Be Kind

HE ASKED 100 PEOPLE THIS BEFORE HE GOT MARRIED Abū al-Qāsim al-Naysābūrī (d. 406 AH) relates in ʿUqalāʾ al-Majānīn (The Wise Among the Mad), through his chain of narration, from Abū Maʿshar: A man once swore an oath that he would not marry until he had consulted one hundred people, owing to the difficulties he had experienced with women. He consulted ninety-nine people, leaving only one more. He then went out, determined to ask the first person he encountered. He came across a madman who had fashioned a necklace from a bone, blackened his face and was riding a reed stalk. The man greeted him and said, “I have a question.” The madman replied, “Ask about what concerns you, and beware of involving yourself in what does not concern you.” The man thought to himself, “By Allah, he is mad!” He then said, “I have suffered greatly at the hands of women, and I swore that I would not marry until I had consulted one hundred people. You are the hundredth.” The madman replied: “Know that women are of three kinds: one who is for you, one who is against you, and one who is neither for you nor against you. As for the one who is for you, she is a young woman in the bloom of her youth who has never been with a man. She is for you and not against you. If she experiences good, she praises it; and if she experiences something bad, she says, ‘All men are like this.’ As for the one who is against you, she is a woman who has children from another man. She strips her husband of his wealth and gathers it for her children. As for the one who is neither for you nor against you, she is a woman who has been married before you. If she experiences good, she says, ‘This is how things ought to be.’ But if she experiences something bad, she longs for her first husband.” The man then said, “I beseech you by Allah, what has brought you to the condition in which I see you?” He replied, “Did I not stipulate that you must not ask about what does not concern you?” But the man insisted upon his question and made him swear to answer. The madman finally replied: “I was being considered for appointment as a judge, so I chose the condition you see me in rather than accepting the judgeship.” Abū al-Qāsim al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-Naysābūrī (d. 406 AH), ʿUqalāʾ al-Majānīn, edited by Muḥammad al-Saʿīd Basyūnī Zaghlūl, 1st edn, Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1405 AH/1985 CE, p. 39.