Red Nile: The Biography of the World’s Greatest River

by Twigger, Robert

  Surkhab, a rich nobleman, asked to study with Ibn al-Haytham. ‘Of course,’ said the scientist. ‘But you must pay me.’

  ‘How much?’ asked the bemused Surkhab, for in all honesty he had thought the bearded one would have been pleased to have a student, so pleased that he would teach him for free – for is it not written that ‘wisdom cannot be bought or sold’?

  Ibn al-Haytham still had the reputation of being mad. Or being struck down from time to time by bouts of madness. Surkhab knew this but he also trusted his own judgement. He was thirty-five years old and had seen enough of life to know these things:

  1

  A rude man can be more helpful that a ‘helpful’ man.

  2

  Real insight is rare. Mostly people repeat what they have just heard, or heard from their father.

  3

  Real insight is as slippery as a recently caught fish, and its reality as fragile as the scales of that fish reflecting the sun in all its glory in the moments after it has been caught, but dead and falling off after only half an hour in the basket on the bank.

  4

  Depending on circumstances, the opposite of the accepted truth can be the real truth.

  Surkhab had mixed travel with pleasure, riding on his fine horse searching for men of wisdom and knowledge. He was interested in science, but he was equally interested in what men called the ‘higher science’, the science of how men could perceive God more clearly, know the future and live in greater harmony with themselves and others. By observing Ibn al-Haytham, covertly, over a few months’ residence in Cairo, he saw that he was smiling, never ill-humoured, spoke well of people, yet was considered eccentric, possibly a little mad. He saw that Ibn al-Haytham knew about far more than he did; more to the point, he had a different perspective on what he knew. It was as if that perspective sharpened his interactions in daily life rather than, as he had seen with many learned men, muted or blunted them.

  But he did not expect to have to pay money. Probably he thought to himself, This is a nominal amount enabling Ibn al-Haytham to ‘prove’ to his student that the learning was worth something. But calmly the wise man asked for 100 dinars a month. That is the equivalent of about £450 at present prices. Things were cheaper then because Ibn al-Haytham was supposed to live off copying one set each of Euclid’s Elements and Ptolemy’s Almagest, together with Euclid’s Data, Optics and Phenomena. He earned 150 dinars for this – about £675 at current calculations. And we can safely say that 100 dinars a month was a surprisingly large sum for the young seeker to have to pay. He could afford it, but that wasn’t the point. ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ he told Ibn al-Haytham.

  ‘As you wish,’ said the scientist, ‘though of course I may not be here next time you seek me.’

  Surkhab finally decided to say yes, and pay the money.

  He studied with Ibn al-Haytham for three years. When it was time to go Ibn al-Haytham gave him 3,600 dinars. ‘You deserve this money all the more for having trusted your intuition that I had something to give. I, in turn, wished to test your sincerity. But when I saw that for the sake of learning you cared little for money I devoted full attention to your education. Do remember that in any righteous cause it is not good to accept a return, a bribe or a gift.’

  5 • The grandmaster of the Assassins

  Introducing oneself does not insult another. Sudanese proverb

  Everything connects. The Druze, remnants of the cult of Hakim, had started life as Ismailis – that is, one of the two branches of Shiaism, itself a schismatic sect within Islam. Ismailis, or one significant branch of that sect, took up living in the mountains of Lebanon not so far from the Druze, whom they naturally disagreed with on many issues. But on one issue they agreed, and that was the elimination of the un believer. For the Druze this meant ardent fighting against the new menace from the West: Frankish crusaders. For the Ismailis it meant cutting out the rotting heart of Islam itself, by assassinating Islamic leaders. And from then on their name changed and they became known as the Assassins.

  One hundred years after Ibn al-Haytham, the Islamic renaissance that encompassed the River Nile was already under attack. From roughly the twelfth to the fourteenth century, crude violent men from the West who called themselves crusaders sought to gain control of the Holy Land. It was related that these Franks did not even know soap or perfume and had lost contact with the advanced learning of the Greeks. All this they had to relearn from the Arabs, having forgotten everything except monastic rites after the downfall of the Roman Empire. They even indulged in cannibalism during their heroic attacks on Jerusalem.

