The Islam Quintet

by Tariq Ali

  I remember you explaining to me a long time ago that when minds are agitated, all we can offer our friends is to sit quietly and listen to their tales of woe. People in such a state rarely follow anyone’s advice and can even become resentful if one says something that they do not wish to hear. You said all this in relation to love, but the emotion that is plaguing our Sultan is indecision in the face of the enemy. He thinks of two or three alternatives but cannot determine which to follow.

  I sit and listen to his sad voice. Yesterday I was summoned to his tent when the full moon was at its zenith. I had been fast asleep, but as I walked to his tent, the cool air refreshed my brain. These were the exact words spoken to me by the Sultan.

  Hardly a night goes by, Ibn Yakub, without my feeling that Allah is beckoning me. I am not long for this life, scribe. I have spent fifty years in this world, which is a blessing from Allah. A strange thing happens to a man after he reaches fifty. He stops thinking about the future and spends more and more time thinking about the past. He smiles at the good memories and cringes all over again at the foolishnesses of which he was guilty.

  These last few weeks I have been thinking a great deal of my father Ayyub. In the course of his life my noble father, may he be happy in Heaven, never had occasion to fall on his knees in order to gratify a ruler. He always held his head high. He disliked hearing his virtues praised and he was deaf to the coarse flattery that is part of everyday life in the citadel. It always gave him pleasure to oblige others.

  He was a generous man. Shadhi must have told you all this, but he had a real weakness for maidservants. You look surprised, Ibn Yakub. Do I take it that this fact was kept from you by the ever-indiscreet Shadhi? Allah protect me! I’m amazed. It wasn’t much of a secret. Whenever a new maidservant approached my father used to feel the sap rise in him, and he never wasted his seed. Once my mother reproached him for this and he hurled a hadith at her head, according to which, if it is to be believed, “the share of a man to copulate has been predestined and he will have to do it under all circumstances.” My mother, who was a plain-speaking woman, after a few sentences of the choicest Kurdish abuses which I will not repeat, then asked him how it had come about that men could find a hadith to justify everything they did to women, but the opposite was never the case. Why am I talking about him in this fashion? I had called you in to discuss more urgent matters, but your presence always reminds me of old Shadhi, and I find myself talking with you as I used to with him, in a way I could never do with al-Fadil or Imad al-Din, and not even my own brothers.

  Most of my emirs and soldiers imagine I have the solution to all our problems, but we know better. A ruler may be strong or weak, but he is always lonely. Even the last Fatimid Caliph in Cairo, surrounded by eunuchs and addicted to the banj which kept him remote from reality, even he once wept in my presence and confessed how the lack of even a single true friend had brought him more grief than anything else, including the loss of real power.

  I have been lucky. I have had good friends and advisers, but this war has being going on for far too long. I do not deny my mistakes. We should have taken Tyre after al-Kuds. It was a grave error on my part to move down the coast, but that was not an insurmountable problem. I am beginning to think there is something that goes deep in all those amongst us who believe in Allah and his Prophet. It is almost as if this creed is so strongly rooted in us that we do not feel an obligation to believe in anything else. How else can one explain the degeneration that has taken place in Baghdad? Not even the Commander of the Faithful himself would dare compare himself to the first four Caliphs.

  Our faith, which in the early days inspired us to build an empire which spanned sea and desert and existed on three continents, now appears to have descended to a grand gesture. We love extremes. When, against all odds, Allah gives us a dramatic victory, we rejoice like children who have won a game of eight-stones. For the next few months we live off our victory. Allah is praised and all is well.

  After a defeat we descend low into the very heart of gloom. What we do not understand is that there are no victories without defeats. Every great conqueror in history has suffered setbacks. We are incapable of consistency. After only a few reverses our morale suffers, our spirit is weakened and our discipline disappears. Was this written in our stars? Will we never change? Has the cruelty of fate designated us to a permanent instability? How will we reply to Gabriel on the Day of Judgement when he asks: “O Followers of the great Prophet Mohammed, why, when you were needed the most, did you not help each other in the face of your enemies?”

