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SAYF B. ḎĪ YAZAN AND THE BOOK OF THE HISTORY OF THE NILEAuthor(s): HARRY T. NORRISReviewed work(s):Source: Quaderni di Studi Arabi, Vol. 7 (1989), pp. 125-151Published by: Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. NallinoStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25802657 .Accessed: 10/12/2011 16:59
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HARRY T. NORRIS
SAYF B. DIYAZAN AND THE BOOK OF THE HISTORY OF THE NILE 1
Sira Sa'biyya is claimed to be the 'folk epic' of the Arabic-speaking peoples. In a sense they are, collectively, the 'Folk epics' of the entire Muslim umma, since many of their themes, their characters, their weaponry and their heroic exploits share both substance, colour and imagery with the
sagas of widely differing Asian and African and some European peoples. Danuta Madeyska, in a paper (as yet unpublished), which was
discussed at the Cairo conference on Arabic Sira held in January, 1985, eritided The language and structure of the sirat', stressed the predominandy bedouin character of the earlier Siyar. Antar, Hildliyya and al-7xr Sdlim. These, in her view, differed, thematically, from the so-called Mamlak Siyar
composed between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, Sayf b. Dt Yazan
amongst them. The early group were more realistic. Mythical and magical elements in them were subdued. In the Mamluk age, an atmosphere of a
fairyland pervaded everything. The hero was, at times, a prince, or a ruler
who had lost his throne. Intelligence and astuteness were highly esteemed.
Religious intolerance or total commitment emerge and dominate the hero's
quests. To cite Danuta Madeyska, 'Those of other faiths are painted in the blackest colours, and concomitantly all means leading to the spread of Islam are permissable, even if these involve breaking its own laws'. To comment in this wise is to generalise. It is certainly the case in this Sira, Sirat faris al
Yaman al-malik Sayf b. Dt Yazan al-batal al-karrdr wa 'l-jaris al-migwar sahib al-bat$
wa'l-iqtidar al-ma'ruf bxl-gazawat al-maShura. Fascinating are the paradoxes and
the incidental details that are contained within it; monarchy versus
monarchy, Sayf balances Sayf, Sam versus Ham. Islam is confronted by star
1 An earlier version of this article formed the basis of a seminar held in the Department of
the Near and Middle East, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1988. It was presented in a paper, and briefly discussed, at the International Conference on l'Oralite Africaine, held in Algiers between the 12th and the 15th March, 1989. That
paper and talk stressed the African orality of parts of the Sirat Sayf as we now have in
textual form. In this article much greater weight is placed on literary elements and a
special emphasis upon borrowings from Arabic geographical and non-geographical texts
and comparisons with late medieval literature in Europe.
QSA, 7 (1989)
and fire worship and not specifically by Christianity. Muslim and pagan
magic and talismanic power are relentlessly pitted, the one against the
other. The stakes are high; the control of the waters of the Nile. The obstacles
that confront the hero king are of superhuman dimensions, his allies and
foes giants or sorcerers, or Amazon beauties of formidable military
accomplishment. A number dwell in a city of Amazons. Such are the deeds
demanded of Wah? al-Falah. Only in the status, and ultimately, after his
conversion, in the very name, of the great Yemenite freedom fighter, Sayf b.
Di Yazan, the liberator of Qahtan and the invader of Kd?, will a divine destiny
guarantee him a prize of great price, the Book of history of the Nile. It is
protected by rulers and sorcerers of Africa at its source which lies near the
Mountain of the Moon.
The first romance of Sayfb. Dt Yazan.
Heroic tales of the exploits of Sayf, also named Aba Murra and
Ma'dikarib, were current as early as the beginning of the eighth century
amongst Yemenite story tellers and men of letters, foremost amongst them
Wahb b. Munabbih (d. 732), though it should also be said that the
presumably earlier Ahbar of the Yemenite, 'Ubayd b. Sarya al-Gurhumi, who was a contemporary of Mu'awiya do not mention him. There appear to be two streams of heroic narrative, one Arab and especially Yemenite, the other
Persian though partly Arab. Both narratives are combined in the extended
story of Sayf in the Sira al-Nabawyya by Ibn Ishaq (d. 768) and by Ibn HiSam
(d. 833). One can probably safely assume that the missing and early work
attributed to HiSam b. Muhammad b. al-Sa'ib al-Kalbi -mentioned by Ibn al
Nadim in his Fihrist- entitled Kitab al-Yaman wa amr Sayf reflected, as do the
reports of Tabari (d. 923), some blending or a fusion of the Arabo-Persian
cycles of oral tales which were by then centuries old. The post-Islamic Yemenite Arabic cycles, based on the fragments
which conclude the text of Kitab al-Tigan 2, are principally concerned with
the mission of 'Abd al-Muttalib to this Yemenite king, who was subservient to Chosroes and who all but ruled in his name. Sayf had read about a prophet
who was to come, in ancient scriptures and in hidden texts to which he had access. The Prophet Muhammad's grandfather explains to him, with joy, how all had now been fulfilled. Sayf, old in years and aware of his
imminent mortality, indeed before that year was out, expresses his great concern for the safety of the Prophet and the threat to him from the Jews, in
particular. He predicts that Yatrib will be the capital of the Prophet and he
2 See the Arabic text of Kitab al Tigan Ji muWkHimyar, San'a' edition, published by Markaz al dirasat wa'l-abhat al-Yamaniyya, no date, pp. 317-321.
126
bids farewell to those in the mission of the Hashimites. He is generous with his gifts when the hour comes for their departure. Little else has a detailed treatment in Wahb's narrative, apart from the description of the assassination of Sayf himself at the hands of his Ethiopian guard who are armed with
spears. It is noteworthy that, in the Muqaddima, Ibn HaldQn is interested
almost exclusively with this alleged mission of 'Abd al-Muttalib. The other cycle of stories, of which we have knowledge, would appear
to draw to some degree upon pre-Islamic and post-Islamic Persian heroic sources.
According to Professor Raymond Nicholson,
the disastrous failure of this expedition (against Mecca) which took place in the
year of the Elephant (570 A.D.), did not at once free Yemen from the Abyssinian
yoke. The sons of Abraha, Yaksum and Masruq, bore heavily on the Arabs.
Seeing no help among his own people, a noble Himyarite named Sayf b. Dhi
Yazan resolved to seek foreign intervention. His choice lay between the Byzantine and Persian empires, and he first betook himself to Constantinople. Disappointed there, he induced the Arab king of Hira, who was under Persian suzerainty, to
present him at the court of Mada'in (Ctesiphon). How he won audience of the
Sasanian monarch, Nushirwan, surnamed the Just, and tempted him by an
ingenious trick to raise a force of eight hundred condemned felons, who were set
free and shipped to Yemen under the command of an agreed general; how they
literally 'burned their boats' and, drawing courage from despair, routed the
Abyssinian host and made Yemen a satrapy of Persian -this forms an almost most
epic narrative, which I have omitted here... because it belongs to Persian rather
than to Arabian literary history, being probably based, as Noldeke has suggested, on traditions handed down by the Persian conquerors who settled in Yemen to
their aristocratic descendants whom the Arabs called al-Abnd (the Sons) or Banu'l
Ahrdr (Sons of the Noble) 3.
However important this source, the fact remains that Arab folk epic material, showing, if anything Greek inspiration rather than Persian, is also
present in the narratives. One recalls Wahriz, the unequalled master of the
bow, like an Arab Ulysses, half-blind, and clearly a prototype for other blind
archers in later Arabic Sira (for example Wizr b. Gabir in Sirat 'Antar). He
shoots MasrQq, the Ethiopian elephant rider, at the third attempt, when
MasrQq is now seated upon a mule. He slays him by aiming at a ruby on his
forehead. Such a story may be matched in the later tales of Abu Zayd al
Hilali and his comrades. They all exemplify the triple elevation or
debasement theme that underpins many an Arabian bedouin tale both oral
and in the Kitab al-Tigan. The Persian story of the wandering freedom-fighter
king and his mercenaries continued to be told for centuries. Long before the
time of NaSwan b. Sa'id al-Himyari (d. 1177), Sayf s fleet was already sailing
3 R. Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs, Cambridge University Press, 1969, p. 29.
127
to the coasts of Africa in the verses of the Yemenite poets whom he quotes in
his book, Sams al-'Ulum. From a romance elaborated from tales of the wars
which followed the pre-Islamic Ethiopian occupation of Arabia, and the
early wars between Sam and Ham, there was now a possibility to export certain thematic elements within it and to apply these to rulers, peoples and
kingdoms situated deep within the heart of the African continent itself.
Relations between Egypt and Ethiopia in the late Middle Ages.
