Do you want to spin tales and trick men out of their money? Do you want to impersonate all kinds of people and characters? Do you want your deceptions to get you past guards and judges? If you want to learn to be a Rogue, then you can find no better teacher than Abū Zayd al-Sarūjī.
This Abū Zayd is actually a literary character – he is the con man who appears throughout the pages of Maqamat al-Hariri, created by Al-Hariri of Basra (1054–1122). His collection of fifty stories has Abū Zayd showing up at parties or in front of a judge, where this trickster displays his skills and leaves his victims a little poorer. The Maqamat al-Hariri became an instant hit when it was published and is still regarded as one of the great gems of Arabic literature.
The new translation of Maqamat al-Hariri by Michael Cooperson, entitled Impostures, offers readers a new way of appreciating its artistry and the wordplay of the original text. In story 49, we have Abū Zayd supposedly on his deathbed, and his son comes to him to receive fatherly advice.
Abū Zayd begins by explaining that there are usually four ways to make a livelihood – agriculture, manufacturing, commerce, and government – but he finds faults with all of these. Instead, he advises his son to become a con man and succeed him by entering what he calls the “Parliament of Rogues.” He then explains what it is to be like a rogue:
Let storms rage, and men run riot: unmoved, the Rogue looks upon tumult. His assembly is full of gaiety and spirits, his meals appear promptly and his conversation sparkles. Whenever he stops, he finds something worth picking up; and it cannot insinuate himself without earning some profit or other. He belongs to no nation and fears no king. He and his brethren are like “the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap,” yet home they fly with bellies full.
Abu Zayd and his son – Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Arabe 3929
The son is enthusiastic to follow in his father’s footsteps, but he asks to know more – to find out what skills you need to be a rogue. Abū Zayd replies:
My dear son, you must be active, diligent, alert, indefatigable, and above all things, forward. You must race like the cincidèle, scramble like the locust, spring like the wolf, and run up by moonlight like a fox. Do not trust fortune; but rather let striving supply the want of luck, and labour overcome the enmity of circumstance. Wriggle yourself into every hole; dive into the “dark, unbottomed, infinite abyss”; “graze the verdant mead”; and plunge your bucket into every cistern. Take no denial: repulsed twice or thrice, persist and you will prevail at last.
Abū Zayd continues on, offering various bits of advice. Here are some of them:
Perfect your elocution, and use it to attain your ends; for it is the ears that must be flattered and seduced, and this can only be done by eloquence.
Survey the market before you supply it; coax the teat before you milk it; inquire of the pasture before you graze it; and pommel your bed into softness before you lie in it.
Refine your powers of observation and discernment, for poor judgment leads to error, and error to disappointment, while a moderate share of penetration will be amply rewarded.
Refine your powers of observation and discernment, for poor judgment leads to error, and error to disappointment, while a moderate share of penetration will be amply rewarded.
Indulge weakness in others, but not yourself.
Despise no draught as too scanty; rather than await the torrent, gather the dew. Never refuse a trifle, and be grateful for what is offered, however small. Accept no refusal, for even a solid stone may yield a drop.
Keep your coins on a tether, and temper your generosity with prudence. Do not squander your gold dinars away, but scorn to wrangle over dirhams.
If you resolve to go abroad, you will find good company as needful as your stick and baggage. As the saying goes, “A heaven without friends is no heaven at all,” and the Franks say, very prettily, “Better alone than in poor company.”
And perhaps most importantly:
Push yourself forward, even if a lion stand before you; for fortune favours the intrepid, and daring lends ardour to the tongue. By boldness alone are riches won and rank attained. Timidity, on the other hand, begets only failure. If you set out with diffidence, your labours will miscarry and your efforts come to nothing. Thus it is said that ‘the bold adventurer succeeds the best,’ while he who hesitates is like the ass in the fable, that starved between two hampers of hay.
There is more advice from Abū Zayd, but I think it wise that would-be rogues should not know all the lessons so quickly. It would be best if you got a copy of Michael Cooperson’s Impostures, published by New York University Pressas part of its Library of Arabic Literature.