  Our emirs are easily demoralised and discouraged. Easy victories are fine, but when the will of Allah is frustrated by the infidels then our emirs panic, and when this state of mind is observed by the men who fight under their command, they too become despondent and say to each other: “Our emir is missing his wine and women. I, too, am missing my family. We haven’t received any treasure for many months. Perhaps tonight, when the camp is asleep, we should return to our villages.”

  It is not easy to maintain the morale of a large army at a level where it is permanently in a state of readiness. The Franj have an advantage over us. Their soldiers come across the water. They cannot run away as easily as we can. All this teaches me is that men fight for a cause that is greater than their own self-interest only when they are genuinely convinced that what they are fighting for will benefit each and all.

  When I was a young boy in Baalbek and the sun was shining from a clear blue sky, I would often go out with my brothers to play near the river. Suddenly large black clouds would cover the sky like a blanket, and before we could run back a ripe thunderstorm had already erupted, frightening us with flashes of lightning. It is only when my soldiers are like that thunderstorm that I can behave like lightning. That is what they do not understand and what the emirs, with a few exceptions, are incapable of teaching them. The result is what you see around you. An army in disarray. Our good friend Imad al-Din is now overcome by fear and worry. He writes to inform us that, like the plague, the Franj are out of our control. As long as the sea continues to supply them and our lands continue to give them comfort they will conquer everything. Our great scholar shows his confidence in my abilities by jumping on his horse and fleeing to the safety of Damascus and suggests that I follow him soon. I suppose he prefers to be congratulated on his safety rather than being posthumously praised for his martyrdom. Alas, this is a road specially maintained for the scholars of our realm. It is not a route along which I could travel.

  I have written his words down exactly as he spoke them, and they will give you some indication as to the state of his mind. I am concerned that if his health collapses, so will our cause, and the Franj might then retake Jerusalem and burn our people as they did the first time.

  I hope this letter finds you in good health and that your esteemed family have managed to survive the Cairo summer.

  Your humble pupil,

  Ibn Yakub.

  FORTY

  The fall of Acre; Imad al-Din’s story of Richard the Lion-Arse; the death of Taki al-Din

  MY DEAR AND MOST esteemed friend,

  There are many reasons why I have not written you for several months. I have been travelling a great deal from one camp to another, following the Sultan like a trusted dog and happy in my position. In the old days, before the fire that consumed my family, there were occasions when I resented being summoned to the royal presence without even a moment’s notice. Now I feel he really needs me. Perhaps this is pure fantasy, but I know that I certainly need him. At his side, I am distracted from the past. My mind has to be clear to understand the events that take place every day.

  There are times when writing to you reminds me of the old house in the Jewish quarter of Cairo, and then I weep. This is especially true on cold nights like tonight when I am sitting in a tent, huddled in a blanket, roasting my hands gently on a fire. Memories take over of the winter nights in Cairo all those years ago. That was one reason for the delay.
There was another. I was not sure whether you had received my previous communications or not, and I had no time to make inquiries because of the calamity. We have all been in deep mourning for the loss of Acre.

  I was therefore delighted to receive your message via the courier to the Sultan and am pleased that my previous letters have reached you safely. I am also touched by your concern for my health, but on that score there is no cause for worry. It is the Sultan’s state of mind that bothers me. This man can ride for fifty days on horseback with only three-hour rests every night and inspire all his men, but I fear he will drop dead one day and leave us orphans to grieve on our own.

  I understand your irritation regarding Imad al-Din, but you are not completely accurate in your estimate of him. As we have had occasion to discuss before, he has many bad habits. His spirit is clouded by arrogance and his body movements are sometimes offensive, especially his habit of raising his left buttock slightly when he passes wind, but this defect is counterbalanced by his many noble qualities which transcend all his weaknesses. He is a man with a romantic spirit. The timbre of his soul is gentle. Enough of him for the moment. I shall return to this subject later.