Egypt, (Fustat in particular) almost as soon as the Arab conquest took
place, more especially via story-tellers of Coptic Egypt of Nubia, became a
channel whereby South Arabian oral folk epic and story were to be diffused
throughout extensive areas of the African continent. Egypt was the land
where the Sirat Sayf was later composed 4. Here is Mamluk Egypt, with its
obsession with the talismanic, the astrological, the magical, the starry horizons of heaven, the restless adventurer. Sharing something of its
substance with the One Thousand and One Nights, to the tale of Hasan of Basra to
which it is drawn in specific episodes and in certain details, there are
numerous references to Egyptian towns, names of provinces, or names of
dramatis persona. Rudi Paret, in his classic study, Sirat Saif ibn Dhi Jazan, Ein
Arabischer Volksroman, Hannover, 1924, has indexed and commentated upon such names. They include, Cairo, Aswan, AsyQt, Ahnas, Hulwan,
Damanhur, Manfalut, Ahmim, Giza, Balaq, Aba Sir, Samannad, Dimyat; and even one Pharaonic name, Ramsis (Rameses). The evidence from such
toponymic content is convincing. Many other names, fanciful though they
4 Elements of Sirat Sayf have been found incorporated
in folk-tales recorded in Xauen, Morocco, and Tilimsan, in Algeria. E.W. Lane became aware of textual versions in Cairo and reports the same in his Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, 1836. He alludes to the Sira in the notes to his translation of the One Thousand and One Nights, more especially
where he discusses the tale of Hasan of Basra. Francisco Marcos Marin in his Poesta Narrativa Arabe y Epica Hispdnica, Elementos Arabes en los Origenes de la Epica Hispanica, Madrid, summarizes the content as:
&rat SayfibnDi Yazan Se trata de un principe del Yemen, hijo de madre esclava, que lo abandona al nacer. Es criado por una gacela. Al Ilegar a la juventud recluta un ejercito a cuyo frente pronto llega a ser un heroe. El fondo historico es la expulsion de los abisinios de la Arabia Meridional. Este hecho, con la ayuda del rey persa Kosroes, tuvo lugar hacia la fecha del nacimiento de
Muhammad. La sira es de los ss. XIV-XV (h. 1372?). Un anacronismo evidente consiste en hacer a Sayf musulman, frente a los paganos abisinios. El nombre del aun no nacido, Muhammad es reemplazado en la formula: No
hay mas que un Dios y Muhammad es su profeta por el nombre de Abraham.
Es una sira evidentemente egipcia. Tienen gran importancia la magia y los encantamientos y hay muchos elementos flokloricos egipcios. Es una obra popular, con yuxtaposicion de tendencia que son de un Islam de buena ley y de elementos numerosos de autentico paganismo que no pueden entrar en simbiosis con los principios musulmanes. Por ello es una fiel imagen del alma popular musulmana del
bajo valle del Nilo a fines del Medievo.
128
are in some cases, a few from Persia and lands beyond, reflect the
cosmopolitan nature of the Mamlak age. One name, al-Qasr al-Ablaq (located in Damascus), supplies evidence for the chronology of the composition. This
castle was built by Baybars between 1313-1314 A.D., thus effectively dating the core of the narrative Sira, as it now is, as having been composed no
earlier than the fourteenth century. However, the best key to the approximate dating of the works as a
whole, and the reason for its creation, is to be found in its principal enemy, its anti-hero, though not the most wicked of its villains. Rudi Paret drew
attention to this during its writings in the twenties, and so too have Drs Fu'ad
Hasanayn, 'Abd al-Magid 'Abidin, Farflq HQrSd, Sawqi 'Abd al-Hakim, and
others, in more recent times 5. This is the person of Sayfa Ar'ad, who ruled
Ethiopia between 1344-1372 A.D. He is the contemporary king at the heart of
the story. He is its pivot, Ham personified, the pagan potentate. Nonetheless,
despite the textually-based arguments of FarQq Harsid, it is to be doubted
whether a convincing conflict betwixt Sam and Ham is entirely to be found
in the Sira.
It is not difficult to argue a case, on these lines, from numerous
passages, some of the verses which contrast the sons of Ham with those of
Sam, and obviously the story-tellers have found ample source material in
early verse about the expedition against Mecca by Abraha and the excesses
that were commited in Arabia by his successors. The curse of the Lord on
Noah's son, Ham, for neglect of his father's honour and dignity, is also
found historical literature. Sawqi 'Abd al-Hakim quotes two examples from
the Sira in the following passage from his Mawsu'at al-Folklor wa'l-Asatlr al
'Arabiyya, (Dar al-'Awda, Beirut, 1982, pages 411 and 412):
_o,A__>?
1_uSj'ja I 'js> dJL)I JUL>3 JLo Cl*
jo-?l J_S L*lj
5 See in particular, FarQq HOrshid's introdution to his abbreviated version of the Sirat Sayf,
published by Dar al-SurOq, 1402/1982, pp. 9-23, Turayya Mancp, Sayf b. Di Yazan, bayn al
haqiqa wa'l-ustura, published by Dar al4iurriyya, Baghdad, 1980, in particular pp. 221-240
and Sawqi 'Abd al-Hakim, Mawsu'at al-Folklar wa'l-asatir al-arabiyya, Beirut, 1982, pp. 412^13.
129
Sayf b. Di Yazan, the 'Sword of Islam', was selected for artistic purpose and weight or for some symbolic reason, as well as to bolster any ethnic
partisanship or Islamic sentiment. The lineage of Sayf b. Di Yazan, as given in the Sira, reveals him to be a distant kinsman of Sayf Ar'ad in much the
same manner as Diyab and al-Zanati Halifa are shown to be distandy related
in the Sirat Bant Hilal. Through the Tubba', Hassan, and through Himyar,
Sayf, the Yemenite, is, by a spurious lineage, as his opponent, proclaimed a
descendant of Ka?, the son of Ham, the brother of Sam, son of Noah.
Sayfa Ar'ad was one of the kings of Ethiopia at a time when relations
between Egypt and Christian Ethiopia, which was regarded as a distant ally of the Crusaders, were at their bitterest. Muslim kingdoms around Ethiopia, and Coptic clergy, were pawns in a power game which included the control
and denial of the waters of the Nile as the ultimate weapon of deterrant.
When the MamlQk Sultan, al-Nasir Muhammad b. Qala'Qn began a
persecution of the Copts and destroyed churches, 'Amda Syon I (1313-44 A.D.) father of Sayfa Ar'ad, the virtual founder of the Abyssinian State, sent
envoys to Cairo in 1321 to persuade the Sultan to change his policy. If he
refused, then he threatened to take similar measures against the course of
the Nile. In the event, he carried out his threat against the vassal Muslim states which rapidly declined under his onslaughts. Between 1332 and 1338
the Muslim of Ifat sent an embassy under 'Abdallah al-Zaila'i to Cairo to
request the Sultan of Egypt, al-Nasir Muhammad, to intervene with the
Abyssinian. The Sultan asked the Coptic Patriarch to write a letter to the
Negus. 'Amda Syon continued to expand at the expense of the Muslim mini
kingdoms. His successor Sayfa Ar'ad (1344-72) continued this process and he
assumed the role of the protector of the patriarchate of Alexandria. When the
Amir, SayhUn, the tutor of Sultan, al-Malik al-Salih, persecuted the Christians
and imprisoned the Patriarch Marcos in 1352, Sayfa Ar'ad retaliated by
seizing Egyptian merchants in his dominions, killing a number and
forcing others to convert to Christianity. Al-Nasir Hasan (1361), a puppet Bahri
Sultan at the time, asked the Patriarch to intervene once more. An embassy of bishops was sent to the Negus who was so delighted by them that he
pressed them to stay. According to Qalqa&tndi, the Patriarch intervened also
130
in the early years of the reign of Barqdq (1382-98) and it is possible that both accounts refer to the same episode. Relations improved during the reign of Dawit I. In 1387 he sent an embassy to the court of BarqQq, laden with gifts, though under the Negus, Yeshaq the situation rapidly declined. This Negus, (according to Aba'l-Mahasin), in 1323, annoyed at the closure of the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, massacred Muslims, destroyed their
mosques and raided the Jabarta. The Mamlak Sultan, Barsabay,
contemplated taking reprisals on the Patriarch and the Copts though, in the
event, he declined to do so 6. It is not hard to see all these events as having
shaped the plot of part of the Sira. What is puzzling is why this duo, Sayf Ar'ad and Sayf b. D* Yazan, should have been especially selected.
The fact remains that Sayf Ar'ad's father, 'Amda Syon was a far
greater threat to Mamluk Egypt and to Islam in general. Significantly, he it was who became identified with Trester John' in Europe. Where Ethiopia's king appears in Romance literature, the threat that he made to divert the
Nile's course is mentioned as well as disastrous expeditions to the interior of
Africa and elsewhere, elements of which suggest some influence from the
story of Abraha's repulse from Mecca by divinely sent heavenly squadrons. In all these instances it is 'Amda Syon who is the ruler of Ethiopia and of
gold rich black Africa in general. He appears for example in Orlando Furioso
by Ariosto. Francis M. Rogers in his The Quest for Eastern Christians,
University of Minnesota Press, 1962, pages 106-7 remarks:
The first edition of Ariosto's poem was printed in Ferrara in 1516. Its story of
Astolfo's journey on his hippogriff across North Africa from West to east and
thence to Ethiopia appeared at the appropriate moment to sustain interest in this
imaginary land. An excerpt from the William Stewart translation of the expanded version first published in 1532 follows:
In Ethiopia's realm Senapus reigns, Whose sceptre is the cross; of cities brave, Of men, of gold possest, and broad domains, Which the Red Sea's extremest waters lave.
