BOYS FOR HIRE
BY AHMAD AL-TIFASHI
“Boys for hire” is the sixth chapter of The Delight of Hearts by Aḥmad ibn Yusuf al-Tifashi (1184-1253), which, with its translation (through the French of René R. Khawam) into English by Edward A. Lacey, and the amendments to it made on this website, are introduced here. A glossary there is critically important for the reader wanting to understand the precise meaning in what follows of various key words as ordinary as “boy”.
Interesting stories concerning boys for hire. The wittiest and most refined poems composed by and about them.
ABU-NUWAS[1] HAS LEFT US as incomparably rich treasure of anecdotes and poetry on this subject. According to all accounts he possessed an incredible degree of self-assurance. His physical perfection and gracefulness captivated all who looked on him. It is not surprising, then, that he should have conquered every heart as well, as much with his charming manners as with his poetic genius. All the young men of Basra were his intimate friends, attracted both by their own amorous inclinations and by the pleasure of his company.
“The only kind of man I will accept as a friend,” he declared one day, “must be at one and the same time personable, cultured in all fields, brave and generous. He must also be an Arab and a poet.”
“Waliba son of al-Hubab[2] combines all those qualities,” he was told.
“Let me hear a poem by him, then—a love poem, preferably.”
One of his companions recited the following poem:
Although she flourishes
not the smallest dart,
she shoots a love sharp as the tips
of spears.
With a violent love
she has wounded your heart:
see this heart, everywhere
these wounds that pierce!
“Nothing could be added to those lines to lend them greater tenderness and sweetness,” pronounced Abu-Nuwas. “Now repeat something in the descriptive vein by him.”
His friend quoted the following lines from the same poem:
Her sculpted thigh has been marked
with the seal
of the farthest boundary of happiness
a man may feel,
as if the breath of the winds
in this extraction
had concentrated the essence
of all seduction.
“No verses can be compared to those,” concluded Abu-Nuwas.
Then he went to make Waliba’s acquaintance. When he reached the section of the city where the poet lived, he asked for directions, and neighbours showed him the way. Waliba had a house where people used to gather for drinking parties. Youths got together there, and nobody was turned away. Abu-Nuwas appeared at the door and asked to be let in. He was invited in, went to the reception room, and found Waliba lying there in a drunken sleep. He asked the servant-girl:
“Do you have anything to eat?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Bring me whatever you have.”
She brought him some food, and he ate.
“Do you have anything to drink?” he said next.
“You,” she answered.
“Then bring me some!”
She brought him wine, and he drank until he too was overcome by drunkenness and fell asleep right where he was. When Waliba woke up, he was Abu-Nuwas sleeping and asked the servant-girl where this visitor had come from. She told him the story, and he expressed surprise at the newcomer’s strange behavior. Then he decided to have a meal, ate his fill, had some more wine brought and polished it off—all without waking his guest. He kept on drinking until he was drunk again. He had just fallen asleep once more where he was lying when Abu-Nuwas woke up, asked the servant-girl what had happened to Waliba—and repeated the same sequence of actions as Waliba. It is said that they went on for several days like that, eating and drinking in the same room without ever meeting. Finally Waliba, deciding that the joke had been carried far enough, said to the girl:
“When my guest up and asks for food, don’t serve him; wait until I wake up.”
The minute Abu-Nuwas got up, he asked for food as usual.
“It’s not ready yet,” the girl said.
“If I understand things correctly, your master told you to wait a little until he wakes up, before you serve me, didn’t he?”
“What a devil you are!” she exclaimed.
At this point, Waliba woke up, greeted his guest and asked what he could do for him. Abu-Nuwas told him his whole life story and swore that he loved him. Waliba found him very charming, sent for a group of musicians who often came to his place, and laid out food and drink for a party. For a whole year, he and Abu-Nuwas lived together and were inseparable. It was only later that he persuaded Abu-Nuwas to go and spend some time in the desert, so that he could hear the purest Arabic spoken, and to travel among the nomads and learn to imitate their way of speech, all the while collecting from their lips all the oral poetry that was worth preserving. Abu-Nuwas did all this and then came back to live with Waliba. Their love affair is supposed have lasted no less than twenty months.