  The magnitude of the disaster that befell us at Acre cannot be underestimated. Philip of France and Richard of England finally took the city. We had no ships to resist their galleys and Salah al-Din’s attempts to divert their attention by a surprise attack on their encampments failed in their purpose. The large armoury in Acre contained all the arms from the coast as well as others from Damascus and Aleppo. The emirs in the citadel sent the Sultan several messages pleading for help and informing him that if they were not relieved they would have no alternative but to ask the Franj for quarter.

  The sequence of events was as follows. As the situation deteriorated, three of the leading emirs fled the city under cover of darkness in a small boat. Their cowardly act became known only in the morning and caused a further decline in the morale of the soldiers. Sensing defeat, the commander Qara Kush, whom you know much better than I from his days in Cairo, asked to see the Sultans of England and France to negotiate a surrender and the withdrawal of all our soldiers. Philip was prepared to accept the terms demanded by Qara Kush, but Richard wished to humiliate our army and refused. Salah al-Din sent a message forbidding surrender, but even though our army had received reinforcements we could not break the siege. Qara Kush surrendered without the Sultan’s authority, but Richard insisted on extremely tough terms. Qara Kush felt he had no alternative but to accept the offer.

  It was the greatest reverse ever suffered by Salah al-Din. He had not been defeated for fourteen years and now he wept like a child. They were tears of anger, of despair and frustration. He felt that with stronger leadership inside the city it need not have fallen. He reproached himself. He railed against the babble of futile counsel and cursed the cowardly emirs. He pledged that he would never give up the struggle to test the spirit and the faith of the Believers. He spoke of the light temporarily hidden by a cloud and he swore in the name of Allah that the stars would once again shine before the break of dawn. It was difficult not to be moved by his tears or the words that accompanied them.

  Richard of England sent a messenger asking to meet the Sultan alone in the presence of an interpreter, but the Commander of the Loyal rejected the request with contempt. He told the messenger: “Tell your King we do not speak the same language.”

  Richard broke his word on several occasions. He had promised Salah al-Din that he would release our prisoners provided we kept to our side of the agreement of surrender. We did. We sent the first instalment of the money. The Franj leaders replied with the dishonesty that has marked them ever since they first came to these lands.

  One Friday, a holy day for the followers of the Prophet Mohammed, Richard ordered the public execution of three thousand prisoners and his knights kicked their heads into the dust. As news of this crime reached our camp a loud wail rent the sky and soldiers fell on their knees and prayed for their massacred brethren. Salah al-Din swore revenge and ordered that henceforth no Franj was to be taken alive. Even he, the most magnanimous of rulers, had decided on an eye for an eye.

  The Sultan did not eat for a week, till one morning after a secret deliberation, Taki al-Din, Keukburi and I knelt down before him and pleaded that he break his fast. Then he took the bowl of nourishing chicken broth from my hands and began to sip it slowly as he savoured the taste. We looked at each other, smiled and sighed with relief. After he had finished he spoke in a direct fashion to his nephew, Taki, whom he favours even more than his own sons and whom he would secretly like to succeed him as Sultan, but fears a fratricidal conflict if he were to insist on this choice.

  “I will never say this in public”—Salah al-Din spoke in a weak voice—“but the three of you are amongst my closest and most trusted friends. I am sad not because of Acre. We have lost other cities in the past and a single defeat can, on its own, change little, but what distresses me is the lack of unity in the ranks of the Believers. Imad al-Din’s close friends in the Caliph’s court in Baghdad have informed him that, in private, the Caliph is pleased that we have lost Acre. Why do you all appear shocked? Ever since I took al-Kuds the Commander of the Faithful and his closest advisers have looked in my direction with fear-filled eyes. They think I am too powerful because the common people appreciate me more than the Caliph. Their diseased minds, wrecked by banj, see their victory in our defeat.”

  This was the first time the Sultan had directly questioned the piety and leadership of the Caliph in my presence. I was shocked, but also pleased that I was now a trusted adviser, on the same scale as Imad al-Din and your friend, the inimitable Kadi al-Fadil.