A faith well nigh like ours that king maintains, Which man from his primaeval doom may save.
Here, save I err in What their rites require, The swarthy people are baptized with fire.
It hardly seems necessary to add that Ariosto himself employed no adjective, and
most certainly not the Italian, equivalent of "swarthy". He proceeds to a description of the castle and then to this explanation:
6 The conflict between Egypt and Ethiopia during this period are conveniently summarised byj. Spencer Trimingham, Islam in Ethiofna, Oxford University Press, 1952,
pp. 48-76. He furnishes full sources for the history of this conflict.
131
The soldan, king of the Egyptian land, Plays tribute to this sovereign, as his head,
They say, since having Nile at his command
He may divert the stream for other bed.
Hence, with its district upon either hand, Forthwith might Cairo lack its daily bread.
Senapus him his Nubian tribes proclaim; We Priest and Prester John the sovereign name.
The episode of Astolfo's visit to Ethiopia has won wide acclaim as the most
beautiful in European literature which the legend of an Ethiopian monarch
named Prester John inspired.. Its astonishing accuracy in detail can only be
explained by the supposition of meticulous study on the part of its author. For
Astolfo's route and for the name "Senapo", Ariosto followed a fourteenth-century Genoese tradition. Senapo, as such competent scholars as Cerulli and Crawford
affirm, is a deformation of the regnal name of an emperor whose reign extended
from 1314 to 1344: 'Amda Seyon I. His regnal name of Gabra Masqal (in Arabic
'Abd aksalib) meant "slave of the cross". The Arabic version appeared as "Senap" on the Angelino Dulcert world map of 1339.
Years after publications of Ariosto's poems, Tasso in the Gerusalemme
Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) reintroduced Senapo, and Alexander
Cunningham Robertson thus presented him to English readers:
Senapo once filled Ethiopia's throne, And still, perhaps, endures his prosperous reign: This potentate the laws of Mary's Son
Observes, and these observe the swarthy men
He rules
One would like to find other reasons why this title of Sayf, whose name incidentally appears in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (composed in about
1386), should have a central importance in the Sira and have such a special importance in Cairo in the latter half of the fourteenth century.
Chaucer, who mentions a certain Algarsayf, as a hero, in his Squire's Tale, may not be enterely irrelevant. Dorothee Metlitzki has shown in her
book, The matter of Araby in Medieval England (Yale University Press, 1977,
page 79), that his name relates to the stars, to Sayf to Sayf al-Oabbdr 'the Sword of the Powerful one', three central stars in Orion which were considered as
forming a sword hanging at the giant's waist. All stars in the constellation are listed as sons or children of al-gabbar, also called al-gawza' in the Muslim
Almagest of Ptolemy. Melitzki writes, 'Algarsayf is one of two brothers and of
three royal children, two brothers and a sister, whose lives, it would seem, are to be completed by the addition of two maidens and a knight. The
structural design of twos and threes in which Algarsyf is a lodestar seems to
132
reflect an astronomical pattern of numbers which Chaucer deliberately wove into the "knotte" of his tale\
The Sirat Sayf reflects a similar balance, a kindred game based upon the stars, which had been a feature of certain Yemenite stories since the days of the heroic marches in the galaxies by the Tubba's in the Kitab al-Tigan. The balance between relations, stars and heroic quests places the &rat Sayf within the whole family of siyar. At the same time, it brings some aspects of its folk
epic construction into close comparison with such border-line siyar as 'Umar b. al-Nu'man (included within the One Thousand and One Nights) and The
Squire's Tale. Haldeen Braddy remarks in regard to the Oriental sources that
appear to have influenced its content7:
As for the incident of Algarsif s winning Theodora by help of "the steede of brass"
(1.666), similar incidents have already been noted in the Arabian Nights and the
Cleomades. The identity of the "strange knyght" (1.89) is a more difficult
question. Perhaps he is not really the ambassador of the "Kying of Arabe and of
Inde" (1.110), but the King'own son, as this disguise is a common literary motif.
Indeed Prince Tag al-MulQk, who in the Arabian collection would thus correspond to Chaucer's "strange knyght", does not disclose to Princess Dunya his real
identity until after she has become convinced that men are loyal and true. But by far the most puzzling circumstance in the fragmentary Squire's Tale is that
Chaucer first introduces Cambalo in 1.31 as Canaceee's brother (he is called
Cambalus in 1.656) only later to state that Cambalo "...faught in lystes with the
bretheren two / For Canacee er that he myghte hire wynne" (11.668-69). Possibly a suitor named Cambalo fought the brothers Cambalo and Algarsif. Possibly, since
the "two brohers" motif occurs in the legend of Prester John, Chaucer means
merely that Cambalo rescued his sister from two knights who were brothers. But, in as much as five lines beforehand Chaucer uses win in the sense of espousal
when stating Algarsif "wan Theodora to his wif (1.664), it seems most likely that
Chaucer means that Cambalo wedded his sister Canacee.
Without pressing the point unduly, I may note the significant occurrence of the
incest motif in the cycle of romances to which the tale of Tag al-MulQk and
Princess Dunya belongs. This tale belongs to a whole series of stories concerning a
family group reminiscent of the personnel in the Squire's Tale; these personages are King Omar bin al-Nu'uman, his two sons Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan, and his
daughter Nuzhat al-Zaman. The adventures of this family comprise one hundred
and one nights, in the famous Medina Edition some four hundred pages, and
compose the longest tale in the whole Arabian collection. These adventures are
excluded from Lane's translation of the Arabian Nights because they depend
"upon incidents of a most objectionable nature", but they are duly included by the
celebrated translator Sir Richard F. Burton. The parallels between the Squire's Tale
and this Arabian analogue is unmistakable: (1) King Omar bin al-Nu'uman's
family has the same membership as Cambyuskan's; (2) Omar, like Cambyuskan, was celebrated for his victories; (3) the two remarkable sons, presumably like
7 See Haldeen Braddy, "The Genre of Chaucer's Squire's Tale", in Journal of English and German Philology, Vol. 41,1942, pp. 279-90 and especially pp. 287-8.
133
Algarsif and Cambalo, performed many brave deeds in their travels; and (4) it is a
story of incest, for Princess Nuzhat al-Zaman weds her brother Sharrkan.
Kanim and the Myth of the Yazaniyyin. Courtly and literary circules in Cairo had reasons to be thinking of
Sayf b. Di Yazan at the time too on account of events to the west of Egypt, in
the remote regions of Chad, in Kanim and Borno, for both are obliquely alluded to in the Sira through the name of TakrQr, the negro wife of Sayf, and by BarnOh, the name of wizard, who plays an important role later in the
plot of the Sira. That westerly region in Africa had become associated with the name of Sayf b. Di Yazan. The scholars of Kanim had earned a place of
respect in lettered circles in Egypt. Ibn Fadl Allah al-'Umari (d. 1349) had
spent many years in Cairo and Damascus. In his Kitab Masdlik al-absar ft mamalik al-amsar, al-'Umari wrote that the first man to establish Islam in
Kanim-Borno was Had! al-'Utmani, who claimed descent from 'Utman b. 'Affan. After his death the realm passed to the Yazani's, the descendants of
Du Yazan. Al-'Umari remarked, that Justice is upheld in their country. They follow the school of Imam Malik. They dress simply and are rigid in
religion. They have built at Fustat, in Cairo, a Malikite madrasa where their
companies of travellers lodge' 8.
During the service of Sihab al-Din Ahmad b. 'AH al-Qalqa?andi (d. 1418), in the chancellary of the Mamlak court, less happy news came from the Sahelian quarter. In his Subh al-a'Sa, the 'dawn of the night blinded one',
composed in 1412, he remarks abour Borno:
There arrived a letter from the king of BarnQ towards the end of al-Zahir BarqQq's reign in which the king mentioned that he was descended from Sayf b. Dm*
Yazan. But he did not establish the genealogy, for he said [also] that he was of
Quraysh, which is an error on their part, for Sayf b. Dhi Yazan descended from
the tubba's of the Yemen, who were Himyarites. This will be mentioned below when we speak of correspondence, in the fourth maqala [of this book], if God
wills. This lord of al-BarnQ had correspondence with the sultan's court in Egypt which will be mentioned there also, if God wills.
The ruler of al-Barnu has also received correspondence from the Sultan's which
will be mentioned there, if God wills.
He continues:
This is the text of a letter which came to al-Malik al-Zahir Aba Sa'id BarqQq. It
arrived during 794/1391-2 in charge of the ruler of BarnQ's cousin with a present. It was prompted by what is mentioned in it concerning the Arabs of Judham who
8 Corpus of early Arabic sources for West African history, translated by J.F.P. Hopkins, edited and annotated by N. Levtzion and J.F.P. Hopkins, Cambridge University Press, 1981, al 'Umari, p. 261.