* * *
The story goes that the first time the two of them were alone together, Waliba couldn’t shake a feeling of respect, mingled with fear, for Abu-Nuwas, a sense of embarrassment about bringing up certain matters with him. Abu-Nuwas immediately grasped the reason for his friend’s attitude and improvised this poem:
Why keep looking at me like that?
Do you always have to stutter
when you want to talk about
such a matter?
Lovers always carry
a sign that shows
their secret feelings
to everyone who known.
Look, I’m at your orders;
I am like a slave
offering to his master
all he has to give.
Come on now, you’re bidden
to insert the phial, dispense
your gum with its sweet incense;
after, you can tell me
why you keep it hidden.
When he heard this, Waliba got up, came over to him, laid him out on the floor and uncovered his rear end. It was so white and delicate that he was struck speechless with admiration. Unable to control himself, he bent over this marvel and began to kiss it. Just at this point Abu-Nuwas farted loudly. Waliba was startled, and the idea entered his head that his partner was displeased by these advances and was trying to offend him. He seized a dagger and unsheathed it. Abu-Nuwas, sprawled out defenseless, didn’t make a move. He merely raised his head and said to Waliba:
“Don’t do anything rash. I’ve heard people repeat a proverb: ‘A fart is fitting payment for anyone who stoops to kissing a rump.’ And I don’t like to see proverbs lose their validity.”
With this verbal exchange, Abu-Nuwas rose greatly in the esteem of his friend, who now realized that the latter was destined to play an important role in his life. Toward the end of this chapter, we shall explain how they came to break up.
* * *
Abu’l-Sammakh, among others, bears witness to their love affair:
I always saw Abu-Nuwas around Waliba’s place. He was a handsome boy, with pleasant features, and I must admit that he really attracted me. I confessed this one day to Waliba himself:
“As God is my Saviour, I’d love to spend a little time alone with your boy.”
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” he answered. “That boy belongs to me.”
“So be it, but, anyway, that’s the way I feel.”
“All right, wait a bit. He’ll be here shortly.” Abu-Nuwas did arrive soon, and Waliba announced to him bluntly:
“Abu’l-Shammakh desires you!”
Abu-Nuwsa turned to me:
“As God is my Maker! You ask me to obey you dutifully, the way a wife obeys her husband—you, a man whose severity is so much lauded in court when you pass judgment on your fellow Muslims!”
“God help you!” I said to Waliba when I heard this. “Watch out for him! If he manages to stay alive, he’ll be a past master of trickery.”
* * *
Abu-Saїd al-Jahmi was told the following story in confidence:
I had a brother named Badr who used to like to run around a lot with the boys in Basra. He even used to act as a pimp sometimes. Abu-Nuwas was one of his lovers, under the cover of simple friendship. Then they drifted apart, and the years went by. Many years later, my brother told me this anecdote:
One day I was in Baghdad with my sons and I met Abu-Nuwas. He was riding a gray horse and he clearly recognized me; and I must have looked surprised at being greeted by a stranger:
“God damn you, Badr!” he called. “Don’t you recognize me?”
“No,” I answered.
“I’m Abu-Nuwas.”
I asked what was new with him, but he seemed to be interested in only one thing.
“Who are these boylings you have with you?”
“They’re my children,” I answered.
“There’s no god but God!” he marveled. “And just to think that you almost had sons by, me, back in the good old days!....In fact, you would have had, if I’d only stayed with you a little longer and our union had been fruitful.”
“Get away, and may God strike you down!” I shouted at these words. “May He blight your life and your affairs!”
“Maybe so, but facts are facts,” was his only answer, as he rode away, laughing fit to kill.
* * *
Here’s another story that comes from a youth of Basra, who belonged to the best social circles. This is how he tells it:
One day a sodomist met Abu-Nuwas. He must have liked what he saw, because he winked at him.
