You must help me out of this wretched predicament! If you are with me, make yourself heard. But may the devil take you should you doubt my words!’

Avicenna did not reply; but shaking his head, he turned to his colleague and said: ‘You see? His rational powers are already failing him. Luckily, these sorts of visions do no one any harm. I have always been of the opinion that the variety of hemp from which the paste of hashish is extracted is the same plant that Hippocrates mentions as driving animals into such a frenzy that they end up hurling themselves into the sea. Hashish was already known in Solomon’s day; the word hachichot occurs in the Song of Songs,10 where the intoxicating virtues of this preparation …’ The remainder of the sentence was lost to Hakim, for the two doctors were already proceeding on to another courtyard as they made their rounds. Now that he was alone again, his mind was racked with uncertainties: unsure that he was a god, unsure at moments that he was even a caliph, he found it nearly impossible to reassemble the scattered fragments of his thoughts. Taking advantage of the relative freedom of movement that had been granted him, however, he ventured over to the other unfortunates dispersed throughout the courtyard in various bizarre attitudes. As he listened to their songs and conversations, he was struck by a number of ideas.

One of the lunatics had gathered together various odds and ends and out of these had managed to fashion a tiara studded with bits of glass which he wore on his head; over his shoulders he had draped some rags covered with brilliant embroidery, improvised out of strips of tinsel. ‘I am the Kaïamal-zeman (the master of the world),’ he announced, ‘and I tell you the times have come.’

‘You’re lying,’ another one of the inmates said to him, ‘you’re not the real one; you belong to the race of the divs.11 You’re just trying to fool us.’

‘Well, who do you think I am then?’ he replied.

‘You are none other than Thamurath, the last king of the rebel genii. Don’t you remember how you were vanquished on the isle of Serenedib?12 The victor was none other than Adam, which is to say, myself. Your sword and shield still hang on my tomb as trophies.’*

‘His tomb!’ retorted the other, bursting into laughter. ‘They never were able to locate it. He’s one to talk.’

‘I have every right to talk about tombs, seeing as how I have already lived six lives among mankind and died the requisite number of deaths. Magnificent tombs have been built for me. Yours, however, would be most difficult to discover, for you are a dive and dives only live in corpses.’

This rejoinder provoked a number of hoots and cries aimed at the hapless emperor of the divs. He pulled himself up to his full height, only to have his crown knocked off his head by the self-styled Adam. The madman lunged at his assailant, and the battle between these two enemies would have resumed after a lull of five thousand years (at least according to their calculations) had not one of the attendants stepped in and separated them with several lashes of his bullwhip – administered, it must be said, without favouritism to either camp.

One might well wonder what it was that Hakim found so fascinating about these conversations between lunatics, for he was listening to them with rapt attention and interjecting the odd remark to encourage them. Surrounded by all these demented individuals, he alone maintained command of his rational powers as he stood there silently, absorbed in his own world of memories. Perhaps it was the austerity of his demeanour, but strangely enough the lunatics seemed to stand in awe of him. Not a single one of them dared lift his eyes to gaze upon him, and yet something impelled them to gather around him – like plants in the final hours of the night, already turning towards the light that is still nowhere in sight.

Although it may be impossible for humankind to plumb the soul of a man who suddenly senses he is a prophet or a mortal who suddenly senses he is a god, history and legend at least give us some indication of the kinds of qualms or doubts these divine natures must feel at that uncertain juncture when their mind begins to waver as it breaks free from the temporary bonds of incarnation. There were moments when Hakim, like the Son of Man on the Mount of Olives, was filled with doubts about himself. But what truly made his mind reel was the thought that his divinity had initially been revealed to him in his hashish visions. ‘Is it possible,’ he wondered to himself, ‘that there is something more powerful than the Almighty and that a mere weed could work such wonders? True, a simple worm proved to be stronger than Solomon, for it managed to bore through the staff on which this prince of the genii was leaning and break it in two. But what was Solomon compared to me – if I am indeed Albar (the Eternal) ?’

V

The Burning of Cairo

By a wicked twist of fate which only the spirit of evil could have devised, it so happened that one day the Moristan was honoured by a visit of the sultana Setalmulc who, following royal custom, had come to bring aid and succour to its inmates. Having made the rounds of the prison quarters, she wanted to go and have a look at the mad house. The sultana was wearing a veil, but Hakim recognized her voice and could not contain his rage when he saw she was accompanied by Argevan who, smiling serenely all the while, was escorting her around the establishment.

‘Here,’ he said to her, ‘you see the unfortunate souls who have succumbed to extravagant delusions. One claims to be the prince of the genii, another insists he is Adam; but the most ambitious of them all is standing over there: his resemblance to your brother the caliph is quite striking.’

‘Quite extraordinary indeed,’ commented Setalmulc.

‘This likeness,’ Argevan continued, ‘has been the sole cause of all his troubles. Having heard so many people tell him he was the very image of the caliph, he became convinced that he was indeed the caliph; not content to stop at that, however, he also claimed he was God. He is merely a lowly fellah whose mind has been addled by the abuse of intoxicants, one of many such cases … But it would be amusing to see how he might react when confronted with the actual caliph …’

‘Scoundrel!’ Hakim shouted. ‘So you have created a phantom who looks just like me and has taken my place?’

He stopped himself short, suddenly realizing that he was sending all caution to the winds and that he might thereby be putting his life at risk; luckily, the other lunatics were making so much noise that his words could not be heard above the din.