One Monday morning at the start of Sha`ban, I went to Abu Numa's palace at his request. He bid me a profuse welcome. No sooner had I joined him at a table loaded with food than he pointed pleadingly at the plaster cast on his head.
I decided to tease him a bit. "It should probably stay on for another month, Sir," I said with a smile, "so that the cast can bear fruit…"
"Bear fruit, you say!" he interrupted me in alarm. "No, Ibn Dara, that's not what you should be saying. Rather, so the lice can build a nest in what's left of my hair!"
"Good news, then!" I replied. "With God's help, it's release that's coming, not lice!"
I indicated to him to lie down on his bench. I ordered a servant to bring some liquids that I specified. I then tried, ever so gently, to get the cast off, but without success. I whispered in the governor's ear as he lay there that his crown was refusing to break its vow of loyalty to its master.
"Then tell it to start a rebellion!" he joked back.
With that I moistened the edges with warmer water till it felt soft and malleable. I removed it ever so slowly and started rubbing the entire skull with cotton swabs dipped in ether. The fractures had clearly healed completely. I put some caster oil on his head and pressed down, but the governor showed no signs of pain whatsoever. With that, I told him that he was fully cured, whereupon he embraced me and offered me profuse thanks. He now sat up and took a deep breath. One servant proceeded to spray us both with perfumed water, while another filled a brazier with aromatic wood.
"Now, my savior and physician," he said, "pray to God to give me the strength to run the city's affairs properly and to solve issues that are still pending. About a month ago, when you spoke to me about the two Mamluk leaders, Qutuz and Baybars, and praised their prowess, their army had already advanced into Palestine and amassed at 'Ayn Jalut* in the Nablus desert region. Were you aware of that?"
I shook my head. "How could I possibly know that," I asked in amazement, "when my purpose in coming to Mecca was entirely devotional? I have absolutely no involvement whatsoever in politics, let alone military matters!"
"In that case, you have the gift of foresight! Now I can tell you what has actually happened. There was an enormous battle between the Tatars and Mamluks, with both sides armed to the hilt. They both used infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Everyone in Egypt, Syria, and the Hijaz was hoping and praying that God would put a stop to the Tatar advance by granting victory to the Mamluks and their allies."
"Amen, amen! 0 God and Lord of mankind! A Mamluk victory would certainly be the lesser of two evils, although it would obviously strengthen their hold over the Hijaz and even encourage them to set their sights even farther afield. That is the way victorious armies normally behave!"
I stopped talking in order to encourage the governor to share with me his concerns about the Mamluk sultan and their armed forces.
"I'm convinced," he told me tersely, "that the Prophet's descendants here will not suffer any harm from the Mamluks, even if they do assume power and take over from the Ayyubids."
"I pray to God Almighty that He spread the standards of peace and tranquility over all His servants and spare them the consequences of hatred and enmity."
I made do with this one prayer, and my colleague responded with his own "Amen." I decided to keep my own concerns to myself, leaving it to the passage of time to reveal whatever unforeseen or concealed factors might also be involved and to make clear what would inevitably take place. Even so, he did not miss the dour expression on my face.
"I beg you," he asked in a confidential tone, "in the name of God and the sanctity of the Prophet's family, to share with me what troubles you. Is it the same thing that's troubling me as well?"
"What's that, Sir?"
"That the Mamluks, like their predecessors, will try to hang on to the illusion of the efficacy of the Abbasid Caliphate and try to revive it, however rotten it may be…"
"That's precisely what worries me," I replied. "For some time now the Abbasid caliphate has lost its authority; its flame has simply gone out. If a dynasty from this generation decides to cling to its coat-tails, then it can only be for some very particular reason, such as exerting authority and control under the guise of canonical law and the usual justifications based on practice."
"So we clearly share the same views on this subject. Tell me then, holy man of God, which dynasty is there-even if it is in the Maghrib-where legitimate authority and religious leadership are to be found. I will then pledge fealty to their ruler as caliph."
"In our era," I replied without the slightest hesitation, "only the Hafsids in the western regions of Islam-they being heirs to the Almohads and a branch of their noble family-fit that category. Were you to bolster their cause by an expression of fealty and were other sharifs in the Arabian Peninsula and their parties to follow your lead in doing so, their prestige and status would be greatly enhanced. They would be able to unite peoples and regions in the cause of defeating the Christian forces in both the east and in my own long-suffering Andalus."
"God grant you light!" he replied. "Write for me a letter of fealty that I can send urgently to Muhammad al-Mustansir ibn Abi Zakariyya,* the Hafsid ruler. Success comes only through God!"
I did not respond to his request, as a way of showing that I needed to think some more about the entire matter, and in an atmosphere far removed from any demands for rapid action. We now had a conversation about personal matters and our own lives. It became clear that the governor already knew some details about my way of life, but he now asked me to give him some more details about my written works. Just before the noon prayer I asked his permission to withdraw, and he accompanied me to the door.
"Don't forget about that letter," he whispered in my ear. "And don't forget to come and visit me."
With that I made my way through halls and courtyards accompanied by two guards. My movements were closely watched by senior officials and aides, but I decided not to bother myself with worries about their significance.
I spent the rest of the month of Sha`ban dealing with the increasing number of students, offering sessions on the bases of religion and Sufi ethics. Their questions and requests for elucidation also required that I address other ancillary topics. I held the sessions either in the library of my own residence or in the Muwaffaq hostel, also on two occasions in a portico of the Ka`ba Shrine itself. Truth to tell, among the students in Mecca I did not encounter any who were the equals of my students in Murcia and Sabta. They did not possess the same level of intellectual curiosity, breadth of vision, and ability to absorb ideas. The only exception to this was actually Sitt Umama, even though in recent times she had been less assiduous in her attendance.
I did not forget about the letter of fealty that the governor had asked me to compose. Indeed, I sat down on an irregular basis and composed different segments of it, all in anticipation of the time when I would bring the whole thing together. I chose appropriate verses from the Qur'an to go along with the opening of the two suras, Al-Fath and Al-Dukhan. When it came to other source works, I found some support in Muslim,* who says, "The Prophet of God-on him be peace and blessings-said, 'At the end of time there will come a caliph who will share wealth without counting it.' Abu al-'Abbas al-Hamadhani* went further and gestured with his hand toward the Maghribi' I went on to cite another text from Baha' al-din al-Tibrizi in his epic work: "If the fire of the Hijaz goes out, the caliph of Baghdad will be killed. In the Maghrib the rule will remain strong and will extend its word into different regions. Its name will be proclaimed in the pulpits of the Abbasid caliphs, and great benefit will accrue from its passage to the land of India." In order to talk in more precise terms about al-Mustansir's claims, I included the following passage: "I have cited these things so that the rulerGod provide him support! — may realize that he is the one to whom reference is being made and that he is being charged, through God's own power, with the reform of what has become corrupt. In these times of ours there can be no Caliph for the Muslim community other than the person whom we have indicated." I specifically mentioned the Almohads and "their mighty human leader, enabler of the Almohads over the other heretics, mainstay and backbone of the faith, maintainer and propagator of the Islamic religion, and leader of the community of faithful believers in prayer, all in imitation of his father, himself a leader in prestige and glory."