“Walk ahead of me.,” said the poet.
Just then another man winked at him.
“Walk behind me,” ordered the poet.
I was at the window of my house, and as he went past I winked at him too as an invitation to come in.
“I’ll come in,” he answered, “along with these two gentlemen, who have gone before you on the road you wish to follow. They’re the major premise and the minor premise of the syllogism.”
And he pointed to his two companions.
“So you’re handling your professional affairs nowadays according to the rules of rhetoric?!” I remarked in astonishment.
“Don’t you realize,” he replied, “the pleasure a person can get from playing with language?”
I admit that I could only admire his own dexterity in that respect, in such a situation.
* * *
[Another anecdote:]
One day a man picked up a boy. When they reached the spot where they were to have their fun, the man said to him:
“Take off your boots.”
“I’m afraid,” the boy demurred, “that my ritual ablutions will no longer be of much use.”[3]
* * *
Yet another story:
A boy was being reproached because of his manner of dressing.
“Your master wears cheap clothing, and you go about dressed in fine fabrics! Where does your money come from?”
“How can you deny me the right to dress like this? Don’t you know that the Royal Mint is located in my baggy trousers?”
* * *
The poet Ibn al-Rumi [4] composed a poem on the same topic:
A clever young boy for hire filled
all his rivals with amazement;
they saw him swimming in abundance,
having been poor all his days.
“Why are you all so astonished?”
I said. “Why shouldn’t he have riches,
seeing that the Royal Mint
is hidden in his baggy britches?”
* * *
A native of Homs[5] once went to Baghdad to exercise a certain lucrative activity—the nature of which the reader will surely guess—until he should have amassed enough money to live comfortably. An acquaintance from his home town came to visit him one day and asked how things were going.
“Well, I can tell you one thing, my friend,” he replied. “A shapely bottom in Baghdad is a lot more profitable than a mill in Homs!”
* * *
Here is another story recorded by the scribe Tahir son of Abdallah:
I had a boy who always came back late when I sent him out on an errand. Then I was informed that he took advantage of these opportunities to make money—you can probably imagine how. I called him in for a reprimand.
“God damn you!” I said. “Did I buy you to work for me or to let you set up your own business?”
“Master,” he answered, “don’t get upset. I run your errands for you, and I never neglect any of my duties to you. Without damaging your interests, can’t I also be useful to myself on the side?”
* * *
Saїd son of Wahb tells this story:
One day I got angry at one of my boys. I laid him out on the floor and uncovered his rear end.
“Son of a slave!” I shouted. “This rear end of yours must really have made you suffer with desire, for you to have dared to commit an offense like this against me! Now you’ll see how easily I’ll take my revenge on your bumhole by fucking it!”
“This rear end of mine,” he answered, “must really have made you suffer, too, if you dare to commit an offense like this in the eyes of the Lord! You’ll see how easily He too will take His revenge!”
The sexual implications of his words me so embarrassed that the whip fell from my hands.
* * *
This another anecdote about slaves:
An emir[6] one day sent his personal servant to fetch one of the young boys he owned. The man went to call the boy, who had just eaten a meal a little too abundantly seasoned with garlic.
“Come on,” he said. “The emir has called for you. He’s waiting for you in his reception room.”
When the boy got up to follow him, he ordered:
“At least wash your hands.”
“You’re just envious,” he jeered. “You’ll see how soon the smell of garlic will become as exquisite as that of amber or ambergris, compared with the stink of my shit!”
* * *
Someone among them said:
Once I made eyeball contact with a boy, and he followed me. When we were alone together, I paid him the amount of money we had agreed on, but then he stretched out on his back and crossed his legs.
“What are you doing?’ I asked. “Aren’t you going to roll over?”
“Give me a little more money, and I’ll roll over,” he replied.
I did as he asked. But when I was comfortably mounted on top of him, he added:
“Give me a little bit more, and I’ll get down on all fours.”
