Faithful, to offer him gifts, on account of the debt of gratitude I owe him.”
He did so, and Maʿbad found, in due course, that Sallama’s gifts had arrived before Habbaba’s. And she went on sending gifts to him till he left.
[The caliph] lavished his time on Habbaba, and on merriment, singing, and drinking. He would, it is said, have a fountain filled with wine; and, whenever he became enraptured with music and singing, he would throw himself into it and rip an outfit costing a thousand dinars.
It is said, too, that when later [in the Abbasid period] the name of his brother, [Caliph] Sulaiman [ibn ʿAbd al-Malik], came up before [Caliph Haroun] al-Rashid, al-Asmaʿi said:
“He [Sulaiman] had a ravenous appetite. When the table was laid, he would not wait till the food had cooled but would take the meat with his sleeve.”
“And as for his brother Yazid,” al-Rashid told al-Asmaʿi in turn, “he would tumble into wine fully dressed. How much you know of people! By God, I have their clothes here. Sulaiman’s sleeves are full of grease, and there are traces of wine in Yazid’s clothing.”
So Yazid went on. He had assumed the caliphate in succession to ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz [see above], may God bless him, when people had become accustomed to justice and reform. Now, as things ceased to run smoothly, people began to find his behavior intolerable, and there was loud protest. His brother Maslama went to him to rebuke and advise him, reminding him of ʿUmar’s righteousness. “By God,” he is supposed to have replied, “ ʿUmar does not need God more than I do.”
For some days, accordingly, he turned aside from his concubines and his drinking, sitting there in state for the people.
“I trust,” he told Maslama, “you will cease to blame me now.”
All this went down badly with Habbaba. She sent for the poet al-Ahwas,
who wrote some verses, then summoned Maʿbad, who set them to music. Then she contrived to have the caliph hear the verses sung. Acc
ording to one version, she crossed his path as he was going out to pray. According to another, she bribed one of the caliph’s favored servants to let her stand where the caliph would hear her as she sang al-Ahwas’s verses.
The caliph was quite enraptured.
“Tell Maslama,” he said (another version has it that he stipulated the chief of police), “to lead the people in prayer.” And he cursed anyone who condemned him for this. Then he returned to his former self-indulgent ways.
The verses Habbaba sang spoke of love and of the glory of the caliph. The following is an example:
If you do not love, have not known passion,
Then be a stone cut from the heaviest rock.
Life is simply what you desire, enjoy,
Even when those who hate life blame you …
A noble man of the Quraysh,
His sway acknowledged in youth and manhood,
He gave money for praise; and he is
An imam of guidance, does what he’s accustomed to.
He inherited glory from his father and grandfather,
Who inherited a well-built citadel of glory …
“Who wrote this?” Yazid asked Habbaba when he heard the poem sung.
“Al-Ahwas,” she replied.
So he summoned al-Ahwas and presented him with gifts.
When Habbaba sang him this song, his passion would well up.
“Well done, my love,” he would say. “Make me soar aloft!”
“And to whom,” Habbaba would say, “will you bequeath the nation?”
“To you!” would come the answer.
One day his passion for her grew so great that he said: “I appoint you caliph, and I appoint such and such to be your deputy.”
“I dismiss him forthwith,” she said.
“I appoint him,” he said, “and you dismiss him?”
He stormed off, but she took it lightly enough.
As the day wore on, he summoned one of her servants and asked him what Habbaba was doing.
“She is playing with her trinkets,” the servant answered.
“If you will have her pass by me here,” the caliph said, “I will give you whatever you wish.”
The servant went and sported with her for a while, then he snatched one of her trinkets and ran off. She pursued him and, in due course, passed by where the caliph was. He leaped up and embraced her.
“I have appointed him,” he said.
“And I dismiss him!” she replied.
They made up and were happy again together. Then, one day, he said:
“I have been told no one can know pure happiness for a whole day. I wish to test this out.”
Summoning his guards, he instructed them to admit no one. Then he vanished, with Habbaba, into an orchard near al-Ghuta. There he stayed with her in perfect happiness until midday. Then, sporting with her, he threw a pomegranate seed at her, or a grape. She, so it is said, tried to swallow it, but she choked and died. So intense was Yazid’s grief that he held her there in his arms for three days, embracing and kissing her, till her state began to change. Severely condemned for this, he gave orders for her to be made ready for burial. He, though, could not stand to pray, and it is said he was borne on people’s shoulders. According to another version, Maslama told Yazid he would go in his place, but never did so. Yazid summoned a woman who had been one of Habbaba’s servants and took consolation from her closeness. “Here we used to sit,” he would tell her, and other such things.
After fifteen days, he was once more gripped by panic and gave orders she should be exhumed. This, though, his brother prevented. “People would suppose,” he told Yazid, “that your mind has become unhinged, and they would depose you.” Yazid thereupon withdrew the order. According to another version, he did in fact exhume her and was told she had changed.
“I see her today,” he is supposed to have said, “better than she was before.” Then he died. Still another version has it that he lived on after her for forty days, then died and was buried alongside her. He is the only caliph known to have died for love.
As for Sallama, she survived them, living on into the days of the Abbasid caliph al-Mansour.1
From Dawud al-Antaki, Tazyin al-Aswaq bi Tafsil Ashwaq al-ʿUshshaq (Adorning the Markets with Tales of Lovers’ Longing), vol. 1, ed. Muhammad al-Tunji (Beirut: ʿAlam al-Kutub, 1993).