134
are his neighbours. It is written on square paper with lines side by side, in a
Maghribi hand, without margin at head or side. The conclusion of the letter is
written on the verso, at the foot of the page:
"In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate... "From him who trusts in God (who is exalted), the most mighty King,
the sword of Islam ...Abu 'Amr 'Uthman the King, son of al-Hajj Idris the lamented
Amir al-Mu'minin (may God ennoble his tomb and perpetutate his descendants in
his kingship). These words come by the tongue of our Secretary, who is of our
family - without boasting:
'To the mighty King of Egypt, God's blessed land, Mother of the World:
"Upon you be peace more fragrant that pungent musk, sweeter than the water of
cloud and ocean...
"To proceed: We sent to you our ambassador, my cousin, whose name is Idris b.
Muhammad, because of the misfortune which we and our vassal kings have
experienced. For the Arabs who are called Judham and others have snatched away some of our free people, women and children, infirm men, relations of ours, and
other Muslims. Some of these Arabs are polytheists and deviate from true religion.
They have raided the Muslims and done great slaughter among them because of
a dispute which has occurred between us and our enemies. As a result of this
dispute they have killed our king 'Amr the Martyr b. Idris, the son of our father al
Hajj Idris son of al-Hajj Ibrahim. We are the sons of Sayf b. Dhi Yazan, the father of
our tribe, the Arab, the Qurayshite; thus do we register our pedigree as handed
down by our shaykhs. These Arabs have devasted all our country, the whole of al
Barnu, up to this day. They have seized our free men and our relatives; who are
Muslims, and sold them to the slave dealers (jullab) of Egypt and Syria and others; some they have kept for their own service.
"Now God has placed the control of Egypt from the sea to Uswan in your hands.
These our people have been seized as merchandise, so pray send to all your
territory, your emirs, ministers, judges, magistrates, jurists, market overseers, that
they may look and search and discover. If they find them, let them snatch them
from their hands and put them to the test. If they say: 'We are free, we are
Muslims' believe them. Do not take them for liars. When the truth is clear to you release them. Restore them to their freedom and Islam. For certain Arabs cause
mischief in our land and do not act righteously. They are those who are ignorant of the Book of God and the Sunna of his Messenger. They embellish that which is worthless. So beware of God, fear Him, and do not abandon them to be enslaved
and sold" 9.
9 ibid., pp. 3443.
135
This persistent Kanimi tradition, and its association with the folk stories
about the light-skinned, possibly Saharan, progeny of Sayf b. D* Yazan, that is
red Yemenites, was to be repeated for centuries 10.
They are referred to again in the accounts of the famous navigator, Sihab al-Din Ahmad b. Magid, who included in his Kitab al-fawa'id fi vsul Him
al-bahr wa'l-qaxva'id (completed in 1489/90), which is close to the date when
the text of the Sirat Sayf b. Di Yazan could have assumed its near to definitive
form, brief remarks about the Yazanis of Kanim. It should also be noted that
he refers to the island of Qumr, possibly Madagascar, or to another island off
the coast of East Africa, and it will also be recalled that the geographer, Ibn
Sa'id, names several towns in its insular land mass; HafUra, Qamariyya, Dimli, to name only three. Names derived from these are known in the Sira
and figure prominently there. Gabal al-Qumr, Qaymar and its king,
QamarUn, the Camphor islands (Gaza'ir al-Kafar) and, more importantly,
Qamariyya, the slave of Sayf Ar'ad, wife of D*i Yazan and the mother and, at one point, an incestuous lover of Sayf himself:
'When you reach the place [Sufala] the island of al-Qumr falls away on your left
but the land comes to an end on your right and turns towards the west and north.
There there are deserts and inlets, the first of the darkness when the sun is in
Cancer. The land turns back from there to the land of the Kanim, which is in the
possession of the descendants of Sayf b. Dhi Yazan. They are a white people to the
south of the Sudan [who are white] on account of the distance of the sun from them
in the north, like the whiteness of the Turks and the distance of the sun from
them in the south. As for the blackness of the SQdan, it is because of their being burnt by the sun, for they are close to the Equator near to the sun all the time.
When you get beyond the Kanim you come to the land of the Wahat, which is near to the land of the Westerners. In the old days the pepper road [tariq al-fulful] was from this place*
^
1? On the claim to descent from Sayf in the earlier history of Kanim-Borno, see Dierk
Lange, "Progres de l'lslam et changement politique au Kanem du XIe au XIIIe siecle: un essai d' in terpre tationJournal of African History, XIX, 4 (1978), pp. 495-513. The claim to descent was to be repeated in the latter part of the sixteenth century by the historian, Ahmad b. FortCL See the following passage from Dierk Lange, A Sudanic Chronicle: The Borno Expedition of
Idris Alauma (1564-1516), according to the account of Ahmad b. Fortu, Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden, Stuttgart, 1987 (Chapter One) (Introduction): 'When therefore we became acquaninted with that composition, chronicling the
expedition of Njimi in which he recorded its battles and events, we resolved that would do likewise for the age of our Sultan, who is the king and legist (faqih), the just, the pious, the ascetic, the god-fearing, the faithful and brave al-hajjIdris b. 'Ali b. Idris b. 'All b. Ahmad b. 'Uthman b. Idris, the
pilgrim to the sacred house of God who is descended from Ume b.
'Abd al-Jalil, and who is of the line of Sayf b. Dhi Yazan and of the pure stock of Quraysh and of the marrow of Himyar (may God bless his posterity with a great blessing for the sake of the Master of mankind Muhammad the Chosen, and his Posterity, may God bless him and them and grant them salvation. "He is sufficent for us and an excellent Trustee is He"
'
11 See Levtzion and Hopkins, op. ext., p. 367.
136
ij^j'ri-i f'^' f-*^* OJ*^?^Q~t Vu/ dSJLc^jJl pjLSJI ̂ ^1 dlLjo^-o
77i? exploits of the first Tubba' and his warn Yatrib.
Three of the Islamised peoples near lake Chad were, and are, of the
belief that their Yemenite forbear was extremely ancient, older in fact, than
Sayf. He was the first Tubba* (tubba' al-awwal). Henri Carbou, in his La Region du Tchad et du Ouadai, Part I, 1912, Les Populations du Kanem, (page 7), remarks that the Kanembou, the Boulala and the Tubu (who are themselves, in part, Saharan), maintained an Arab origin for the Kanimi dynasty of
Muhammad Sayf Allah. The latter is mentioned in Ibn Sard's (1286/7) Kitab
cd^ugrufiyd:
'In Cimi,' there resides the sultan of Kanim, well known for his religious warfare
and charitable acts, Muhammadi of the posterity of Sayf b. Dhi Yazan. The capital of
his pagan ancestors before they adopted Islam was the town of Manan. His great
great-great grandfather (gadduhu al-mbi4) was converted to Islam by a scholar and
then Islam spread through the rest of the land of Kanim ^
^jj*ujlAj>j Cl/Mi Jj)K 11 v^*-?j> ^-o--i-> aJL^JI <JJlc13 I g ' t g
, a ^
ij <,> 11 J La3 I^ J Lg->J U jj)g ?t?a H pjtSJl q Ua-lu/ Ig ^SLs
j ?+ul) ^jojJlJ I ̂
I^o,ht?./I J^-s'<*jiSJ\ J^Jl> *<jjicCL*j>[?j ^j'j-j ^3 _j v^L.rt/
jJ^^^o^.Va,>?
<JJui Jl5^ ̂ l^i aSJ-o-o^ jl^ *A- 5 1.0.0 ^ <J^=C AjJrx Li, J^u> dULlA ^UaJLJI Ijl^J^
!2 tfcd,p.l88.
137
According to the oral tradition of the Boulala, Sayf Allah, who had
come to them via Borkou, was lineally preceded by Amr, by IsmdM, by Hdrit,
by Malik or Malik, the son of Tubba4 the first. Rene Basset, poured scorn on
this entire story. Tubba4 was not a proper name, he maintained, it was a title
adopted by the sovereigns of the Yemen, as opposed to the kingly qayl, and
the lordly aristocrat, the du. He had written to Carbou, 4les noms que vous
citez ont ete jetes pele-mele par les chroniques dont je vous parle' 13.
However, Basset was not stricdy correct. Pele-mele did not apply. In the
Ahbdr Vbayd and Kztdb al-Tigdn, Tubba* sometimes appears as a name as so do
all these other regularly quoted, names; Sayfi (spelt with a sad), 'Amr his son, and also Malik or Malik which appear in such variant as Malik Wa'il and
Malkikarib. 'Ubayd b. Sarya refers to As'ad Abu Karib al-Awsat simply as
Tubba*. Wrathful at the murder of his son Halid, As'ad marched to Medina, the city to be, (tumma anna tubba'an sara ila'l-madzna ta'iran Ji'bnihi). There he
meets the alleged murderer, Malik b. al-'Agalan al-Hazragi, who complains about the Jews and who tells As'ad, the monarch, that Halid, was the victim
of a deadly feud between his mother and his wife. Convinced, the Tubba1
relents, and he sends a man with orders to slaughter the Jews. He also gives him the task of destroying Medina. In the event this does not take place. A
Jewish elder, named Ka'b b. 'Amr predicts that the locality will be the future
refuge of a prophet from Mecca. He will be a descendant of Ismdllh. Ibrahim.