I did so. He raised his body, but when I came closer he suggested:
“Give me a bit more, and I’ll do something even better for you.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll lie on my back and lift my legs.”
Once more I obeyed. He raised his legs, and my cock went deep inside him. Then I heard him say:
“I know something even better than this!”
“Well, what is it?”
“Give me more money, and I’ll let you lie on your back as if you were sleeping. Then I’ll come and sit on your cock, after you’ve got it hard with your hand. That way, you won’t need to make any effort, and you won’t feel tired at all.”
I complied yet again. But when I finally felt him properly settled on top of my cock, he once more contrived to say:
“Just a little bit more, and I’ll be more than happy to speed up the movement for you!”
“No!” I finally shouted. “No, you son of a bitch! Get up and get out! And may the Lord God never allow you to find a friend on earth again!”
* * *
Another among them recounted that he hired a boy for pleasure one day, and they agreed on the following conditions: if the boy just let him put it between his legs, the price would be one dirham, but if he took it right up to the hilt, the sum was to rise to two dirhams. Now, as it happened, our friend penetrated deep inside the boy’s fortifications. But when it came time to settle accounts, he offered only one dirham. The boy began to threaten him.
“All right! Let the judge decide between us!”
“And what will you tell him?” asked the client sarcastically.
“You’ll soon find out.”
And the boy took him before the court. As soon as the judge was seated, the boy began to speak:
“May God strengthen you, Your Honour! I rented a donkey to this man for one dirham, [7] to take him as far as the city gates. If he went past the gates into the city itself, the price was supposed to be two dirhams. That was the deal. Well, he went right into the center of town, and he hasn’t paid me what’s rightfully mine.”
The accused then defended himself as follows:
“May God strengthen you, Your Honor! This fellow palmed off a wild donkey on me, and I couldn’t control it. The animal charged, and it dragged me into town against my own will.”
The judge thought for a moment and said:
“The plaintiff will receive one-and-a-half dirhams. The middle position is always the most reasonable one between two extremes.”
* * *
This story is told of an amrad. As he was looking at himself in the mirror one day, he noticed that the first hairs of his beard were beginning to sprout. He quoted this line of poetry:
“He looked up to the stars and said: ‘I am undone!’”
At this, his pimp, echoing him, also recited:
“And they all slipped away, turning their backs on him.”
* * *
Ubada, so the story goes, picked up a boy one day. The latter seemed to be sexually mature—perfectly capable, at any rate, of performing in either of the two possible roles. Ubada gave him ten dirhams and did what he had intended to do. Then he offered the use of his own body, but his partner refused.
“But I gave you ten dirhams,” Ubada insisted.
“Yes, but that was for only one kind of thing,” answered the boy.
Then, seeing that Ubada had a pretty yellow veil that belonged to his mother, he added:
“Unless you give me that veil. That’s the only way I’ll agree to do it.”
“But it’s my mother’s I’m afraid she’ll notice it’s gone.”
“Then ask your mother to do what you want me to do!”
So he got the veil, and Ubada got the pleasure he asked for.
* * *
The author of these lines would like to insert here the following incident in which he personally took part:
When I was in Damascus compiling the present book, I went for a walk one day across one of the bridges that span the Barada River. There I encountered a beautiful, fresh-looking boy, still very young, not even at the age of puberty. He was completely naked: no scrap of clothing hid the slightest part of his body from the public gaze. He was seated on the parapet of the bridge, weeping bitterly, the hot tears trickling down. Under him, in the river, some boys were swimming. The people passing by in both directions didn’t say a word to him. Pity impelled me toward him; I wanted to find out what had happened to him.
”What’s the matter?” I asked him.
His only answer was to begin weeping more disconsolately, as he sobbed:
“I’m going to die! This very day! She’ll kill me today!”
