The Theocrat: A Modern Arabic Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) Read Online Free PDF

those who have not. 3
    In the right-hand margin.
    My sphere is the territory you have inhabited, where women, words, and blessings are evident.
    My sphere is circles and cadres where I exercise authority with exemplary violence. No ministers or gentry even dream of killing me, as they amass property and titles by pillage and plunder, live the easy life and strut about in my name and under my protection.
    Be you strong or weak, beware of me and be on your guard. My only purpose in coming is to restore to the never-sleeping eye in your midst both its prestige and its rights.
    In the left-hand margin:
    You must always seek security from me.
    You peoples who are integral to my era and my service, you may well come from different races, classes, and sects, but you are not permitted to disagree about me or about my exclusive right to grant pardon and security and to soothe hearts and minds. Until you can show contrary proof, I view you as being all against me and moving in directions other than those I wish.
    Here then is my hellfire kindled by linen, sackcloth, and alfa . This is my hellfire, one that craves the flesh and fat of anyone who is unwilling to bring his entreaties to me or who holds back rather than entering the gate of my penance and security.
    In this same year al-Hakim and his servants slaughtered many people, making no distinction between guilty and innocent, mighty and lowly, free and slave, Muslim and non-Muslim.
    He forbade people to undertake the land and sea journey for the pilgrimage, since he was worried that people might escape from God’s own country and Egypt thus be emptied of its own inhabitants.
    During this year all fishermen had to stand before al-Hakim and take a solemn oath not to go after scaleless fish. They were told that anyone who did so and thus disobeyed this injunction would be eviscerated.
    In the same year public baths were also closed, and a large number of bathers were arrested with no covering, then made to walk naked through the streets and markets!
    In year five of al-Hakim’s quarter century a decree against dogs was issued under his seal. Here is part of what it contains:
    Regarding all dogs, except those used for hunting purposes, rid me of them and remove them completely from all my lands and quarters. I cannot bear the sight of the vilest of creatures, the most remote from ethics of change and contradiction, the most likely to put up with the burdens of bootlicking and loyalty.
    So in this year dogs were killed in thousands. Those who managed to get away fled to distant, uninhabited regions.
    The occasion was also used to confiscate and slaughter all pigs owned by Christians.
    This year (although some say the year before), al-Hakim got to hear a couple of verses of poetry that made him very upset and angry. He asked who the poet was and was told it was Najiya ibn Muhammad ibn Sulayman Abu al-Hasan al-Katib al-Baghdadi, boon companion of caliphs and great men. Al-Hakim demanded that he be summoned, but people pointed out that he was dead or at least one of those who had disappeared. The two lines (in the tawil meter) run as follows:
     
    I saw the morning unsheathe its sword
    As the night and stars retired in defeat
    And a red glow emerged. Then I said: Night has been murdered,
    And-here is the horizon stained with blood by him who spilled it. 4
    In the sixth year of al-Hakim’s quarter century the caliph surprised his people with the decree “The Reversal of Times and Prevention of Curfew.” Part of it reads as follows:
    To prevent those delusions and disturbing dreams that come with the night and to uncover schemes hatched up by anyone against authority and me in a grab for power:
        I, al-Hakim bi-Amr Illah, hereby announce the reversal of times and meetings. From now on, work will be at night and sleep in daytime. I hereby forbid all travel around the city after sunset, all assemblies outside houses, all fouling of street space. Beware of breaking my time-schedule!