PARADISE LOST: IBN DANIYAL'S RESPONSE TO BAYBARS' CAMPAIGN AGAINST VICE IN CAIRO.

• Author: GUO, LI

Mamluk Sultan al-Zahir Baybars' (r. 1260-77) campaign against vice in Cairo is perhaps one of the most publicized and colorful episodes of the sultan's legacy. But little is known about its details, much less its impact on and depictions in contemporary popular literature. This paper offers a new reading, and the first full translation, of a famous poem by Ibn Daniyal (d. 1311) in response to the sultan's prohibition. Based on discussions pertaining to the poem's historical and literary contexts, it is argued that the poem should be read not only as a social satire, but also as a psychological drama and word play whose main purpose is to celebrate the poet's memories of things past and to express through the art of parody and rhetoric his desire for restoration of the repressed.

IN SHA [BAN.sup.[subset]] 665/MAY 1267, the Mamluk Sultan al-Zahir Baybars (r. 1260-77) launched a campaign to ban drugs, wine drinking, and prostitution in Cairo. This violent event, in which hashish was thrown on fires, taverns were smashed, brothels torn down, and offenders severely punished, [1] shocked Ibn Daniyal (1248-1311), a Mosul-born Cairene oculist and sometime entertainer known for his shadow plays and witty poetry. [2] He wrote a poem in response to this short-lived campaign. The poem was widely cited in Mamluk chronicles and literary anthologies for obvious reasons: it offers not only a first-hand account of a colorful episode in Baybars' legacy, but is also a fine piece of its kind, "a poem that demonstrates the poet's maturity in the art of satire," as one modern student observes, [3] and "a poem that led to the emergence of a new trend in social satire in Mamluk poetry," in another student's assessment. [4] However, no attempt, either in the Arab world or in the West, has been made to study the poem in its entirety. [5]

The goal of this paper is thus twofold: it offers a close reading of the poem, based on my own efforts in recon- structing a working text, [6] and discusses issues pertaining to its historical and literary contexts. The point of departure from earlier scholarship is that I regard the poem not only as a social satire, but also as a psychological drama and word play whose main purpose is to celebrate the poet's memories of things past and to express his desire for restoration of the repressed through the art of parody and rhetoric.

THE POEM

To facilitate discussion, it will be helpful to preface the analysis with a synopsis:

Nasib (elegy for Iblis) introduction: lines 1-3

lamentation 1 (wine): lines 4-8

lamentation 2 (beer): lines 9-15

lamentation 3 (hashish): lines 16-22

lamentation 4 (prostitution): lines

23-29

Rahil (transition to

panegyric) lines 30-35

Madih (panegyric) lines 36-54

A complete translation of the poem will be found in the appendix to this article. Here I comment on selected points.

The poem opens with a conventional apostrophe[7]:

1. 0 people! suddenly Iblis is dead, his familiar abode now empty.

2. My intuition told me about his passing, by my life!, his death has been sensed by instinct.

We may note that the reference to "his familiar abode" (rabcuhu al-[ma.sup.[contains]]nus), that is, Egypt, evokes the atlal motif, or weeping on the abandoned encampment and lost loves, of the classical qasida tradition. However, the mood here, and what follows, does not utilize the ghazal elements common in a typical nasib, but rather the elegiac mood of the [ritha.sup.[contains]]. Instead of singing a love song, the poet invites us to a funeral. After a short transition in line 2, in which the muqabala, or opposition, between [[blank].sup.[subset]] (my life/his death) as well as the jinas, or paronomasia, between hadsi/mahdus (my intuition/ instinct) are put together, the poet moves quickly to lament the death of Iblis, a symbol of the good old days of hedonism whose passing away marked the end of an era. The entire elegiac nasib section is then built around several clusters of ubi sunt that follow: "Where are his (Iblis's) eyes that would gaze at This "gaze of the devil" is followed by recollections o f what happened in Cairo during Baybars' campaign:

4. Where are his eyes that would gaze at wine, now banned from drinking halls and taverns?

5. There wine containers were smashed, while the tavern-keeper was jailed.

9. Where are his eyes that would gaze at mizr-beer, missed by wine cup and flagon.

10. The majoon of herb was scattered by them, ground down to the earth, mixed with dust.

11. Bottles were shattered, as cups were broken, under the full moons.

16. "Where are his eyes, as hashish is burning in flames frightening even a Zoroastrian?

17. They uprooted them from the gardens, where these little green ones were still sprigs."

23. Where are his eyes that would gaze at whores, when brothel's roof has been splintered by axes.

......

