use of tawriyah, a figure of speech that relies on the double meaning of a text, where the obvious meaning conceals another one. What’s more, an utterance can have a double destination and therefore be understood differently by two distinct recipients. The palindrome in particular is a device much favored by al-Ḥarīrī. For example, one poem by Abū Zayd reads the same from beginning to end as it does from end to beginning: even when read backward the content remains consistent. One letter, a remarkable accomplishment, when read one way produces one text, and when read backward reveals an entirely different one: a disturbance has taken place, an astral and cosmic one, so to speak, whereby the sun rises at one and the same time in both East and West. This letter, jubilantly delivered by Abū Zayd to a mesmerized audience, “whose firmament is its fundament and whose fundament is the firmament—whose long low lines of dawn and dusk are the same” is “much like a cloak of which the warp is the weft and the weft the warp, and the shimmering cloth changes colour when turned out!” (§17.2).
Similarly, the chaos brought about by dahr is in a manner of speaking echoed in the very organization of al-Ḥarīrī’s work, which exhibits no narrative continuity between its fifty episodes. At first glance, the scattershot and arbitrary arrangement reflects to a certain extent the reversals and volte-face of dahr. There is neither transition nor bridge from one episode to the next, and if there is any narrative continuity to be discerned, it is slack and contrived (as when the thirty-second episode appears to prolong the thirty-first).
But things aren’t so simple. If each episode is independent, it is nevertheless linked to neighboring episodes through the recurring appearance of the protagonist and narrator. Truth be told, the feeling of disjointedness is more in evidence in al-Hamādhānī’s Maqāmāt, where the succession of episodes appear to follow no fixed plan. And significantly, his protagonist Abū l-Fatḥ al-Iskandarī does not appear in all the episodes, whereas in al-Ḥarīrī’s case Abū Zayd is present from start to finish, which makes a compelling case for an overarching structure to al-Ḥarīrī’s book. There is no doubt that al-Ḥarīrī laid out the episodes in a specific order, and we more or less get the sense that we aren’t supposed to read them in an order not intended by the author. Of course, readers are free to decide how they will read the book, for instance, reading around according to their liking (and there’s no shortage of such readers), but my feeling is that they won’t do this without some reservations, as they will have the distinct impression that each episode is in its proper place. Several clues reinforce this view. And a number of editions establish at the outset that the work exhibits a discernible thematic and rhetorical structure, consisting of five series of ten episodes each, that the first episode in each cycle is exhortatory (waʿẓiyyah), the sixth literary (adabiyyah), the fifth and tenth whimsical (hazliyyah). In any case, changing the placement of the first episode, which describes the initial meeting of the two associates, is as categorically impossible as changing the position of the last episode, which describes them finally going their separate ways. In each episode, they meet only to part ways again, but we know that they will again be reunited, and that we will be reunited with them. We know that Abū Zayd hides behind a disguise and that sooner or later his identity will be revealed. Narrative coherence is maintained by the constancy of his name and also that of the narrator, al-Ḥārith ibn Hammām.
Al-Ḥārith is the hero’s double; it is difficult therefore not to think of them as a kind of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Al-Ḥārith is always on hand to witness Abū Zayd’s deeds, to attend his performances, to relate his disquisitions, and as a result he too is in a state of perpetual displacement. A number of stories involve a quest for a treasure, for an island, for a woman. For his part, al-Ḥārith is engaged in a perpetual quest: for Abū Zayd or, rather, for adab, that magical word that denotes, among other things, the literary arts. There are no illiterates in any episode, everyone is in search of adab: on highways and in public squares, in mosques, in caravanserais and in libraries, in the midst of banquets and in drinking sessions. The Maqāmāt treat listeners and readers to eloquent speech, to witticism, to accomplished word play, and they are constantly on the lookout for the secrets of the arts of writing and reading. They are a veritable feast of adab’s distinctive language, one that everyone knows and engages in, one that has currency everywhere. Adab is the main theme, the real protagonist of al-Ḥarīrī’s work, one that touches on everything that relates to the literary arts: verse and prose, the protocols of composition, genre, poetic and edifying themes, role models, archetypal animals with distinctive nicknames, and so on.
In the fiftieth and final episode, Abū Zayd repents. But of what exactly? True, he has engaged in repugnant activities, lied, stolen, swindled. And yet, in this closing episode, something unexpected happens: to dupe everyone—as is his habit—he confesses his misdeeds before a gathering of the faithful in the Grand Mosque of Basra (the narrator’s native city, but also al-Ḥarīrī’s), asking them to plead with God to show him mercy. Knowing him all too well, al-Ḥārith ibn Hammām has doubts about Abū Zayd’s sincerity and believes this to be just another one of his tricks. But he later learns that the prayers of the Basrans were granted, that Abū Zayd was caught at his own game. Having put to an end his wanderings, his rogue’s life, any sort of adventure, he is now leading the life of an ascetic. In order to see him again, al-Ḥārith goes to Sarūj, which, significantly, has since been evacuated by the Crusaders. There, the reality of Abū Zayd’s repentance and of his total detachment from the trappings of the world is confirmed.
It is noteworthy that the protagonist’s conversion is followed almost immediately by his return to Sarūj, his native city for which he often expresses nostalgia. He finally finds his moorings, only leaving his home to go pray at the mosque. Profusion, followed by withdrawal. He lives alone, and whereas he used to relish good food, he now subsists on bread soaked in oil. Remarkably, he no longer speaks, except when praying. He wears no disguise—unless his asceticism is to be understood as the crowning disguise, one he will not be able to shed.
His conversion isn’t only religious, it is also literary. He renounces literature, he repents of adab and of everything this word entails: language, society’s rules of conduct, places of gathering, verbal jousts, audiences . . . Of all the literary genres, he devotes himself to one only, the sermon. His interlocutor this time around is God, to whom he addresses pious disquisitions couched in verse and rhyming prose. As a result, al-Ḥārith can no longer play his part as narrator. What is there to relate to posterity when Abū Zayd is consigned to silence? As he dismisses al-Ḥārith, Abū Zayd enjoins on him one final instruction, his spiritual testament: “Keep Death before your eyes!” The fiftieth episode then ends with the words: “I bid him fare well with boisterous sobbings and great plenty of tears. Then parted we asunder and I saw him no more” (§50.11).
What is striking here is al-Ḥārith’s demeanor: he cries because he has lost a friend, a distinguished master who instructed him in adab. He does not disapprove of his decision to live as an ascetic, but he doesn’t approve of it either. He respects his decision but is in no way attracted by his example. He isn’t about to place death before his eyes, isn’t about to abandon adab. Nor al-Ḥarīrī either, surely, else he would never have written his celebrated Maqāmāt. As for the reader . . .
Abdelfattah Kilito
Rabat (Translated by Shawkat M. Toorawa)
I am indebted to the Library of Arabic Literature for giving me a chance to play with the impossible. The members of the Executive Board—Philip Kennedy, James Montgomery, and Shawkat M. Toorawa, along with editorial director Chip Rossetti—amiably insisted that this translation meet the high standard they have established for the series. All devoted countless hours to ensuring that it did. My project editor, Devin J. Stewart, kept me honest and made the Notes a good deal more informative.
