When I returned home, I started hugging my wife and child as hard as I could. I felt as if I had just escaped certain death and slid my way out of Izra’il’s clutches.
When night fell, I sat down to look over my apologetic poem, filling in blank passages, changing the order of phrases, and adding new lines. These are some of the new lines I added:
How is it that the college has been taken from me
When no crime was committed or misdemeanor?
Nay, it is a position I have worn with pride
Appointed by noble decree and duly draped gown.
I had hoped for another,
One that by its promise would be granted.
I used it as a base for future hopes,
Assuming its boons would be unending.
As I put the final touches to the poem, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to send it to my old friend, Altunbugha al-Jubani, viceroy of Damascus, and ask him to intercede with the sultan on my behalf. I concocted a few more verses on that theme, then sent it to Damascus in safe hands. After much waiting and procrastination, the poem — along with its references to waters returning to their normal courses and so on — seems to have done the trick. I found myself gradually forgiven by the sultan and returned to his grace and favor.
The Baybars Convent had been snatched away from me, but my income from teaching and the Fayyum farm was enough to meet household expenses. Actually, there was enough to allow my wife and I to take our daughter, now one year old, out for a stroll in the public park, to look at the rams butting and the cocks squawking, and even to watch the shadow play. God be praised for the boons He let us enjoy!
Poking one’s nose into matters that are liable to occur without warning or forethought, getting involved in situations whose only function is to show one how little choice and how little discretion over his own future he has, these are just some of the many snares that may entrap those religious scholars who find themselves seduced by the attractions of politics. They have no experience whatsoever in the hothouse atmosphere of political life, nor do they possess the know-how needed to keep rulers at arm’s length. Their only resort is to pack their bags and run from one ruler to the next.
Faced with such a situation, the only stratagem I use — and in spite of everything I continue to rely exclusively on reason — is to stay at home and stick to my books and writing. If I have to go out, it is only for some really pressing reason or else to visit my college or the houses of God.
Exhaustion! It creeps its way into my body and joints without license or permission. It moves ever forward, sure of its advance, enveloped in the ruthless onward march of time and the headlong clash of days. It falls into two separate categories: the first arises from the sight of endlessly repeated dross; the symptoms of the second reveal themselves in people who delve into the deeper levels behind events and the causes of change in a quest for hidden pearls and useful lessons. I wonder, have I now reached the culmination of both types at once?
I wrote that paragraph in the margin of one of the stack of papers that I filled over the past year and a half about the history of Mamluk Egypt. One evening at the beginning of the year 797 I was on the point of confessing to my dear wife that I felt really tired, but then I changed my mind and made an effort to look alert and happy. I was anxious to seem (to the extent possible) just as youthful and fond of life as my wife was. As I wrote on a piece of paper at the time, “I have no right to object to my wife’s joie de vivre. She’s well aware that my hair has turned gray, but it’s not right to make her aware of the extent to which my veins and joints are showing signs of the wear and tear of old age. Dear God, if You have planned for me to die at this particular stage, then I beg You to make it quick.”
My feelings of exhaustion during this particular year may well have been intensified by the fact that so many of my colleagues and members of the government died. Some of them were actually killed, including al-Jubani, al-Nasiri, and Mintash, all in Syria. Others fell ill and died, such as Shaykh al-Rikraki, and Chief Judge Ibn Abi al-Baqa’, the Shafi‘i. Still others died unexpectedly, such as some of the brigade commanders and Yahya from Sudan, the servant at the Hammam al-Sufiyya. There were many others as well.
“God grant them a just reward; every soul gets to taste death; verily to God do we belong and to Him do we return.” I kept having to repeat these phrases of condolence to family and friends of the deceased.
“The last time I saw Shaykh al-Rikraki, Umm al-Batul,” I told my wife, “I asked him as usual how Sa‘d was. He told me that, now that he was living with the Malamatiya community, his moods were more normal. He then advised me to hope for the best and not ask too many questions.”
I devoted several paragraphs to the circumstances surrounding the killing of Altunbugha al-Jubani. I included a sympathetic obituary as an acknowledgment of the kind role he had played in bringing about a rapprochement between the sultan and myself and of the fact that he had stood by me in hard times. I closed the passage with this sentence: “All I have seen in him is good, so I beg God to accord him the same.” Nor was I content merely to write such things. I went in search of one of his sons, knowing that he lived close to the Elephant Lake. My purpose was to offer my condolences and discover the whereabouts of his father’s tomb in Damascus. After exhaustive investigations I was able to track him down at the al-Khayyam tavern on the banks of the Nile, quite close to al-Luq, the quarter of lay-abouts and riff-raff. It was only after I had disguised myself as an Egyptian and made sure the room was dark enough that I ventured inside. Sitting down beside al-Jubani’s son at a low table, I introduced myself and explained the reason for my visit. Even though he was clearly drunk, he managed to express his gratitude and respect.
“You ask me, sir, about my father’s burial place,” he went on. “I have no idea exactly where they buried him. I wasn’t able to attend the funeral ceremonies; I don’t even know if there were any. There was always a huge chasm between my father and me even when he was still alive. As for now, well.. ”
He yelled to the waiter to bring over a carafe of wine and a cup of coffee.
“The permitted and forbidden: they’re both available here, so, if you’ll excuse me, I invite you to take your pick. Revered pilgrim, I cannot stand reproach and criticism, having received more than my due of both from my late father. In many ways, man has decisions made for him. Was it my choice to be Altunbugha al-Jubani’s son, and thus be banned from politics and made to consort with ordinary folk? Did fate offer me counsel in polishing up the kinks in my career or dealing with the various trials life has thrown at me? I’ve had to make my way through life as best I can, like some fleeting shadow or passing cloud. In the world to come may God be forgetful and forgiving.”
The young man sitting next to me had clearly been wronged. Gingerly taking the cup of coffee, I listened attentively to what he had to say.