He persuades the impetuous Tubba* to stay his hand though it does not later
deter him from going to Mecca in order to raid and destroy there instead. In this repetitive story telling, and other Tubba's have the same evil intent, the
holy cities always escape and the rulers of the Yemen are told, in varied
ways, to show honour to Allah's house and His sanctuary 14. Medina is occasionally referred to in these accounts as Yatrib. In
Wahb's Kztdb al-Hgdn, at the point where Sayf b. Di Yazan listens to the
prophetic words of 4Abd al-Muttalib, Yatrib is the name for the city that is
consistently used. In the popular and condensed versions of these stories it
would appear that the first Tubba4 (Sayf) combines the characters of later
Tubba's and rulers, including Sayf b. Di Yazan. Patterned on the model of a
two-horned Yemenite king and his wazir, al Hidr, the Tubba4 is now
counselled by a wise-man named Yatrib, who beseeches his master, in
signs, to show honour to the two holy cities. It is this version of the story, for
13 Henri Carbou, La Region du Tchad et du Ouadai, Paris, 1912, Vol. 1, pp. 6-7, more especially in the latter.
14 Kitab al-Hgan, San'a' edition, op. cit., pp. 463-5.
138
example, which found favour amongst the Moriscos in al-Andalus 15. It is also to be found, at an earlier and later date, in legendary accounts of the
wanderings of the Sahrawi tribes of the Almoravids, the Gudala, the LamtQna and the MassQfa 16.
One such variation of this story of the first Tubba', or a Yemenite king who invaded Africa, though now named specifically, Ua Yazan, paired with
his wazir, Yatrib, forms the entire introductory narrative and extended
prelude, to the Mamlak or post-Mamlak Sirat Sayf. It shows Yatrib dissuading his master from destroying the holy house in Mecca, and, instead,
accepting the divine signs and dislaying honour to the holiest sanctuary of the religion of Islam which had yet to be revealed. This precedes the wars of
Da Yazan against his neighbours, his foundation of the city of Dar Hamra'
and his marriage with Qamariyya, the slave of Sayf Ar'ad, who will
subsequently cause his death yet who will also give birth to his illustrious son. Here then, is an apparent link between the ninth century Kztdb al-Tigdn, the Mamlak, or post Mamlak, Sirat Sayf and the undated Muslim African
folk epics which were diffused and which explained social, tribal and ethnic
realities amongst the peoples of Kanim and Borno.
The evidence for dating the final versions of the Sirat Sayf is
inconclusive. One suspects that it is relatively recent and there are some (for
example, Professor Abdullahi Smith - see footnote 28) who would maintain
15 Anwar G. Chejne, Islam and the West, The Moriscos, State University of New York Press,
Albany, 1983, p. 109. Tubba1 is referred to as Tabi'u in the following passage although he is
clearly the same person: Tn addition to born Muslims, there were pagans who were compelled to desist from their cruelties and evil deeds in the light of extraordinary signs that foretold the coming of
Muhammad. The Story of Tabi'u shows the futility of tampering with the work of the
Almighty. Tabi'u was a king and the supposed
founder of Yathrib (Medina), who lived
just before the birth of Muhammad and who attempted to destroy the Ka'bah, destined to become the holiest shrine in Islam. Tabi'u mustered an army of some four hundred
thousand, with ten thousand wisemen to advise him. As he was about to attack the
Ka'bah, God gave him a headache and running nose. He summoned scholars,
astrologers, and physicians, but they failed to diagnose or cure his illness. Finally, an old wiseman told him that his illness arose from his intending to destroy the Ka'bah; he could be cured if he desisted. He agreed and was cured. In gratitude he built Medina and named it after Muhammad, whose coming was announced. Furthermore, Tabi'u made the confession of the faith to Islam, leaving a message written in gold for Muhammad, who received it during his flight to Medina in 622. King Tabi'u died the day Muhammad was born'.
16 A good example of it is to be read in the late thirteenth or fourteenth century Magribi work, Buyutatras al-Kubra (see my The Berbers in Arabic Literature, Longman 1982, pp. 148-9) and in the Hulal al-MawSiyya of about 1381/2, and a similar narrative is to be read in al
Sa'di's Ta'rikh al-Sidan, at a much later date. See, in particular, the Arabic text and
translation by O. Houdas, Paris, 1981, (pp. 4r5 and p. 25, Arabic text, and pp. 6-9 and 42-4 of
the French translation). Almost all the chronicles of the Berber tribes of the Sahara drew
heavily on this and other Yemenite inspired accounts of their origins. Several of these
have been selected and discussed in my Saharan Myth and Saga, Oxford Library of African
Literature, 1972.
139
that this might have taken place in the Ottoman age, when conflict with
Ethiopia might have stimulated memories of past Muslim wars against the
Christian kingdoms. There are two clues, however, which may shed light on the date of the composition, the name of its raw, Aba'l-Ma'ali, and the tide
of the Sira that is given in the work's opening page, Sirat AK'l-Amsdr wa-Sa'iq al-Nil min ard al-HabaSa ila hadihi'l-Diyar. The Sra is a Ra'iyya. There is a clear
indication of this in its lengthy final ode of two-hundred and thirteen verses
wherein Sayf's exploits are recapitulated. It is not impossible that an
inspiration for this latter came from the title of al-'Umari's, Kitab Masalik al
Absarfi marnalik al-amsar, wherein so much is said about Kanim/Borno and
Ethiopia and which was cited by al-Qalqa$andi as a major source. The stelar
tide, Sayf al-Gabbar, may also not be wholly irrelevant to the selection of this
rhyming letter (ram). Aba'l-Ma'ali is almost certainly a pseudonym (compare this with al
Asma'i and Aba 'Ubayda in the Srat 'Antar and parts of the Srat Baru Hilal) based on the name of Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Baqi who was known as Aba'l
Ma'ali. A number of legends were included in Arabic writings about the
Negus and his countrymen. These legends had a considerable effect upon the Muslim attitude towards Ethiopia. Three books in particular contain these
legends, Ibn al-Gawzi's Tanwir al-gabaS fi fadl al-Suddn wa'l-Habas', al-Suyati's
Raf Sa'n al-Hutean and Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Baqi al-Buhari's al-Tiraz al
ManquS fi mahasin al-Hubu$ 17 The three authors differed in date. Ibn al-Gawzi was born in 510/1116 and he died in 597/1200. Al-Suyati, who describes his work as an enlarged and very superior recension of al-Gawzi, was born in
804/1402 and he died in 911/1505; while Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Baqi, also known as Aba'l-Ma'ali, died in 991/1583-4. These works cover a span of some
four hundred years. If one takes into account that the texts that they extensively quote are Ibn al-Atir (d. 1234) al-Nawawi, (d. 1277) famous traditionists such as al-Buhari (d. 870) and Muslim, (d. 875), and al-Waqidi (d. 823) and Ibn Ishaq (d. 768), it can be seen that they furnish a synthesis of
observations regarding the Ethiopians about whom the Islamic world knew
relatively little during these centuries. These texts are quite late. They are arbitrary collections of disparate
source material. The employment in isnad is de rigueur. Inconsistencies are
only occasionally noted, queried or qualified by the authors in questions. These works are laudatory epistles, in the case of al-Suyati possibly motivated
by a desire to promote the circulation of his writings in Ethiopia. There is a
strong religious stamp to all these writings which set them apart from the
^ See Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur, 2 band, Berlin, 1902, p. 385, the author of al-Tiim al-ManquS Ji mabasin al-HubuS.
140
earlier observations of aUJd/iiz, Marvazi and others who sought to query the
validity of "the curse of Ham'. Yet in Aba'l-Ma'ali's work (British Museum manuscript, O.R. 4634,
folio 105 ff) there is a short folk tale that touches upon several themes that are
prominent in the Sirat Sayf, (invasions from the Yemen, ethnic conflict, the curse of Ham, facial marks, moles, beauty spots, belief and unbelief, the
triumph of Sam). This is clearly no coincidence. However, if AbQ'l-Ma'ali
died in 991/1583, and it is this work that played some part in shaping the content of the Sira, then we are compelled to date the final versions of the
latter to the concluding years of the sixteenth century. This is a date far too
late for much of the narrative of the Sra itself. A long period of composition seems obvious and it is hazardous to suggest an approximate date other than some time between 1400 and 1600:
Regarding the scars (al-lu'dt), known nowadays as al-shurUt, which are to be
found in the faces of the Ethiopians. The historians and those who are well
informed about strange sayings of wisdom and marvellous secrets, have reported the reasons for these scars and the adherence to the custom of these marks
branded on all the faces of the Ethiopians. It is one from ancient times. As for the
underlying reason for it they have said that one of the kings of the Yemen went to
war against them in bygone days. He besieged and surrounded them. He wished
to kill them, take them captive, rob them of their possessions and destroy their
produce. Due to that they were watchful and persevering, and they asked him for
peace and mercy. They said to him, "We are People of the Book, we follow the
religion of our lord Moses, upon whom be peace. We shall pay you the poll-tax like the other People of the Book, so do not interfere with our possessions and our
lives but grant protection to our peoples, safeguard them and our lands as the other
kings do with the People of the Book". He said, "We used to hear that you were
among those who adored idols like the rest of the Zanj and the Sudan".
