EL HEJJAJ AND THE THREE YOUNG MEN.[1]
They tell that El Hejjaj[2] once commanded the Master of Police [of Bassora] to go round about [the city] by night, and whomsoever he found [abroad] after nightfall, that he should strike off his head. So he went round one night of the nights and came upon three youths staggering from side to side, and on them signs of [intoxication with] wine. So the officers laid hold of them and the captain of the watch said to them, “Who are ye that ye transgress the commandment of the [lieutenant of the] Commander of the Faithful and come abroad at this hour?” Quoth one of the youths, “I am the son of him to whom [all] necks[3] abase themselves, alike the nose-pierced[4] of them and the [bone-]breaker;[5] they come to him in their own despite, abject and submissive, and he taketh of their wealth[6] and of their blood.”
The master of police held his hand from him, saying, “Belike he is of the kinsmen of the Commander of the Faithful,” and said to the second, “Who art thou?”
- ↑ Breslau Text, vol. vi. pp. 188–9, Night ccccxxxiv.
- ↑ El Hejjaj ben Yousuf eth Thekefi, a famous statesman and soldier of the seventh and eighth centuries. He was governor of Chaldæa (Irak Arabi), under the fifth and sixth Khalifs of the Ommiade dynasty, and was renowned for his cruelty, but appears to have been a prudent and capable administrator, who used no more rigour than was necessary to restrain the proverbially turbulent populations of Bassora and Cufa. Most of the anecdotes of his brutality and tyranny, which abound in Arab authors, are, in all probability, apocryphal.
- ↑ Used, by synecdoche, for “heads.”
- ↑ i.e. the governed, to wit, he who is led by a halter attached (metaphorically of course) to a ring passed through his nose, as with a camel.
- ↑ i.e. the governor or he who is high of rank.
- ↑ i.e. their hair, which may be considered the wealth of the head. This whole passage is a description à double-entente of a barber-surgeon.