We find here a string of imagery of wine, beer, hashish, prostitutes, being "deserted" from their "abodes": thus line 4 ([[blank].sup.[subset]] uttila), line 9 (awhasha), line 17 ([qala.sup.[subset]]u), line 23 (haddamat), all mock the stock image in the classical nasib of the beloved one departing the campsites. The old theme of separation and alienation is presented here in a twisted mockery. The violent action of "crushing" and "smashing" is further illustrated through a juxtaposition of the cognate verbs of the root k-s-r, for example, line 5, takassarna/kasr; line 11, mukassirat/kussirat, and so on. And there is the smell of smoke and fire as well: whereas the destruction of wine involved "crushing" and "pouring," the common means to destroy hashish was "burning." The stock metaphor that links flames to the fire-worshipping Zoroastrian is utilized in line 16, while the common designation of hashish, "the green one" (al-akhdar, or [al-khadra.sup.[contains]]), [9] is personified by a plural form, sighar k hudr, "the little green ones," in line 17.

The poet is not content simply to describe outward events, but expresses people's inner feelings and anxieties, especially those hit the hardest:

6. The revelers are shocked, their souls spilt over wine.

7. Many a rake declares: "This is a day that is, as they say. 'Dismal and calamitous!'"

8. Many a youth cries: "After this, I would think nothing of suffering, [only] public humiliation for drinking!"

Mustafa Badawi noted that poems in Ibn Daniyal's shadow plays depict all "low forms of life" in "a mock heroic style, with ironic allusions to the 'serious' Arabic poetic tradition." [10] The cluster here provides us with such examples. Underneath the brilliant jinas, or paronomasia, between tasilu/sayliha ([the liquefied souls] spilt over/the pouring of wine) in line 6 is an Abu Nuwasian rhetoric that strongly suggests classical measure. In line 7, yawm. . . qamtarir [[blank].sup.[subset]]abus ("a frowning day, inauspicious," in Arberry's translation) is a paraphrase of [Qur.sup.[contains]] an, 76:10, regarding the Judgment Day to be feared by sinners. The obvious irony here lies in [Qur.sup.[contains]] anic verses being uttered by some "rake," the target of the Sultan's prohibition. It is interesting to note that, in a partial edition of the poem, [11] the word [khali.sup.[subset]] (rake) is marked by a sign of [so!] as if the editor could not believe that Ibn Daniyal would have used such a pejorative term to describe someone toward whom he was apparently sympathetic. This attitude of modern moral judgment is echoed, as Badawi points out, in some scholars' readings, or misreadings, of Ibn Daniyal's use of the word and its context. "The terms majin and [khali.sup.[subset]]," Badawi argues, "had a more positive sense in the thirteenth century than they do now." It is only in more recent times that majin and [khali.sup.[subset]] "have been taken to denote [the] dissolute, uninhibited, [those] devoid of shame, neither fearing God nor caring for the blame of man, [and] hence the severely moral stance" adopted by those who have written on Ibn Daniyal's works, [12] One may say, however, that the meaning of the words cannot have changed drastically, but it is the evaluation of, and attitude toward, these words that makes the difference. The reference of al-tajris, a vernacular word, [13] in line 8, is perhaps hinting at the notorious trial of Ibn al-Kazaruni during the prohibition. The man was found guilty of drinking and was paraded through the streets of Cairo on a horse, with wine cups and a bell (al-jars) around his neck; he was later hanged. [14] Joining in the cry are sundry unsavory types of the underworld about whom we have learned a great deal from the poet's vivid depictions in his shadow plays, as well as from other contemporary literature, among them the poems of the so-called Banu Sasan: [15]

12. You see "Trickster" shrieking: "O 'Handsome!"' and "Sudanese Clown" yelling: "O 'Buffalo!'"

......

18. 'The bums cry around the burning hashish, pouring tears to quench the fire.

......

(28.) Their pimp lord cries: "Shit! What fault is it of ours?! Our lady's star is screwed by catastrophe!"

The scene is chaotic; one not only sees the riot, but hears the noise and cries, smells the burning hashish and flowing wine, and feels the fear and desperation in the air. Through the quotations of the victims' chatty talk, colloquial expressions as well as cant and argot--valuable for socio-historical linguistic studies in their own right--are used to great effect.

The "gaze of the devil" motif is repeated four times altogether, but it is not reduced to a mechanical juxtaposition. Between lines 21 and 23, a memorable line is inserted as a transition between the previous cluster and the next. This oft-quoted line parodies the rahil, or journey, that links the nasib prelude and madih, or panegyric proper, in the classical qasida tradition and thus lends itself readily to a tone of irony:

(22.) "Away! Now this country is a land of virtue and chastity, where a rake's fortune is loss."

If the sentiment expressed in a...