They swore by God, by His signs and by Moses and his revelation to them, that
they had never done so, nor had they associated a partner with God. They followed the commandments (shari'a) of Moses -upon whom be blessing and
peace- and they produced arguments and proofs. They confirmed this with
reasonable evidence and testimonies handed down in traditions which they could quote and repeat. They brought their books, their priest and their monks, and they made it plain to him that their way of life and their practises conformed
with their books. When he was satisfied that this was correct and that they were
truly People of the Book he divided them into two protected communities
(dimmatayn) and he established them in their country, and he imposed the poll-tax
upon them, and they were obedient to him. When he desiderd to journey from
their country, the lords of his kingdom and the heads of his state said to them, "It
is useful that you establish a sign and a mark to identify yourselves, so that you will be distinguishable from the polytheists and the idol-worshippers. It will be an
identification of salvation and submission, and it will inform other kings and
people of Islam and the true faith among those who came to this place that you are
People of the Book and not polytheists, nor adorers of idols, and that you are folk
141
who have been granted a status of protection. Thus they will accept the poll-tax from you, and will enjoy protection and liberty".
So they consulted one another in that matter for three days. After diversity of
opinion they were at length in agreement that they would put this brand on their
faces, and they devoted their efforts to this task. Some of them were content to
make a mark between the eye-brows while others made three of them, one
between the eye-brows and two others, each of them adjacent to the eyes. They
accomplished this, and a huge gathering came before the presence of the king with these marks upon them. When he beheld the sight he was amazed and said, "What do you mean by these marks? What is your purpose?". They said, "We
have purposed a way to distinguish ourselves from the polytheists and the
idolators". He said, "Such is to be commended. It is indeed beautiful and not
ugly". He asked one who had been content with only one mark what the reason
for its singularity might be. He was told, "We have done it simply as a sign, in
order to distinguish ourselves. It has been accomplished by this one mark, and
there is no need for a further". But the other said, 'This one mark which we have
put between our eyes is merely a sign, a mark of distinction. As for the other two
which are adjacent to the eyes, such are an embellishment and adornment and a
gain for the eye". He found that commendable and acceptable, and he was
content. He returned to this country and his homelands (the Yemen), and these
marks have remained on their bright and comely faces until now, unchanged and without excess, without blemish or disfigurement.
Sayf seeks the Book of the history of the Nik. In a short chapter, entitled 'the legend of the waters', Ulfa al-Adlabi, in
Nazra fi adabina al-$a'bils compares and contrasts the bride-seeking adventures of Sayf and his son Damir. Through the mastery of waters controlled by magical powers, life and prosperity come to Cairo and to
Damascus, to Egypt and to Syria. Politically, the two countries stand close
together, as was indeed the case in the Mamlak age. Leaving on one side the account of Damir's wooing of al-Gabiya, and his control of the waters of the
Barada, and concentrating exclusively on Sayf s wooing of Sama, the
daughter of King Afrah, I shall comment upon his journey to collect her dower (mahr), the talismanic Book of the history of the Nile, whereby he can turn the great waters of the African river in any direction he pleases. There are formidable obstacles on the way to the temple which houses this book.
However, aided by the wise-woman, 'Aqila, and by his ginniyya half-sister,
'Aqisa, his labours are eventually crowned with success. Just as the pearly bead of Ku? gains Damir's bride, so the Book of the history of the Nile wins the hand of Sama. It wins the Nile waters for Egypt and it spells the doom of the
worship of stars and planets in Sayf Ar'ad's Ethiopia.
18 Published by Mansurat ittihad al-kuttab al-'arab, Damascus, 1974, pp. 122-6. The section in
question is called usturat al-miyah. The Sira of Sayf b. J)l Yazan occupies considerable attention and the author discussed several topics, including the role played by women characters of forceful personality in the plot.
142
Let us select one episode in this Nilotic geste, to illustrate the story teller's art. I am concerned whit that anonymous master artist, or artists, who
composed the Sira, his/their debt to other essentially literary sources for material and for scene and pseudo-historical data that are introduced in the narrative. At the same time I might make, once again, a passing reference to The Squire's Tale in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, where, in the latter, there is that unelaborated allusion to another perilous quest for a bride, though in a
Persian rather than the Arabian manner:
Then I shall speak of Algarsyf his son
And next of Theodora whom he won
To wife, and of the perils he must pass On her account, helped by the steed of brass
(N. Coghill, The Canterbury Tales, Penguin, 1960, page 425).
One special feature about this particular 'steed of brass', mentioned in
another verse of Chaucer's, was that it 'ran within the normal circuit of the
sun'. Solar movement is important. Africa was the habitat of many wonderful steeds, placed there by Ptolemy, or by Ctesias, or through details in the Alexander Romance, or by Mandeville, or in the Hereford Mappa
Muncli, or by the Arab geographers. Al-Dima?qi (d. 1327) tells of the Nile Horse (faras al-bahr), inspired by the hippopotamus. It lives at the borders of
the land of the Abyssinians. It is black in colour, like ebony, and it has a
trailing mane and a tail. 'Sometimes it mates with a mare', he writes, 'and
the resulting offspring is a horse of unbeatable swiftness'. Such horses are the steeds of every Arab folk hero. Sayf s magic steed, Barq al-BurUq, had powers to match Chaucer's.
La Geste du roi Sayf, Chelhod's analysis of the Sira.
J. Chelhod has analysed the Sira of Sayf in an article of this tide 19. His
findings carry us further in the text than the pioneer investigations of Rudi
Paret which are set forth in his own masterly book and his comprehensive article on Saif b. D* Yazan in the Encyclopedia of Islam. Surveying the
thematic complexity of the work, yet bringing out a basic unity, Chelhod stresses that the Nile has always been the mental and geographical horizon
of those who live upon its banks. The Arab geographers and story tellers
were curious to explore or to describe the world at its source. In this particular Sira, notwithstanding the foreign inspiration in many details, and the
cosmological mysteries to which it refers, the essential story is Egyptian.
Ethiopia and Egypt competed for the Nile waters. This was important at the
19 "Le geste du roi Sayf', Revue de VHistaire des Religions, 1967, pp. 181-205.
143
time when Sayf s exploits became the Sira we now know. There was also a
mythological basis to the plot. The Nile did not always flow, so says the
myth, and its valley was once an arid region. If we add the Western African
Sahel, the so-called 'Sadanic Nile', and Lake Chad, or Karkar, to the course of
the river, then all this has a very topical ring indeed. It is, in a way, a
statement of current climatic realities.
The mythological Nile is one of the four rivers of Paradise and the source of it is located in the Mountain of the Moon. Its waters, whiter than
milk, sweeter than honey and more scented than musk issue forth in a
domed structure out of the portals of which emerge four rivers. In the earliest
times, following the creation, Egypt was all well-watered and fertile. Then,
following the flood, the earth was covered by lime and sand. Barren hills
dotted the once fertile plains. The river, which had then settled in a lake
named buhayrat Qasim, stopped flowing, as magical forces had diverted its
natural course. Two magicians of two cities, Gabarsa and Gabalqa, held
captive the waters. Gabalqa wrote the Book of the history of Nile, which he concealed in an inaccessible place that was protected by charms and by talismans. The destiny and destinations of the waters of the Nile were thus
recorded within the pages of a book. Gabarsa, in his fury, blocked the river course with seven mountains and with seven cataracts and he set a guard of
the ginn to watch over the aproaches to this inner southerly and mountainous
region of the African continent.
Aided by the Almighty, by the priestess, 'Aqila, and by 'Aqisa, Sayf obtains the Book of the history of the Nile and, thereby, he masters the river's flow though the obstacles that block its course have also to be removed and the mountains laid low. To attain all his goals Sayf needed seven
instruments of power. Inspired by such details one reads of in the Alexander
Romance, Pseudo-Callisthenes, and thereby displaying certain similarities to
Chaucerian narrative, these seven objects and servant ginn were held to be: 1. The talismanic Book of the Nile.
2. The sword of Asaf, the wazzr of Solomon.
3. The magic horse, Barq al-BurQq, which can subdue the baleful and
hurtful powers of the dwellers in the underworld.
