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Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded. Yūsuf al-ShirbīnīЧитать онлайн книгу.

Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded - Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī


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in the same passage to “the shaking of their caps” (hazz quḥūfihim), and the overall similarity of the language used to describe them to that used of the peasants (e.g., “they are like dumb animals” (§7.1)), place them squarely in the same geographical and social category as al-Shirbīnī’s country people, and it is clear that they were central to his picture of the countryside.

      In addition to their wearing distinctive headwear, al-Shirbīnī’s country fuqarāʾ are distinguished by certain appurtenances, namely their “prayer beads and pitcher . . . their cockerel and fodder” (§7.1); they also carry crutches (§7.33) and wear a bonnet (zunṭ) (§8.24). They are described on occasion as shaving their beards (§7.38), they include women (§7.6), and they are accused of claiming that they have been relieved of the requirement to obey God’s commands (§7.3, §7.4, §7.7). Al-Shirbīnī holds them guilty of a variety of heretical beliefs (e.g., materialism (§7.34), reincarnation, the transmigration of souls (idem), and pantheism (§7.9)) and practices (sexual intercourse with women and boys during their ceremonies (dhikr) (§7.7) and prayers (§7.22) and a general propensity for fornication (§7.2), especially the seduction of young male novices (§7.21, §7.30, §7.38)). They practice charlatanism (§7.38), theft (§7.16), burglary (§7.31), murder (§7.7), and even cannibalism (§7.7). They roam the countryside, either with a single disciple (§7.16) or in groups (§7.38), and actively seek to recruit others, including the well-to-do, to their beliefs (§7.8). The tone of al-Shirbīnī’s treatment may be illustrated by his lines on a certain dervish who came to a bad end, to the effect that “He lived in vomit and foulness / And he died in shame and shite” (§7.10).

      The Satire on Rural Life

      Constructing a Moral Economy

      Al-Shirbīnī takes pains from the outset of Brains Confounded to provide a moral framework to support his construction of the “people of the countryside.” It is by linking his subjects to the elements of that framework that he generates the authority needed to judge and condemn them.

      The Refined and the Coarse

      The moral economy invoked in Brains Confounded is defined by the opposition between refinement (or subtlety or grace) (laṭāfah or luṭf) and coarseness (or grossness or crudeness) (kathāfah), terms that are linked to the inhabitants of the book from the opening statement of themes. There, al-Shirbīnī proclaims the requirement to praise God because He “has distinguished the man of sound taste with refinement of form and sweetness of tongue, while bestowing on his opposites—the likes of the common people of the countryside . . . —wickedness of disposition and coarseness of nature” (§0.1).

      This opposition between what is refined (laṭīf) and what is coarse (kathīf) continues throughout the book. In a chapter heading, the author promises to tell of things that befell certain common people of the countryside and give a description of “their vulgarity” (ṭabʿuhum al-kathīf) (§2.1). A simile used by a rural poet is condemned as a “coarse comparison” (tashbīh kathīf) (§5.8.3). Peasant names are grotesque, for it is a fact that “names point to the refinement (laṭāfah) or coarseness (kathāfah) of those who bear them . . .” (§2.13), and so on.

      This moral polarity is reflected in geographical and social terms in the contrast between the countryside and its people on the one hand and Cairo and its people on the other. Cairo is both the city par excellence—as already noted, when peasants refer to “the city,” they mean Cairo (vol. 2, §11.37.2)—and the font of all that is refined. From al-Shirbīnī’s perspective, there is “no place like Cairo, / And no people like its people” (§8.44). He prays that God may protect it because it is “the city of conviviality and amusement, of pleasure and fulfillment, whose women God has distinguished by making them comely and handsome, full of loveliness and perfection, sweet in their social relations, refined in their conversations” (vol. 2, §11.37.2). The contrast is, of course, in Cairo’s favor: “God reward [the men of Cairo] for their doughtiness, granting them everlasting pleasure in their womenfolk and seasoning to perfection their togetherness, and God protect us from the countryside and its stupidities, the coarseness of its food and of its people’s proclivities!” (vol. 2, §11.12.6). In terms of literature, a “despicable comparison” made by a rural peasant (§5.6.12) is contrasted with “a witty simile referring to a refined beloved” penned by al-Shirbīnī himself (§5.6.13). In the first passage in the book in


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