At this juncture, another boy of the same age appeared and explained matters to me:
“Sir, my friend wanted to go for a swim. So he took off his clothes and laid them on a rock, and now someone’s stolen them. His mother is a very strict old lady, and she really will kill him on the spot if he goes home to her like that. We’re taking up a collection for him, and we’ve already raised a little money so he can at least buy a piece of cloth to cover himself.”
When I heard this, I reached inside my sleeve, took out the handkerchief which I was carrying my money in, and unknotted it, intending to give the boy a few coins. A young man standing some distance away signaled to me not to do so. I went up to him and asked him why he had made such a gesture.
“That scoundrel,” he said, “is a good-for-nothing and a fraud. His mother is a prostitute, and it’s a pimp that stage-manages his little productions. As the main actor in the comedy, the boy gets a share of the money he extorts from people, and he usually gambles it away. All the boys swimming down below there also receive some part of the booty. So don’t let yourself get taken: that boy is a real devil. Everybody in Damascus knows what his game is so he goes after visitors to the city. You look like a foreigner. I advise you to save your money for your trip.”
When I learned this, I prayed to God to reward the young man as he so richly deserved, and I quickly left the spot.
* * *
One day a man was looking at a boy, whose pale, pure, radiant features were marked also by a kind of innate nobility. When he kept on staring, the boy challenged him:
“God on high will call you to account for the low thoughts you’re thinking about me!”
“God will call you to account, instead,” retorted the man, “for the way you’ve knocked me over at one glance!”
* * *
This is a story told by a sodomite:
One day I picked up a boy who was a member of a group of mystics.[8] While we were having sex, every time I stuck my cock into him, he would cry out:
“I ask God’s pardon for this!”
And he would repeat the same prayer every time I withdrew even a little. So it went during the whole of our little game of push-and-pull. Afterwards I had the opportunity to ask him:
“Why do you repeat those words all the time?”
“Because your conduct is wicked before the Lord and your guilt is boundless in His eyes. That’s why I recite that prayer. By so doing, I’m performing a meritorious act. Has not Almighty God said: ‘Meritorious acts wipe out evil deeds’? So I can get up now with a clear conscience: I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Tell me,” I inquired, “did someone instruct you in that wise and commendable practice, or is it the fruit of your own meditations?”
“It was none other than my revered guru that taught it to me.”
* * *
But let’s get back to Abu-Nuwas. One day he related the following episode from his youth. Let me quote him in his own words:
Here’s how I came to compose my first poem. I was still a boy at the time. My entire literary education had been picked up on the Mirbad[9] of Basra, the place where they lay the dates out to dry. Anyhow, one day I met a Bedouin nomad there, who had just sold some camels. He was sitting in a corner, busy counting out the money he had received from the sale. I had heard him speaking, and the purity and correctness of his speech had charmed me. I sat down nearby, and he began to stare at me.
“What are you looking at me for?” I asked him.
“I certainly am looking at you, and there are lots of other things I’d like to do with you too!”
“Recite some of your poetry to me!”
He recited a qasida,[10] an ode that spoke of camels and ruined buildings, with end rhymes in “n.”
“I can do better than that!” I exclaimed.
“Let’s hear it, then!”
I kept concentrating and working on my poem in my mind until finally I came up with the following lines:
Better than the contents
of the subtlest minds,
better than a city
which time has destroyed,
better far than ruins
that the years have pardoned
so that tears and sadness
may flow there at their ease:
a young gazelle, whose liquid pupils
have thrown all his peers
into disrepute
tenderly sleeping
as if dazed by his own beauty…
Sun of brightness
on a sculpted sand dune,
free of blemish, when he bends
over a branch clad in green,
he is the sun’s equal!
“Those lines not only describe you,” remarked the Bedouin. “They also demonstrate your style of composing. By my mother and father, I wouldn’t have believed that you were capable of making up something so fine!”
He dug into the pile of coins he had been given, pulled out a brimming handful and passed them on me. I accepted them, and from that moment on I decided to dedicate myself to poetry.”