4. The pick of Japheth whereby mountains can be rent asunder.
5. The magic stone of KOS.
6. The picture-board of the subjugated ginn, Haylagan and his brother.
7. The Hfrit, called Rahaq al-Aswad.
Sayf rides forth to reach the source of the Nile. Seated upon his magic steed he sees the waters at a great distance. Counselled by a holy sage of
Islam, he is told that this is a vision of Paradise. He is also told that Allah will
empower the ginn to clear the river bed. he is commanded to mount, to arm
144
himself with his sword and to wear the Book of the history of the Nile as his
breastplate. Rahaq destroys the rocky barriers which impede the flow of the
river, while Sayf routs every foe of magic power that bars his way. At Cairo the waters meet, then branch forth into the Delta. Sayf now turns to convert
the world of men and ginn to the faith of the Prophet. Then he abdicates. His
son, Misr, mounts the throne, and Sayf retires into a mountain region in
order to meditate and to glorify his Maker, recounting, in a lengthy ode, all
the labours and perils which he had experienced and faced and the
achievements of his progeny during a lifetime spent in adventure and in
deeds which would bring glory to the name of the Prophet, to the Yemenites and to the Arabs in general. Obviously, all these ideological and thematic and artistic factors impressed Chelhod more than the purely temporal
dispute which involved the ruler of Christian Ethiopia and the Mamlaks in
Egypt. The Srat Sayf embodies a whole vision of the world, especially Africa, in the MamlOk age. The local gestes of Kanim, of Borno, and parts of Maghrib and Nearer Asia, are borrowed reflections of the values and the heroic
idealism of this exciting age.
Sayf crosses the waters of an African sea on the back of a monster.
Returning for a moment to Ibn Sa'id's report that a distant ancestor of
Muhammad Sayf of Kanim, either Sayf b. Di Yazan himself or a Himyarite forebear of Sayf, was converted to Islam by a pious scholar, brings to mind
that passage in the Sira where Sayf meets the holy Sayh Giyad. The latter
discloses the true monotheistic religion to him, having waited for his
coming, and he tells Sayf to mount upon the back of the monstrous whale like dabba, the constant devourer-to-be of the sun in its 'normal circuit' (citing Chaucer). The whole graphic decription is an unusual one, as the following passage in the Sera shows:
J ;/111 ̂y?u>^jZ^> j>>LJ! dJLJI 'ijL^ ^>LwV
1 Jucl duJ-so jL> ?^J1
c LJ
^jJ Lso <jJL) I 'iS^jJs dL^^jJ^L ^-iJI J lii p L jlg,:Jl J-Jsl ^ pMJDL
jL> ^-iJl
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c 1 - k; H ^Jl ^J! p^-JI ̂ jij ̂ ^Jl V^W^ fW <^^i L^S j
145
^Jcl^o. j t g . * J 1 ̂> I dJ^oo, ^
^r.*-*^-! I ^ I dJ Ub ̂ 5 J I d ? ??lYo 11
d^Ud-Jl ^JajJl^djJu V IjL^>o Aj'V ' ^ ^ f-J^ ^Jl I a Ji 7jLqJI *<L I jJ Iq-sIJjo d.44?ij ^ JUi duJI dJLoLw^lj Vo.
jSS^ J^?J j Ll^V 1 do. is Lo5 Lo^^ Ju50 djl jai
JuLaJl ^-c?iJl l.g ,1c j~J> \
^jo^CjJL5I Jl3 <ui^LgJ! dUbo, VI Loi jLg-jJI jkJtZ^j jLuaJI
v.q <?> L& jJaJ^ Lg "o.\^.1 Lajl^usU dJu^Jio
Lg401 j C...K-0* l.g ?l.c j-t-*>j Jt.?-fco.11 p-?^SJI dJUl ^Soi JLJI dU j ^JL
^?9 Clco t?is I Lfi> Jla-,^ dJuJui *i-<^s Lg-jV dJuJis I jl ^>j VI
d %\s I g x I c ^-L^ Lg-JI f Lai^cjP>.;.7 eJis I ̂ vJ-u*/^ <^c^j>^ I Jl& Ji lg.;tiu>
??J-?"^ j-5 A-L)l jL*o pi lg-??Ljl j p-Jic J L J-h* v-j?L-j*?^ ^1 p^^^LJI j-JI ̂ 1 lg g -*o, *i*i^LgJI dUb c^jl
j li ^Lm,oJI
(?g?-Jl J^iZjijojVl ^^Ic J^j (j-o L^jL ^jj* ^uwJI
I-& ^JL>^ I g q I a. ^j^o q L>^u**/ d.4uJLj ^.9 J Ls^ jii5 I j ix-oQ La I
LjI^ o^o-?V ̂ > ^jb^ci^^iJUJI dULoJI^ I^ f La*oJI ^-L> ^ jJI ^jb^
This da^foz is a creature that is derived from the monsters which occur in the Arabic 'Wonder books' (Kutub al-'Aga'ib) in the Middle Ages. Monsters
of this type occur from time to time, in geographical writings in those works
which are attributed to al-Mas'Udi, in particular. Such literary sources were a
mine of information for the lettered whose handiwork is everywhere in this recited Sira. However, since many of the fabulous creatures were inherited from ancient myth at a popular level, the story tellers drew on village fables
and half-pagan folk tales also to weave their fantasies.
Having acknowledged this debt to geographical and pseudo
geographical works, at the same time one cannot discount the importance of
works that treat of the apocolyptic. As Sayf s magic horse, Barq al-Buruq, owes his name, though not his function, either to the Prophet's steed, Buraq, or to a verse of the poet Umayya b. 'Abd Sams 20 so this dabba may be
inserted there in order to recall the dabbat al-ard which, on the last day, will
come forth in the earth when the sun shall rise in the West and set in the
2? Verse five of the poem published on p. 155 about Sayf b. "Qi Yazan in Muluk Himyar wa-Aqyal al-Yaman, the ode of Naswan b. Sa'id al-Himyari, together with its commentary, Hulasat al-$ira
al-Gami'a, edited by al-Sayyid 'Ali b. Isma'il al-Mu'ayyad and Isma'il b. Ahmad al-Carafi, Cairo, 1378/1958-9.
146
East. It would be a hairy beast, so say the commentators, and it would name
people as either believers or ungodly. The believer would be marked with a
white spot, the ungodly, to quote Abel 21, will have Solomon's seal affixed to the nose and 'it will spread until all his features become black'. According to
al-Zamah?ari and al-Razi, only its head will appear, and it will reach the
clouds in the sky. It will travel in turn through the Magrib, the MaSriq, Syria and the Yemen, proclaiming the vanity of all religions hostile to Islam.
Happening so soon after Sayf s conversion in the narrative, is it far fetched to see something essentially symbolic here?
jF/2 'id and the Nile and the ride on the sea monster in the writings of al-Mas "udx and
pseudo al-Mas udx.
How closely related the Srat Sayf actually is to passages in the Kutub al
'Aga'ib, more especially to parts of the Ahbar al-Zamdn, falsely attributed to al
Mas'Qdi, can be seen in the text itself, though the text which now bears al
Mas'Qdi's name is thought to be a Kitab 'Aga'ib. It is arguably the work of
Ibrahim b. Wasif Sah, who possibly wrote it at the end of the tenth or the
eleventh century in Egypt 22. This was long before the canonic text of Sirat
Sayf was composed and at a time when the hero was still principally associated with his wars of liberation within the Yemen. In this hybrid
composition the author tells of the journey of Ha'id b. Abi Salam, a
descendant of Ishaq b. Ibrahim to Egypt and, later, to the sources of the Nile.
Chelhod 23 points out that this account is repeated later by YaqUt (d. 1215). It
was therefore well known in thirteenth century literary circles.
To quote Chelhod, after having marched for thirty years, Ha'id met a
man named 'Imran, a holy man like Sayh Giyad, who had been told by God to wait for Ha'id and to show him the way. 'To reach the sources of the Nile our traveller had to cross an immense sea on the back of a giant whale-like
creature, the enemy of the sun. When he attains his destination, Ha'id finds
himself before a wall of gold from which descend four rivers which gush forth from four gates in a domed structure also made of gold. Having drunk
of the Nile waters, Ha'id attempts to scale the wall, but he is dissuaded by an
angel who tells him that he cannot enter since its portal is close to Paradise'.
The end of the passage in the so-called Ahbar al-Zaman ('Abd al-Hamid
Ahmad Press, 1938, page 215) reads:
21 See the article on the dabba by Abel in the Encyclopedia of Islam. 22 This whole question is discussed by Levtzion and Hopkins, op. cit., pp. 33-4 and by M.
Cook, "Pharaonic history in medieval Egypt", Studia Islamica, Vol. LVII, 1983, pp. 72-99. 23 See Chelhod, op. cit, p. 202.
147
L-gJoJ p "iJJ ̂ ??oy> ̂ j-JI dbli 4 j^>wJI I JJb ^JU Cl^l US w Jls
CLc5iJl>l jl4^M,0l)y. 1 r?LjUu) *<L!j l^-jli l^Sjli 4 Ub^ol djJo^>li Ub^>T<j^p
J3*. .i>vibli? J>Ls J-*jJ1 ^1 ^^x:^^ l^-Jx U^>ljIfr^Sj I jU
er-i Ig^j^jj^94^1^:^ LftjL>-il^ lgJU> -V^->o-? 2r^^
J .>; 11 pJU
dLJI 0g"* \> lgt*q 4 c-xA t^. lg,44^ IgJ L?j> j
The resemblance of the detail in the passage [above] to that in the Srat
Sayf is a close one. The author of the Sra almost certainly knew this text, or
another variant of it. He undoubtedly borrowed his dabba from it. But he did more than this. He altered the name of Ha'id, and he gave it to Sayh Giyad who is an Islamised character patterned on that of Sayh 'Imran. This one
tiny example shows how much this particular Sira owes its inspiration to
earlier literary sources. Other elements from pseudo Ahbar al-Zamdn are also
integrated at regular intervals into the narrative. Several heroic characters march to find the sources of the Nile in the Ahbar al-Zamdn and kindred literature. Thus, al-Rayan, the son of al-Walid b. Duma', the Amalekite Pharaoh of Egypt, marches to the kingdom of the Damdam cannibals. They are armed with iron spears and their king rides a horned beast of immense size. When they are defeated they withdraw into marshes and jungles (awhdl and adgdl). I suspect that this episode could explain the name of the
negro warriors, 'Atamtam and 'Atamtam Harraq al-Sagar in the &ra; a name
otherwise hard to identify 24.