  The crusades were a holy jihad – by Europeans, whipped into a frenzy by the monastic-based culture of Europe, who feared that Christian access to Jerusalem would be barred for ever. Because they were rooted in primitive notions of revenge and ‘rewards in heaven’ rather than intermarriage and cultural assimilation, the crusades were characterised by acts of cruelty and strategic folly – in many but not all cases. By some law of unintended consequences, the crusaders and their enemies both learnt to appreciate the qualities of the other, and took such understanding home with them. But such judgements were far from the minds of the native people of the Middle East, including the Christians who already lived there.

  Into this turmoil stepped a Kurd born in Syria: Saladin. He promised to free the Nile of the Frankish invaders and their allies. Unfortunately he had other enemies apart from freebooting European knights – the Assassins were after him. Some dispute the origin of the name. Did it derive from their use of hashish – still an export of the Lebanese valleys – or did it stem from the Arabic assass, which means ‘foundation’, and assassyoun, which means ‘he who is most faithful to the foundation’?

  Either way they tried to kill Saladin three times before he captured the Nile and stopped the Franks in their headlong invasion. The Assassins were sent from the clifftop eyrie of Hassan al-Sabah, the old man of the mountain, an impregnable fortress naturally called ‘the eagle’s nest’. Hassan al-Sabah, the Osama bin Laden of his time, commanded absolute loyalty. His motivation was simply to seek power for his Ismaili Shia sect – the Assassins – a sect that would eventually become known as the sole inheritor of the Ismaili mantle. They continue to this day, currently headed by the Aga Khan dynasty. Strange to think that a reference to the playboy Aga Khan in a 1960s pop song – ‘Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)’ by Peter Sarstedt – connects to the Assassins of the eleventh century. The Nile connection remains: the playboy Aga Khan’s father, Aga Khan III, was buried in 1957 at Aswan, his favourite wintering spot (and also François Mitterrand’s). Remember, Aswan is where Herodotus foolishly claimed that the Nile started and where Eratosthenes first measured the world from down the bottom of a dark well.

  Back to the crusades. Little is written about Saladin’s appearance: he was small and frail, it is said, with a short neat beard. Some accounts say it was red. More mention is made of his pensive, almost melancholy face, which would light up with a comforting smile to put people who were talking to him at their ease. He was always generous with visitors, urging them to stay and eat even if they were infidels; he would satisfy all their requests, accord them full honours. He could not bear to let people depart his house disappointed, and of course there were many who took advantage of this. Baha al-Din reveals that his generosity was legendary. Once a Frank called Brins of Antioch arrived unexpectedly at his tent and asked for territory that had been taken by Saladin four years earlier. Saladin promptly gave it back. His treasurers always kept a portion of the royal hoard hidden from their master, because if he knew of it he would spend it immediately. ‘There are people’, said Saladin, ‘for whom money is less important than sand. If you are such a person it is foolish to pretend otherwise.’ He had no taste for finery. When the fabulous palaces of the Fatamid caliphs fell to him, he gave them to his emirs, saying he was better suited to a vizier’s lodgings than a grand palace. Besides, he liked a good siege tent best of all.


  He had two aims: to unify the Arab world and to reconquer Jerusalem from the European invaders. The Assassins thought differently. At first they were driven by their own warped notions of Islamic purity. Then the logic of assassination soon became justification enough – they had perfected the means to kill, therefore they were always available to kill, perhaps for the leanest reason. The crusaders had taken Jerusalem, now the ultimate prize of the Nile awaited them – if they could stop Saladin. The Assassins would be their weapon, guns for hire in the Middle East.

  The first attacker appeared at Saladin’s tent door in 1175 during the siege of Aleppo. We can only imagine he didn’t announce his presence like an Avon door-to-door saleswoman. He would have been stealthy. The stealthiest. But still, Saladin was surrounded by the best in the way of associate warriors. An emir sensed that this intruder was not who he pretended to be, a court insider, and barred his way.