* * *
Here’s another of Abu-Nuwas’s personal reminiscences:
When I was still a young man, I fell in love with a boy in Basra. I burned with desire to have him. One day I met him by chance at the Mirbad and begged him to accede to my wishes.
“If you really want me,” he replied, “find a singing girl[11] who performs with grace and style, and make a date with her for me.”
Just then a young woman walked by.
“Look!” he cried out. “That’s exactly the girl! She’ll be the condition of our bargain! Agreed?”
I jumped up and without thinking grabbed hold of the woman. She cried out for help. I was surrounded by people on all sides, and hands were raised to seize me. Meanwhile, the boy had prudently slipped away. I could see him nearby, laughing up his sleeve. I really had to use my wits to get out of that fix.”
* * *
The following anecdote was related by al-Jammaz,[12] whose given name, as everybody knows, was Abu’l-Abbas Muhammad son of Amr, son of Khalid, son of Ata, son of Yassir. He was a friend of both Abu-Nuwas and al-Jahiz, [13] and was in fact related to them both somehow.
“In the days of our youth,” he recalls, “Abu-Nuwas and I were sitting one day in front of Abu-Othman al-Jahiz’s house, when who should walk by but Ahmad al-Taqafi son of Abd al-Wahhab. He was a boy with perfect features. Abu-Nuwas couldn’t resist calling out to him:
“Give me a kiss!”
“As you wish, but first give me a poem saying something nice about me.”
On the spot, Abu-Nuwas improvised this quatrain:
My love for you, oh Ahmad,
leaves me no health or joy:
you are the moon that has taken on
human shape!
Ahmad agreed to kiss him, and I protested:
“What about me?”
“Well, then, compose a poem for me, too!”
So I also improvised the following:
Abu-Nuwas got from you
the kiss he wished to win.
Be just as kind to Abu’l-Abbas,
his almost twin.
And at this, Abu-Nuwas added:
“And you can take this poem, too; it’s for you.”
Ah, rose, did someone warn you
roses must be plucked before it grows too late?
Behold this flower that came to us
at Abu-Othman’s gate!
* * *
Now let’s return to the story of Abu-Nuwas and his lover and teacher, Waliba, and the reason for their break-up. One day when Waliba was fucking him, Abu-Nuwas could not resist the temptation of improvising a quatrain while his friend was still on top of him:
Oh, what a pretty picture!
a poet of world renown
caught in the act of being fucked
by Waliba, al-Hubab’s son!
When he had finished his business, Waliba jumped to his feet and said to Abu-Nuwas:
“Get out of here, and stay away from me for good!”
He had only then realized how dangerous to his reputation Abu-Nuwas’s unbridled tongue was. Abu-Nuwas obeyed and left him.
* * *
Here’s a poem a sodomite sent to Abu-Nuwas when he was an amrad, imploring him to be kind:
Your fulsome praise of me,
without the clink of cash,
is like a wall built up
of plaster and ash.
I swear, on my life,
I’d prefer darkest curses
and a horse that gallops well
instead of pretty verses.
So leave off eulogies
and charm me with a present
of lovely, shining coins.
Then, at least, I’ll be pleasant.
* * *
Mussab, it is reported, composed this quatrain one day for a boy he loved:
Come and pay me a visit
bring life back to this heart,
for all pleasures are tasteless
when you do not take part.
The boy answered him with the following poem:
Spare me your praise and blame,
both the things you conceal
in your own heart and what
you choose to reveal.
If you want me, then send me
money—gold and silver.
Such a present instantly
beautifies the giver.
If someone in my presence
places on hardest steel
a dirham coin, that metal
will melt, and not congeal.
* * *
Another gentleman has recounted that he once sent a letter in verse to a boy he loved, complaining of the terrible things the lovely child was saying about him, ostensibly because of a period of enforced separation between the two of them. He wrote:
Ah, best-beloved,
you who are well aware
of the things left unsaid,
may strength come from above
to help me bear this exile
and never speak my love!
By my soul, let us go
the way of those noble men
so skillful in bending the bow!