Do you want to spin tales and trick men out of their money? Do you want to impersonate all kinds of people and characters? Do you want your deceptions to get you past guards and judges? If you want to learn to be a Rogue, then you can find no better teacher than Abū Zayd al-Sarūjī.
This Abū Zayd is actually a literary character – he is the con man who appears throughout the pages of Maqamat al-Hariri, created by Al-Hariri of Basra (1054–1122). His collection of fifty stories has Abū Zayd showing up at parties or in front of a judge, where this trickster displays his skills and leaves his victims a little poorer. The Maqamat al-Hariri became an instant hit when it was published and is still regarded as one of the great gems of Arabic literature.
The new translation of Maqamat al-Hariri by Michael Cooperson, entitled Impostures, offers readers a new way of appreciating its artistry and the wordplay of the original text. In story 49, we have Abū Zayd supposedly on his deathbed, and his son comes to him to receive fatherly advice.
Abū Zayd begins by explaining that there are usually four ways to make a livelihood – agriculture, manufacturing, commerce, and government – but he finds faults with all of these. Instead, he advises his son to become a con man and succeed him by entering what he calls the “Parliament of Rogues.” He then explains what it is to be like a rogue:
Let storms rage, and men run riot: unmoved, the Rogue looks upon tumult. His assembly is full of gaiety and spirits, his meals appear promptly and his conversation sparkles. Whenever he stops, he finds something worth picking up; and it cannot insinuate himself without earning some profit or other. He belongs to no nation and fears no king. He and his brethren are like “the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap,” yet home they fly with bellies full.
The son is enthusiastic to follow in his father’s footsteps, but he asks to know more – to find out what skills you need to be a rogue. Abū Zayd replies:
My dear son, you must be active, diligent, alert, indefatigable, and above all things, forward. You must race like the cincidèle, scramble like the locust, spring like the wolf, and run up by moonlight like a fox. Do not trust fortune; but rather let striving supply the want of luck, and labour overcome the enmity of circumstance. Wriggle yourself into every hole; dive into the “dark, unbottomed, infinite abyss”; “graze the verdant mead”; and plunge your bucket into every cistern. Take no denial: repulsed twice or thrice, persist and you will prevail at last.
Abū Zayd continues on, offering various bits of advice. Here are some of them:
Perfect your elocution, and use it to attain your ends; for it is the ears that must be flattered and seduced, and this can only be done by eloquence.
Survey the market before you supply it; coax the teat before you milk it; inquire of the pasture before you graze it; and pommel your bed into softness before you lie in it.
Refine your powers of observation and discernment, for poor judgment leads to error, and error to disappointment, while a moderate share of penetration will be amply rewarded.
Refine your powers of observation and discernment, for poor judgment leads to error, and error to disappointment, while a moderate share of penetration will be amply rewarded.
Indulge weakness in others, but not yourself.
Despise no draught as too scanty; rather than await the torrent, gather the dew. Never refuse a trifle, and be grateful for what is offered, however small. Accept no refusal, for even a solid stone may yield a drop.
Keep your coins on a tether, and temper your generosity with prudence. Do not squander your gold dinars away, but scorn to wrangle over dirhams.
If you resolve to go abroad, you will find good company as needful as your stick and baggage. As the saying goes, “A heaven without friends is no heaven at all,” and the Franks say, very prettily, “Better alone than in poor company.”
And perhaps most importantly:
Push yourself forward, even if a lion stand before you; for fortune favours the intrepid, and daring lends ardour to the tongue. By boldness alone are riches won and rank attained. Timidity, on the other hand, begets only failure. If you set out with diffidence, your labours will miscarry and your efforts come to nothing. Thus it is said that ‘the bold adventurer succeeds the best,’ while he who hesitates is like the ass in the fable, that starved between two hampers of hay.
There is more advice from Abū Zayd, but I think it wise that would-be rogues should not know all the lessons so quickly. It would be best if you got a copy of Michael Cooperson’s Impostures, published by New York University Press as part of its Library of Arabic Literature.
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Top Image: Abu Zayd and his son. Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Arabe 6094 fol.180
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