If that alone were all it did for us — never mind its forward dashing—
One couldn’t think to ask for more.
Then when he got up the following morning, it came to him how far still his new abode was from home but he said, “I seek refuge with God!” and “We are God’s and to God we return!” and put a brave face on it, because such complaints do not find a sympathetic ear among those people — so much so that a few days after his complaining of how long he’d been separated from his wife, his friend told him, “The other day you spoke extravagantly. You said, ‘I long for my wife!’ but it would have been more proper to say ‘for my children.’” “What,” the Fāriyāq asked him, “is wrong with a man speaking of his wife as he might of his children? Without the wife, there wouldn’t be any children! Nay more: without women there would be nothing in this world, neither religion nor anything else.” “Hush, hush!” said his friend. “You go too far.”
4.5.4
“Listen to what I say!” said the Fāriyāq. “Were it not for Pharaoh’s daughter, Moses would not have been saved from drowning and were it not for Moses, there would be no Old Testament. Were it not for a woman, Joshua would not have been able to enter the Promised Land and take possession of it.363 Were it not for a woman, Abraham would not have found favor with the King of Egypt and obtained from him gifts and presents, thus preparing the way for the descent of the Jews into Egypt after him.364 Were it not for a woman, David would not have been saved from the hand of Saul when he decided in his breast to kill him, which was achieved by his placing an image in his bed,365 and were it not for David, there would be no psalms. Nay more, were it not for a woman, meaning the wife of Nabal,366 David would not have prevailed over his enemies. Were it not for Bathsheba’s stratagem against David,367 Solomon would not have made his son king and the temple of God would not have been built in Jerusalem. Were it not for a woman, Jesus would not have been born and the news of his resurrection would not have been broadcast. Were it not for a woman, the Anglican sect would not be doing as well as it is today.368 Furthermore, your painters depict angels in the form of women and your poets never cease writing poems to women, without which no poet would ever shine.”
4.5.5
“As far as I can see,” said the other, “you are merely lusting after a woman — a trait, it seems, that is common to all Arabs.” “Indeed,” he replied, “I am their epitome and pattern, and every man who utters the ḍād has a weakness for the ḍaʾd.”369 The man hung his head for a moment, then said, “You may be wiser than those who deviate toward the mīm,370 for I have heard that there are many mīm-ists, who abandon the broad highway in favor of ignoble back alleys, which is the ugliest thing imaginable. Uglier still, though, is the fact that certain Arab authors have composed books on the subject and deceitfully sought to present arguments that the mīm-ist craft is the better.” “That is so,” said the Fāriyāq. “Among them is a book I came across in the Cambridge library on which I found written in English the title A Book on the Laws of Marriage, the one who bought it seemingly having failed to grasp its contents. One of the most scurrilous arguments made in support of such things is the words of a certain poet who said
I make no final decision between buggery and mainstream fornication—
I merely follow the words of those who’ve written,
‘Gratification all lies in the dirtier of the two neighbors,
So choose, if you can, the more beshitten.’
“The reason why the likes of these woman-shy authors wrote such books is either their impotence, for women will have nothing to do with anyone who is so afflicted, or their stinginess, because women are more expensive to maintain, or their lack of the means to attract them, or some other defect. Those of sound makeup, however, never leave the straight path in the first place.”
4.5.6
The Fāriyāq stayed at his friend’s house for a while, during which he was invited to splendid banquets in the homes of certain notables. It is customary at their banquets for the women to sit at the table with their arms and breasts exposed, so that the observer can see the flesh of their chests, their bosoms, their breasts, and their cleavages, and if he stretches his neck and cranes his head and is good at holding his head steady, he can see the dark ring around their nipples (ah, what a dream!). It’s one of those customs that is to be praised from one perspective and condemned from another, in that this exposure is a general rule for both young and old; indeed, the old women of the Franks, and especially the English, uncover themselves more and put on more youthful airs than do the young girls. Then the invitations became fewer and the Fāriyāq’s disquiet grew stronger, since no one who had looked on his countenance once wanted to look on it a second time, and he decided it was better to return to Cambridge. When he arrived there, he found that that the “domes” had grown by some three inches, this being due either to his having been so long away from them or because the more bitter cold required that.371
4.5.7
Here an edifying observation must be made, to wit, that given that Cambridge and Oxford are, as previously mentioned, celebrated as schools of learning, and given that most of the students are rich and that each city has something in the region of two thousand of them, the pretty girls from the surrounding peasant villages return time after time to the markets of these two cities to find buyers for their youth and beauty. As a result, you will see in these cities examples of exquisite beauty and dazzling good looks such as you will not find in any other. But “for everything that falls there’s something to pick it up,”372 as they say, which is why our shaykhs the students would look at every addition to the town’s population as might a she-cat being robbed of her kittens. Consequently, the Fāriyāq left these tomcats and their females behind — a decision whose correctness was confirmed in his view when he came across the proverb that says, “When you enter the land of al-Ḥuṣayb, run!”373—and stayed in London for close to a month.
4.5.8
A D
ESCRIPTION OF
L
ONDON, OR
L
ONDRA
,
374
ACCORDING TO THE
F
ĀRIYĀQ
See the proud and capricious lady in her duds, strutting before the manly studs! With a furious stare she gives them a zap, dragging behind her her skirts and her wrap. As I say in a poem of mine
Coquettishly she set off, dragging her train,
Causing the suffering lover yet more pain.
Among them she finds no match and mocks them with her smiles — they’re not up to scratch. Be mindful, fair lady, that among them is to be found the strongest and the ablest, the manliest and the wealthiest, the speediest and the toughest, the strongest and at stripping the quickest, the best at felling and the pressingest, the proddingest and the pokiest, the lippiest and labia-lovingest, the sticky-outy-est and the largest thingy-est, who, when he hugs, moans, when he smells, snorts and when aroused, groans; who if winked at, responds in a flash and, the moment he sees a drum, plays on his pipe; who on seeing a woman with body lavish is quick to ravish.