Selections from The Art of Party Crashing in Medieval Iraq

Anecdotes about Party-Crashers Who Exert Themselves in Party-Crashing and Make It a Trade and Occupation

85 Anecdotes about Party-Crashers Who Exert Themselves in Party-Crashing and Make It a Trade and Occupation 106 Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Husayn ibn Muhammad ibn alHasan , brother of al-Khallal told me, Ibrahim ibn ‘Abd Allah ibn Ibrahim al-Shatti in Jurjan told me, Abu ‘Ali Shu‘ba told us: The party-crashing chieftains in Basra were very dashing, sporting blue wraps in the summertime . One of these chieftains, called “Abu Malik al-Halik,” was walking down Quraysh Lane on a Saturday evening, when he ran into Abu ‘Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Ishaq. Muhammad ibn Ibrahim was sitting by the door and had just swept the sidewalk, because he was The Art of Party-Crashing 86 marrying the daughter of Husayn ibn Bishr alSabuni that Sunday. So Abu Malik said, “Hello” and “Congratulations,” and then he said, “I heard that you’re going to have a big feast tomorrow. If it’s okay, I’m going to come to your house, eat at the banquet, and slip some food out for the kids.” “Okay,” said Muhammad ibn Ibrahim. So the next day Abu Malik showed up, walked in on the banquet, ate his fill, and brought some food back for the kids too. 107 I read in a book of al-Hasan ibn Abi Ya’qub al-Isbahani ’s, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allah ibn Asid al-Madini Takeout Anecdotes about Party-Crashers 87 told us, Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Ghalabi told us, Muhammad ibn Khalid ibn ‘Amr said: A group of party-crashers gathered to crash a banquet, and their leader said, “Oh, God, let not the gatekeepers push us from the front, nor shove us from the back, nor knock us about the head, but grant to us his mercy and his goodwill , and facilitate for us the obtaining of his permission.” And when they entered, they were received by the cook, and the leader called him “Blessed first and best one to greet us, bringing plenty and banishing lack.” And when they sat at the table, he said to it, “May God make you blessed like Moses’s staff, Abraham’s table, Jesus’s supper.” Then he said to his friends, “Open your mouths and straighten your gullets, roll up your sleeves and loosen your belts, and chew not with the jaw of the ailing, nor the stomach of dyspepsia , and yet recall that days may soon turn black, and all go awry.”1 1. The entire anecdote parodies religious language. The final instructions, for example, mimic the traditional instructions , as established by Muhammad, given to Muslims before prayer. Van Gelder writes that prayers such as these are “at the same time pious and parodic” (Of Dishes and Discourse, 91). The Art of Party-Crashing 88 108 Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim told us, ‘Ali ibn al-Hasan al-Razi told us, al-Husayn ibn al-Qasim al-Kawkabi told us, Ibn Sadaqa related to me: Once somebody asked a party-crasher how well he knew the Book of God, and the party-crasher responded, “I’m one of the most knowledgeable people there is on the subject.” So someone said, “What does, ‘Ask the town that we were in’ mean?” He said, “It means, ‘Ask the people in the town.’” And someone asked him if he had proof for that, and the party-crasher said, “It’s like when you say ‘I ate the whole table,’ which just means, ‘I ate what was on the table.’”2 109 Ahmad ibn Abu Ja‘far al-Qati‘i told us, ‘Ali ibn alHasan ibn al-Mutaraffiq al-Tarsusi told us, I heard ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Adi say, I heard ‘Isma ibn Kamal say: 2. They are discussing a passage from the Sura 12, Yusuf, verse 82 in the Qur’an. Anecdotes about Party-Crashers 89 I heard Abu ‘Amr the party-crasher say, “I heard my teacher say about ‘Thereafter they return only to Hell’3 (a saying of God Almighty), ‘It has something to do with food.’” 110 This interpretation is similar to that which was told to me by Abu Nu‘aym Ahmad ibn ‘Abd Allah alHafiz , that he heard Abu Bakr ibn al-Muqri’ interpret Khidr’s advice to Moses, “Walk not when there is no need,” to mean, “Don’t walk...