\ js> j2*3i\ju UJ I i^jjJS Ujj^-f jJ I p^ojjjl
4?SJLoo I ^?L> j^J I J^p.?**J 1 p-o I ^JLc jLwj
iC>5j^ W"^(JP"^' <*ta-Ja? <L?Ij^JU p^SJLo ?jj>^4 JuJL>J I y> p^_?JL>U
d I jS. a-Jl
Lg j.h p^cLcl dJ L^.-v; p-li < aJ U^ q I J LgJ 13 J L>o, 1
Sra? So)/ m context of African popular folk epic and the impact of Islam in Africa. I have attempted to show how, in the oral literature and in popular
written folk epic of frequently un-lettered Islamised peoples, layers of a
higher cultural tradition are concealed, yet still exert an important influence on their modes of thought. The key geographical and historical position of
24 Levtzion and Hopkins, op. cit., pp. 36-7.
148
Egypt explains the particularly important role that it played. In this part oral,
part courtly, literature there is a common reservoir of plots, personalities, symbols, magical powers, and good and evil forces. There is a similar blackcloth against which the key figures play out their destinies. The Arabs seem to have borrowed from the Persians, yet, soon after the conquest, they
may have owed as much to the Copts. The latter were masters at shaping inherited legends to fit Islamic requirements. By the time of the Crusades and the Mamlaks, however, all this material was highly eclectic and
developed and the Copts as such had next to no say in its choice of subject. Further elaboration then took place, and a new emphasis was placed on Islam engaged in a war to the bitter end with a threatening infidelity. A
greater obsession with the magical is to be observed, yet, having conceded
this, there was little added that was not already to be found embryonic in
early Sra, or in Magazz, or in the 'Books of Wonders'. Islamised Africa was an heir to it yet at the same time made no small
contribution to it. Recently, Mme Fatimata Mounkaila has completed a thesis in the University of Dakar on the subject of Le Mythe et VHistoire dans la
geste de Zabarkane. In it she shows how, amongst the Zarma, mythical heroes come from the east and the north-east. Ideas borrowed from oriental texts, since Islamisation began, have brought together Zibriqan b. Badr, Tamim al
Dari, the Companion, and Sombo-Mali Bero into one standard pseudo historical folk epic in Niger 25.
The explorer, Gustave Nachtigal, towards the end of the last century, mentioned that the Bouddoma near Lake Chad, who were at least nominally Muslim, had a priest who watched over the talismanic objects, the help of which was sought in time of drought and calamity, a calebasse, a
mysterious and historic stone and a magical sword, though the greatest sovereign and protective power of all was a giant creature, some kind of
serpent, a ddbba it would seem, that inhabited the lake, the Genie of Chad. One never failed to implore it for assistance in time of grave happenings. It, or he, was there to offer counsel and to show his support. Is this borrowed or
indigenous, it is impossible to say? 26
25 Compare the conflict between Sayf b. Di Yazan and Sayf Ar'ad in the Sira and the
following comment by Dr. Mounkaila (with whom I have personally discussed these
comparisons) about the heroes in the geste of Zabarkane: 'Or ce qui frappe en premier lieu c'est une presentation tres nettement dichotomique de ce
tableau, parce que la geste presente deux points de departs initiaux:
- la Peninsule Arabique avec Zabarkane, dans un environnement alors domine par le
Prophete Mahomet et 1'Islam; - Malle ou Sudan Occidental avec Sombo-Mali Bero, un descendant du musulman
Zabarkane et, qui recourt largement ux forces de religions paiennes africaines. Le fosse est large entre les deux personnages'.
26 See Dr. Gustave Nachtigal, Sahara et Soudan, tome premier, Paris, 1981, pp. 501-2.
149
In his journey through Kanim and Borno, Nachtigal learnt of the
claim of their rulers to the lineage of Sayf. He was aware of the texts which
his predecessor, the explorer Henry Barth, had made familiar 27. In the view
of Nachtigal, Sayf s wanderings, via Kufra and Bardoa to Kanim, might be a
hazy folk memory of some early wanderings of Himyarite families from
the Yemen, Ethiopia or the Sudan, over many generations towards the lake, these numerous generations having been telescoped into that of Sayf, their
father, and so, ultimately, back to a nameless first Tubba'. Sceptics would
dismiss this as a mere speculation, yet there is no alternative to examining historical probabilities for such sagas when endeavouring to unravel the
mystery of the unrecorded past of such peoples. This is their value.
Islamised, yes, but so too was Alexander Islamised and this happened far
earlier and it was achieved by the Yemenite Arabs themselves 28. The deeds
of such an Islamised or Arabised superman will be remembered and cherished for generations. As Sayf was to say himself at the end of the Sira
in his lengthy ode, prior to this retirement from the world, 'Our deeds in
Cabal Qaf, the world's remotest mountain range, will be widely known and
they will continue to be recounted amongst the traditions in the memory of mankind'.
27 H. Barth's Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa, first published 1857, especially his historical notes and chapter XXIX, Authenticity and general character of the History of Bornu. For a convenient summary of Barth's historical and literary discoveries, and those cited by H. Richmond Palmer, see
Joseph N. Cuoq, Recueil des Sources Arabes
concemant VAfrique Occident ale du VIII* au XVI* siecle (Bilad al-Sudan), Editions di C.N.R.S., Paris, 1975. In his introduction (p. 34) Cuoq remarks: 'La deuxieme tendance a ete celle de chercher a s'attribuer une origine sud-arabique.
Ainsi les Sudan de la region di Kukya (au S.E. del Gao) font venir leur ancetre du Yemen; ceux de Kanem s'attribuent une
origine himyarite, en reconnaissant comme leur ancetre le sultan Sayf b. dhi 1-Yazan. Ces indications ne paraissent pas
etre d'origine africaine. Ce sont des
genealogies d'emprunt, que les sultans ont probablement importees de leurs
pelerinages aux heux saints de 1'Islam, ou ils entendirent celebrer les gloires de Sayf b. dhi 1-Yazan. Nous avons ici une genealogie de type ideal par prestige.' See likewise his remarks in footnote (4) on p. 370.
28 An appreciation of the African contribution to this, as well as translations from Nigerian manuscripts, is to be read in the valuable essay 'The legend of the Seiwufa: A study in the
origins of a tradition of origin', by the later Professor Abdullahi Smith. This has been
published (pp. 25-56) in a collection of his works by the Abdullahi Smith Centre for Historical Research, Zaria, Nigeria, 1987. As de
Polignac mentions in his article in
Arabica, Tome XXIX, L'Image d'Alexandre dans la htterature arabe, 1'Orient face a
l'Hellenisme?, 'L'annexion religieuse qui recouvre ici l'aspect cosmologique de l'activite du batisseur. La primaute accordee au fibre exercice de la volonte divine au detriment de la determination astrale ne diminue guere 1'importance des considerations astrologiques et magiques dont depend le sort de la cite'.
150
RESUME La Sira de Sayfb. Di Yazan de la fin de la periode medievale a ete generallement
etudiee et interpretee en tant qu'une expression d'hostilite des Arabes envers les
Ethiopiens qui ont soumis le Yemen et ont essaye de detruire la Mecque. Au 14*me siecle deux souverains Ethiopiens, 'Amda Sydn (1314-44) et son successeur Sayfa ArUd (1344-72), presentaient une menace et pour les royaumes musulmans voisins de
I'Ethiopie, et pour les souverains Mamluk de VEgypte. Ce conflit est essentiel a la raison d'etre de la Sira.
Neanmoins, il serait imprudent d'insister sur ce contexte historique seulement.
Beaucoup d'eveenements dans la Sira n'ont aucun lien avec ce conflit. Par ailleurs, ily a beaucoup d'emprunts des travaux de Wahb b. Munabbih, Kitab al-Tigan, et d'al
Mas^udii, Kutub al-'Aga'ib. A la difference d'autres Siras, celle de Sayf parait qu'elle a ete exportes a des
regions en Afrique oil son hero allait devenir Veponyme d'une dynastie souveraine
musulmane, d'origine Arabe, Berbere ou de Teda. Au Kanem et Borno, la Sira de Sayf semblait etre tres importante a son histoire medievale et a VIslamisation de la region pres du Lac du Tchad. On pent distinguer un lien ideologique entre les souverains de
Kdnim/Bornu et la Sira. Cependant, on sait pas encore si les souverains en questions ont fait usage d'une partie du complot canonique ou non.
151