The Theocrat: A Modern Arabic Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) by Bensalem Himmich Read Free Book Online Page B

when beneath the feet of my mother lies my own paradise. My own state gets its name and its foundation from a blessedwoman, Fatima, daughter of the Prophet and wife of Ali, His own trustee and legatee of their secrets?
        I have indeed commanded that all cloistered women should remain inside their houses. They are to be prevented from going outside or looking out of windows or balconies. I have given orders that any cobbler who makes them shoes, any bath-owner who opens his doors to them, is to be punished. This is not a cruel act on my part, but is meant to prevent the anti-Christ from involving himself in a war of sexual provocation. Such a conflict will be futile and accursed, since it only serves to make men and women alike forget the real war that we have all to fight against that enemy who is ever on the watch for our foibles and slips.
    In this same year the chancellery was inundated with requests from women for special dispensations: maidservants, women with grievances, midwives, washers of corpses, widows, yarn-sellers, and those who needed to travel.
    Some women were locked up inside public baths and suffocated.
    That year a pregnant sheep was sacrificed, and, when the inside was opened up, historians are prepared to swear on the most solemn of oaths that the foetus inside had human features.
    In this year, and, some say, the year before as well, “Al-Hakim sent a letter to Sultan Mahmud ibn Subuktakin, the ruler of Ghazna, inviting him to submit to his authority. The latter ripped it up, spat on it, and then forwarded it to al-Qadir, the Abbasid Caliph.” 12
    In the twenty-first—some people say, the twenty-second—year of al-Hakim’s quarter century, the caliph was afflicted with bouts of melancholia that were sometimes severe. He secluded himself and wandered around a great deal. He started wearing sackcloth and stopped bathing. He used to spend the night observing the stars and searching in them for divine inspiration. These habits of his were accentuated by a group of devotees who made their appearance at this time. They calledhim “the buttress of time and most eloquent of speakers,” and used books and epistles to record behavior traits and segments from his extraordinary and incredible decrees as proofs and signs of his infallibility and divinity. They demanded that he be sanctified and worshiped and secretly won his affection and his support. They started touring Egypt and Syria attracting followers to his cadre of “sages” and establishing pacts, agreements, and obligations of confidentiality and pledge. A series of intrigues and bloody conflicts broke out between this group of Sunnis. As a consequence, the devotee named Akhram was killed. Thereafter Hamzah al-Druzi took their cause with him and fled to the mountains of Syria, shortly before or after the murder of al-Hakim himself. His own followers spoke in terms of his disappearance three nights before the end of the month of Shawal in the year A.H. 411, an event to which we will refer later on.
    2. The slave Mas‘ud, or the Agent for Sodomite Punishment
    He used to take charge of the public order for himself, riding around the markets on a donkey (he never rode anything else). When he found anyone cheating, he ordered a slave whom he always took with him, named Mas‘ud, to sodomise the offender. This is a dire, indeed unprecedented, circumstance.
    Ibn Kathir,
    The Beginning and the Ending
    Al-Hakim used to put on a white woolen garment and ride a tall, blond-colored donkey named Moon. He would make circuits of the markets in Cairo and the old city and take care of matters of public order himself. He always took along with him a tall, bulky slave named Mas‘ud. Whenever he came across anyone cheating people, he ordered Mas‘ud to sodomize the merchant on the spot in his shop, with al-Hakim standing close by and everyone watching till the slave had finished. For this reasonMas‘ud became the butt of jokes in Cairo. People would say: