The city wept for three whole days. No instructions had been sent, but the shutters remained drawn over the shops and the streets were deserted. I have never seen such mass grief so openly displayed. The whole city was present as we accompanied his body to its last resting place, walking in absolute silence. His physician Abd al-Latif, himself an old man, whispered in my ear that he could recall no other instance where the death of a Sultan had so genuinely tormented the hearts of the people.
Imad al-Din, his face disfigured by pain and tears pouring down his cheeks, prayed aloud: “Ya Allah, accept this soul and open to him the gates of Paradise, and thus give him his last victory for which he always hoped.”
When we returned to the citadel all was silent. It seemed as if emirs and retainers alike could not even bear to listen to the sound of their own voices. The Sultan’s son, al-Afdal, came and embraced me, but no words were exchanged.
That same evening I suffered an attack of nausea and was sick. I was shivering. My body seemed to be on fire. I consumed three flasks of water and then I fell asleep.
When I woke the next morning, the sickness had gone, but I felt weak and overcome by a foreboding of disaster. I sat up in my bed and realised that the disaster had already occurred. The Sultan was dead.
My task is complete. There is nothing more to write.
Peace be upon you, till we meet,
Your loyal friend,
Ibn Yakub
(Scribe to the late Sultan Salah al-Din ibn Ayyub)
GLOSSARY
Andalus
Islamic Spain
atabeg
high dignitary
banj
hashish
chogan
polo
dar al-hikma
public library
Dimask
Damascus
Franj
Franks or Crusaders from the West
ghazi
Islamic warrior
hadith
sayings of the Prophet Mohammed; the body of traditions about his life
hammam
baths
hashishin
assassins; members of the Shiite sect of that name
Ifriqiya
Africa
Isa
Jesus
Ka’aba
the sacred stone in Mecca
Kadi
a Muslim judge with extraordinary powers to preserve law and order in a city
al-Kuds
Arab name for Jerusalem
khamriyya
Bacchic ode to the joys of wine
khutba
the Friday sermon in the mosque
labineh
yoghurt or yoghurt-based drink
maidan
flat land for a playing field or a parade ground
mamluk
slave
Misr
Egypt
mi’zar
a large sheet-like wrap worn both as a mande and by pre-Islamic Arabs as a long loin cloth
Musa
Moses
mushrif
a controller of finances
qalima
the word of Allah
Rumi
Roman
saqalabi
a white slave
Sham
Syria
tamr
date wine
Yunani
Greek
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tariq Ali is a novelist, journalist, and filmmaker. His many books include The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity; Bush in Babylon: The Recolonization of Iraq; Conversations with Edward Said; Street Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties; and the novels of the Islam Quintet. He is the coauthor of On History: Tariq Ali and Oliver Stone in Conversation and an editor of the New Left Review, and he writes for the London Review of Books and the Guardian. Ali lives in London.