  Since the fall of Acre we have suffered another big defeat at Arsluf, and the Sultan is now concentrating our minds on defending Jerusalem. There were no easy victories for the Franj. They suffered heavy losses, and some of the soldiers fresh from across the water are finding it difficult to adjust to the August heat in Palestine. Richard asked for a meeting with the Sultan. It was refused, but al-Adil did meet him and they spoke for a long time. Richard wanted us to surrender Palestine, but the audacity of the request angered al-Adil and he refused.

  Over the last ninety years, even when there was a lull in the long war, we never felt these people to be anything else but usurpers—outsiders who were here against our will and because of our weaknesses. Richard was only the latest in a long line of brutal knights to have landed on these shores. On our side, the cloak of diplomacy conceals a silver dagger. The Sultan often asks himself whether this bad dream will ever end or is it our fate as the inhabitants of an area which gave birth to Moses, Jesus and Mohammed, to be always at war. Yesterday he asked me whether I thought Jehovah, God and Allah could ever live in peace. I could not supply him with an answer. Can you, dear friend?

  Imad al-Din arrived from Damascus on the morning of al-Adil’s contemptuous rejection of Richard’s peace terms. He spent most of the day speaking with some Franj knights we had taken by surprise and who were due to be executed at sunset. Three of them converted to the faith of the Prophet and were spared, but all of them were only too eager to speak with Imad al-Din.

  Next morning I was defecating at the edge of the camp when he joined me to fulfil a similar function. After we had washed ourselves and sat down to breakfast, he began to tell stories of Richard, which had not been recounted before.

  “One of the Franj knights spoke of Richard as fighting with the ferocity of a lion. He said that for this reason they referred to him as Lionheart. This report was confirmed by the others, and I think that our knowledge of his warlike activities confirms this aspect of his character. He fights like an animal. He is an animal. The lion, dear friend Ibn Yakub, as we know only too well, is not the most cultured amongst Allah’s creations.

  “But even if we accept the appellation as an approbation, this view is not universally held amongst the Franj. Three knights I spoke with separately corroborated another view. Accord
ing to them he fights ferociously only when he is surrounded by other knights. They insist that he is capable of low cunning, treachery and cowardice and has been known to desert the field of battle before any of his soldiers when he fears defeat. His execution of our prisoners at Acre was the act of a jackal, not a lion.

  “We shall remember this king as Richard the Lion-Arse. I’m pleased that my prediction amuses you, Ibn Yakub, but it was meant seriously. I have chanced, on several occasions, to view the anus of a slain lion, and what has struck me every time is its gigantic size. One of the unexplained mysteries of nature.

  “Richard’s posterior, on the contrary, has not been enlarged by nature. Whole armies have passed through here, according to my informants, and still he is not sated. Secretly he yearns to be entered by al-Adil, the dearly beloved brother of our Sultan. Salah al-Din laughed when this was reported to him and, in my presence, remarked to his brother: ‘Good brother al-Adil, in order to further the cause of Allah, I might need you to do your duty and make the ultimate sacrifice.’

  “I laughed a bit too loudly at what was intended as a joke. This caused both men to become silent, look at me and then at each other. I knew what was passing through their mind. They were wondering whether I might be the person to make the ultimate sacrifice and enter the lion’s arse. As you can imagine, dear friend, I did not give time for this foolish idea to mature. Pleading a call of nature, I obtained their permission to leave the Sultan’s tent and did not return.”

  It is now three days since I wrote the above lines. Another tragedy has occurred. The Sultan’s favourite nephew, the young Emir Taki al-Din, was killed in the course of an unnecessary engagement with the Franj. He had been opposed to the encounter, but was overruled by some young bloods and then compelled to lead them, when he knew they were hopelessly outnumbered. Salah al-Din took the news badly and is still sick at heart. Truly, he loved Taki al-Din more than his own sons. Taki’s father had died a long time ago and the Sultan had virtually adopted him, treating him not just like a son, but, more importantly, also as a friend.