Be kind, then, and agree
to meet me; refusal is not
fit for nobility.
The boy repaid him in kind:
When you beseech and weep
you’re knocking at the wrong door
and walking in your sleep!
Why try to obtain
a meeting with me by praising
the greatness of noble men?
Use a better argument
to reach your goal: coins, shining
like the stars of the firmament!
I’m willing, you know; they’ll settle
the matter; nothing turns
hearts like that lambent metal.
* * *
And here is a poem by a handsome man lamenting the time of his youth:
Ah! Could God only bring back
those carefree youthful days,
with their crowds of amrads, giving themselves
to wild feasts and crazy ways!
That was a time when we waited
for the slightest gesture that lured,
when sympathy and compassion for us
from all hearts poured.
The whole human race seemed to hang on
the charm that flowed like sap
from our glance; we were objects of desire
--presents you long to unwrap!
* * *
And we will close with a rather amusing and unusual anecdote, which forms, I think, a fitting conclusion to this chapter. The story goes that a very witty judge was once about to speak to a congregation on the practice of morality and virtue, when a troop of handsome amrads appeared and joined the listeners. The judge noticed them and addressed the throng thus:
“Good people, join your voices to mine in prayer, for the number of our enemies increases ceaselessly!”
Then he cried out:
“O Lord, our God! Vouchsafe unto us the usufruct of their scapulae! O Lord, our God! Turn them upon their faces, confide unto us the administration of their nether regions, uncover for us the breaches in their defenses and grant our lances potency to penetrate them!”
And the good people innocently joined in this prayer, convinced that they were inveighing against polytheists,[14] and certainly not in the least suspecting the subtle ambiguity of the judge’s invocation. But, be that as it may, God on high is wiser than we are and is well able to discern the truthful and the false aspects of all things.
[1] Abu-Nuwas (ca. 757-ca.814) was one of the most famous classical Arabic poets, and well-known for his love of boys, the subject of much of his work.
[2] Walība ibn al-Ḥubāb al-Asadī was another and earlier 8th century Arabic poet known for his verse celebrating such sensual pleasures as boys and wine.
[3] Under Koranic law, forbidden sexual acts, being ritually polluting, would render the ritually prescribed daily ablutions invalid. Similarly, the pre-prayer foot-washing ablution (which the boy thinks of as he takes off his boots) would not sanctify the illicit sexual act. [Note by Lacey]
[4] An Arab poet of Greek origin, 836-896 A.D. [Note by Lacey]
[5] A city in central Syria, on the Orontes River. It was famous for water-mills. [Note by Lacey]
[6] A title of respect used in Arabic princes, governors and other rulers, military commanders and descendants of the Prophet. [Note by Lacey]
[7] The gold dinar and the silver dirham were the basic units of currency in the Muslim monetary system, which was set up in the seventh century by the early caliphs and lasted until the fourteenth century. One dinar was at various times worth ten or twelve dirhams. Various present-day Muslim countries use the same names for their national currencies. [Note by Lacey]
[8] These are Sufis, of whom the author is fond of making fun. [Note by Lacey]
[9] A famous marketplace in Basra; it was where writers and men of letters gathered to converse. A well-known modern poetry festival, held in Iraq annually, is still called the Mirbad. [Note by Lacey]
[10] An ancient form of Arabic poetry in praise of someone or something.
[11] These entertainers, common at otherwise wholly male gatherings in the Muslim world, would be well-educated, socially accomplished adolescent or preadolescent prostitutes, trained as singers and musicians, like the Greek hetairae or the Japanese geishas. [Note by Lacey]
[12] A poet and storyteller, who frequented the court of the Abbassid caliph al-Mutawakkil at Baghdad. He died in 868 A.D. [Note by Lacey]
[13] Son of caliph Omar I, who reigned 634-644 A.D. [Note by Lacey]
[14] This is the term often used to refer to Christians—as well as to idol-worshippers—by Muslims, who regard the doctrine of the Trinity as a form of polytheism. [Note by Lacey]
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