1. Al-Mansour was the second Abbasid caliph and ruled from 136 / 754 to 158 / 775.
23
A Ruse of Muʿawiya
Yazid ibn Muʿawiya heard of the beauty of Zainab bint Ishaq, the wife of ʿAbd Allah ibn Salam the Qurashi. She was indeed one of the most beautiful women of her time, and also one of the most learned and one of the wealthiest. He became enchanted by her. When at last he could bear the situation no longer, he mentioned the matter to one of his father’s entourage, a man named Rafiq, who in turn divulged it to Muʿawiya.
“Yazid,” he told Muʿawiya, “has come to feel the deepest longing for her.”
Muʿawiya sent for Yazid and asked him about this, and Yazid told his father of his agonized passion.
“Have patience, Yazid,” Muʿawiya said.
“How can you instruct me to patience,” Yazid asked, “when there is no hope?”
“Where then,” Muʿawiya asked, “is your chivalry, your serenity, your piety?”
“If anyone,” Yazid rejoined, “could have profited from piety in his passion, or from wisdom in thrusting away what was afflicting him, then would David [the King of Israel] not have done it?”
“Hide your suffering, son,” Muʿawiya said. “You will gain no profit from making your state known. God will do with you as He wills. What will be will be.”
Muʿawiya began, even so, to scheme how Yazid might attain his desire, writing to Zainab’s husband, ʿAbd Allah ibn Salam, who was his viceroy in Iraq.
“When my letter reaches you,” he told him, “come [to Damascus] for a reason that, God willing, will bring you great profit. Do not linger.”
ʿAbd Allah quickly came, and Muʿawiya lodged him in a house he had had specially prepared for him.
Now at this time Muʿawiya had two dignitaries as his guests, Abu Huraira and Abu ʾl-Dardaʾ.
“God,” he told them, “has divided this world among His worshippers and has granted them many blessings, for which they should be thankful and that they should preserve. On me He has bestowed the highest honors and the most illustrious name. He has granted me wealth and made me the guardian of His people, His trusty ruler in His lands, and the judge of His worshippers, to try me and see if I should prove thankful or blasphemous. The first thing needful is to inquire into the state of those under him.
“I have a daughter who has come of age, and I wish to give her in marriage. I must therefore seek a suitable husband for her, so that the one who rules after me will do the same; for it might be he would allow the devil to dictate his course—that he would keep the girls of the family unmarried, thinking no one suitable for them. In the case of my daughter, it would please me if—on account of his piety, his honor, his good deeds, his chivalry, and his learning—she were to marry Ibn Salam the Qurashi.”
“You,” they answered, “are the one most able to safeguard God’s gifts, to give Him thanks for them and seek His blessings.”
“Then,” Muʿawiya said, “make this known to him on my part. I also mean to give her the right to choose for herself. I hope, though, she will not make a choice different from my own.”
They left him, went to ʿAbd Allah ibn Salam, and told him what had taken place. As for Muʿawiya, he went to his daughter.
“If,” he told her, “Abu ʾl-Dardaʾ and Abu Huraira should come and speak to you of ʿAbd Allah ibn Salam, urging you to heed my wish forthwith, tell them this: ‘He is a worthy nobleman and a near relative, but he is married to Zainab bint Ishaq. I fear I shall fall prey to jealousy like other women, then do what will anger Almighty God and so receive His punishment. No, I will not marry him till he divorces her.’ ”
When Abu ʾl-Dardaʾ and Abu Huraira met with ʿAbd Allah and told him what Muʿawiya had said, he told them to return to Muʿawiya and ask for his daughter’s hand. This they did.
“You are well aware,” Muʿawiya said, “how acceptable he is to me, how eager I am to have him marry my daughter. But, as I told you, I leave the choice to her. Go to her now and let her know what I intend for her.”
They went to her and told her, and she answered as her father had instructed her. They then went back to ʿAbd Allah and informed him how matters stood.
When it struck him that nothing stood between him and marriage to her except divorcing Zainab, he made them witnesses to the divorce, then sent them back to Muʿawiya’s daughter. They went to Muʿawiya, too, and told him how ʿAbd Allah had divorced his wife so as to marry Muʿawiya’s daughter. He made a show of displeasure.
“His divorce of his wife,” he told them, “displeases me. I do not find it good. Still, go in peace, then come back to receive [my daughter’s] consent.”
They left, then returned to him. And he commanded them to go in to his daughter and receive her consent.
“It is not for me,” he told them, “to force her. I have left the choice in her hands.”
They went in and told her how ʿAbd Allah had divorced his wife in order to please her; and they mentioned his good qualities and his noble lineage.
“He holds a lofty position among the Quraysh,” she said. “I will make inquiry about him till I know his innermost qualities, then inform you how God has inspired me. There is no power save in God.”
“May God,” they answered, “guide your steps in the right path and make the choice for you.”
With that they left her and told ʿAbd Allah what she had said.
People began to gossip about ʿAbd Allah’s divorce of Zainab and his approach to marry Muʿawiya’s daughter. He was, they said, to blame for divorcing his wife so hastily, before making sure the engagement would actually take place.
ʿAbd Allah now urged Abu ʾl-Dardaʾ and Abu Huraira to obtain an answer from Muʿawiya’s daughter. They went to her.
“Do as you intend,” they said, “and seek guidance from God. He will guide whoever asks.”
Classical Arabic Stories Page 12