  There was no verbal confrontation – standard operating procedure among the hashish-using Assassins was utter silence. They were the Trappists of Terminal Prejudice. The answer to a fool is silence . . . or in this case a scything dagger blow to the arm. The knife was sharp, made of Damascus steel. Even now its exact structural strength is a mystery to metallurgists, but this super-sharp steel was the preferred weapon of the Assassins. Often the blade had an inlaid groove – for poison. Assassins specialised in the use of poisoned knife blades: even if the stab did not kill, the poison would do its insidious work. The venom of a horned viper was commonly used, promising a hideous death by destruction of the blood system. Only quick action and application of an ammonia solution (or plain urine if that was not available) allowed an increased chance of survival. So, exit one emir looking for someone to pee on his cut arm. But exit also the Assassin. The emir, though cut, had managed to bring out his scimitar and in one blow cleave the attacker from clavicle to waist.

  In 1176, when Saladin was again campaigning in Aleppo, there came a second attack. This time the Assassin burst into Saladin’s tent and attempted to stab him in the head. By now the warrior leader was prepared. He had under his fez a chainmail head-covering. The attacker went for his neck, but here Saladin was wearing a high mail collar attached to a thick tunic. Saladin’s guards arrived just as a second and a third Assassin burst in upon him. His reputation as divinely protected only increased when he miraculously escaped any injury from this concerted attempt to get rid of him.

  Saladin received a message from the eagle’s nest, from Sinan, the new Master of the Assassins. The messenger asked to speak in private to Saladin. The Sultan dismissed his guard apart from two Mamluks, slave soldiers from eastern Europe known for their fighting abilities, and their loyalty.

  The messenger insisted he could not deliver his message unless they were alone. ‘These men are like my sons,’ said Saladin. ‘They and I are as one.’ At this the messenger turned to the two and said, ‘If I ordered you in the name of my master to kill this Sultan, would you do so?’ They drew their swords and said in unison, ‘Command us as you wish.’ The messenger then left with the two Mamluks, having delivered his message all too clearly: even your closest ones can be got to. No one can be trusted.

  Derren Brown, the well-known stage hypnotist, has shown conclusively that it is not very difficult to implant a suggestion that can result in an attempted assassination. Perhaps this story reflects the fact that this ability was used by the Assassins. It has certainly been suggested before that hypnotism was one of the many tricks they used in their nefarious quest for total power.

  Naturally Saladin was getting a little perturbed, if not annoyed, by all this attention. No more Mr Nice Guy. He decided to attack the eyrielike fortress in Masyaf. Sinan, the Master of the Assassins, was absent at the time. When he heard about the siege he asked for another interview with Saladin at the top of a nearby mountain. Believing he had the Master within his power, Saladin sent troops to arrest him. But such was the power of suggestion surrounding Sinan that the troops returned shamefaced saying their limbs had been attacked by some strange force impeding their ability to attack.

  Such suggestion worked on Saladin’s mind too. Protecting himself with a ring around his tent of lime and ashes (a guard against both snakes and demons), he lay down to uneasy sleep. He ordered lights to be lit surrounding the whole camp and the guard to be relieved every half-hour. No one attacked and next morning there were no footprints in the ashes. Yet, next to his bed lay some scones, still hot, lying in a shape peculiar to the Assassins – a circle with a zigzag line, a snake across the ring of Solomon. There was also a note, which read: ‘By the Majesty of the Kingdom! What you possess will escape you, in spite of all, but ultimate victory remains to us: understand that we hold you, and that we reserve you till your reckoning be paid.’

  Saladin gave a terrible cry and his guard appeared instantly. Never one to be foolishly proud, the Sultan realised that he would be killed unless he lifted the siege of Masyaf. Which he did, departing so hastily that he left some of his artillery behind. At the bridge of Munkidh, his withdrawal noted, he received a safe-conduct from the Master of the Assassins.

  Saladin prided himself on never being too proud. So he decided to try a different approach – conciliation. If the Franks could pay the killers he would pay more, and he would pay them with compliments. His combination of money and flattery worked. He successfully wooed them away from their old employers, one of whom was Amalric the Frankish King.

  Saladin fought many battles and succeeded in ending the hundred-year occupation of the Holy Land by European immigrants. He also kept the Nile from becoming a Christian river, so to speak, five centuries after the Arabs had wrested it from the first Christians.

