JOURNAL OF ARABIC AND ISLAMIC STUDIES

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Jocelyn Sharlet
associated with the luxurious gift is used in an incongruous way to
convey Fayḍ’s aggressive point about subordinating Aḥmad. The
excessive number of outfits makes the gift echo the theme of ceremonial
robes at court to assert the giver’s superiority, the recipient’s
subordination, and the value placed on social hierarchy. However, a
contrast is implied. The subordinate person would offer a tactfully
performed service or well-wrought rhetoric, not have his clothes ruined
by a riding animal, as a reason to receive a ceremonial robe. The ruined
outfit is a social and bodily sign that displays Aḥmad’s subordination. In
addition, the series of outfits may be a social and bodily sign that Aḥmad
is ultimately as replaceable as his clothing.
The rhetorical focal point of Aḥmad’s outburst reverberates in the
silence of Fayḍ The gift and the message are prepared and portrayed but
not actually given in the story. The confrontation expressed in Fayḍ’s
message takes place at a distance. Like Aḥmad’s outburst followed by
Fayḍ’s silence, the message reverberates in Aḥmad’s implied silence.
The parallel of each man’s angry words followed by the other’s silence
implies the conflict between their views of social status.
Aḥmad’s objection is inscribed within Fayḍ’s assertion of social
hierarchy, but is also disruptive of it. Fayḍ’s message, explaining why
the gift means that Fayḍ is superior to Aḥmad, also refers to the
hypothetical possibility that Aḥmad could ruin Fayḍ’s clothes if he could
give Fayḍ such a gift. In this comment, Fayḍ clarifies that the importance
of social hierarchy is ranked positions, not the people who occupy them.
Other depictions of Fayḍ complement his aggressive deployment of
the gift in this story. He was known to be generous and noble as well as
arrogant, domineering, and haughty. In one story, Fayḍ went to see the
caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd, who extended his hand for Fayḍ to kiss, but
instead of bending down to kiss it, he lifted it to his mouth and kissed it.
Al-Rashīd said, “If he were not so lowly and stupid, I would kill him.” 37
Fayḍ’s generosity could be a weapon of aggression, as it is in the story
about the hundred outfits, as well as a benefit to others, as it is in the
following story. The Abbasid Umm Jaʿfar had a secretary who threw a
man in prison because he owed money from Umm Jaʿfar’s agricultural
land. The man in prison appealed to two friends, who set out to meet the
secretary. Fayḍ saw them on the road, asked them what was going on,
and offered to help out when he learned about their mission. In one
version, the men had the secretary write to ask for their friend’s release,
37 Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbdūs al-Jahshiyārī, Kitāb al-Wuzarāʾ
wa-l-Kuttāb, (Cairo, n.d.), p. 123.
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