  Saladin was old now, and tired from all his troubles. He passed his last days surrounded by his family. He had always suffered poor health but now, at fifty-five, he seemed prematurely aged. He died soon afterwards. His personal wealth at the time of his death was one dinar of Tyre gold and forty-seven dirhems of silver. He owned no property, no goods, and even his horse had been given away before he died.

  6 • Moses of the Nile no. 2

  One is not afraid to hold a snake in someone else’s hand.

  Egyptian proverb

  Saladin’s great adviser in matters concerning Egypt and the Nile was the Jewish polymath Moses Maimonides. In the twelfth century the Jews much preferred Muslim rule to that of the intolerant Franks. Many migrated from Christian kingdoms to live in Muslim lands. Alexandria then had over 3,000 Jews. Cairo had a Jewish population of 2,000. In Muslim Morocco Jews were not harmed but one had to hide one’s religion; not so in Saladin’s Egypt, where Jews could practise openly and hold high office in government.

  Maimonides was born in Muslim Spain and then settled in Palestine, which was then under crusader rule. But he found living under the Europeans so wretched that he moved to Cairo. He was a lawgiver and a physician as well as a wise man whose counsel was sought on every subject. In Egypt he wrote his philosophical masterpiece – still in print today – entitled The Guide for the Perplexed. Could there be a better title for a philosophical work? It was said that Richard I ‘the Lionheart’ (1157–99) was so impressed by Maimonides that he offered him the position of vizier in his own court. In fact it was probably Amalric I, the French-descended crusader King of Jerusalem, who was interested in Maimonides. But wisely the sage declined. He correctly predicted that any pact between the Europeans and the Egyptians (there were several short-lived ones) would quickly be over, leaving any physician to the Franks stranded with the enemy. So he restricted himself to helping Saladin and his family.

  Saladin suffered from malaria, endemic along the banks of the Nile, but his health was never good; he used to take medicines of all kinds. Maimonides had a different view. He counselled that minor ailments should not be medicated, because that makes the body grow passive in its ability to fight infection. He believed mainly in a healthy regimen as a way of avoiding illness in the first place – a view in tune
with current theories about boosting the immune system rather than relying on intrusive pharmacological solutions. Maimonides quoted Hippocrates, ‘Nature cures diseases.’ He told Saladin, ‘I have warned you, advised you and urged you to rely on nature as it is quite adequate in most cases if left alone and undisturbed.’

  When Saladin’s nephew, Taqi, who surrounded himself with a bevy of maidens, became impotent, he asked Maimonides for ways to ‘enhance his ardour’ as his over-exertions in the bedroom had left him emaciated, febrile, light headed and weak. Maimonides set to work and wrote a book for the prince entitled On Sexual Intercourse. (He had a knack for book titles.) He prescribed aphrodisiacal treatments and methods, yet also strongly counselled temperance in erotic pursuits. Maimonides denounced concupiscence in eating, drinking and copulation; sexual intercourse, though apparently energy enhancing, was really, like drinking, a form of disinhibition – which if it went too far resulted in spending all one’s energies. As with drinking if one imbibes with friends, in a happy atmosphere with much laughter, the emotion will influence the intercourse in a positive way. But negative emotions such as anxiety, sorrow and aversion only work to reverse the palliative effects of intercourse. He counselled against intercourse with unattractive women, those with dark hearts and no laughter. He also considered women that were too young or too old a strain on the erotic energies of the Prince.

  He prescribed black pepper imported from India to improve the sex drive. Hot spices mimic the sweating and rising blood rate of an intimate encounter. Maimonides saw them as a way to trick the body into sexual compliance. Honey water and a little wine were also recommended, though an excess of alcohol, anticipating Shakespeare, stimulated a desire that could not be matched by the performance. In between several learned quotations Maimonides says he will reveal a ‘wondrous secret never before revealed’. This is one of the marvels of medieval Islamic literature – the utter flexibility of content from the obscene to the religious within a page. Maimonides says the Prince must mix some oils with saffron-coloured ants and use the blend to massage the penis for two or three hours before sexual intimacy. The resulting erection, the sage confides, remains even after the act. Medieval Viagra, or a treatment guaranteed to wean the Prince off sex for life? No doubt the formic acid in the ant-bite venom had some effect; it is interesting to note that formic acid is often used in the leather-tanning process.