Wry Notes on Disability in Iraq
By M. Miles, U.K. (m99miles@hotmail.com)
The rest of the world waits to see what will happen, but the disability world doesn't need to wait for the news. Disabled Iraqis have been here a long time.
Abu 'l Aswad, a linguist who initiated the formalisation of Arabic grammar, belonged to Basra (Iraq) and lived c. 603 to 688. In later life he suffered paralysis and could hardly walk. Though wealthy, he insisted on visiting the bazaar in person. This was partly because he was a notorious miser; but Abu 'l Aswad pointed out that if he showed himself in public, people knew he was still alive and his own servants paid some attention to him. If he remained immobile and invisible in his room, one of the sheep could wander in and urinate on him and nobody could care less about it. [1]
In Mesopotamia (now mostly Iraq) of the 14th century BC, the risk was foreseen that some rogue might use a deaf, blind or mentally disabled person as an unwitting agent to commit a sacrilegious act. Such an act would inevitably mean a curse falling on the perpetrator. The trick was that the disabled person would suffer the curse while the guilty instigator would stay in the clear. [2]
The celebrated essayist Al-Jahiz ("the pop-eyed") of Basra and Baghdad has been much quoted since his death in 868. He wrote one of the earliest treatises on social responses to physical disability (Al-Barsan wal-Argan), including leprosy, lameness, paralysis, deafness and ugliness, suggesting that "physical infirmities and peculiarities do not hinder an individual from being a fully active member of the Muslim community or bar him from important offices" [3] Jahiz reported losing a teaching job because of his own ugliness, and elsewhere he wrote of people being bored in the company of those who were deaf and could neither hear nor speak to them.
The Baghdad philologist Al-Mubarrad (826-899) tells a story of Abu Jaafar al-Mansur, who appointed a man to take care of blind people, orphans, and distressed housekeepers who were widows. "A man reduced to great misery went one day with his son to this officer and said: 'would you have the kindness to inscribe my name on the list of distressed house-keepers?' -- 'Those house-keepers are females,' observed the guardian, 'how then can I inscribe you among them?' -- 'Well,' said the man, 'put me on the blind list.' -- 'That I will,' answered the other, 'for God has said: It is not the eyes which are blind, but the hearts contained in men's bosoms.' [Quran 22: 46] -- 'And inscribe my boy on the list of orphans.' -- 'That also I shall do, for he who has a father like you is really an orphan.'" [4]
The famous blind poet Bashshar ibn Burd (died in 783) was born at Basra and spent many years at Baghdad. His caustic wit amused the literati, though it is not certain that his mother would always have approved. On one occasion Bashshar passed wind loudly in a company of people. The blind man waved away the problem: "Just a noise. Never believe anything unless you can see it!" [5]
When a baby looked a little different, ancient Mesopotamians asked what it could mean, and there were men with beards ready to answer for all possible cases. "If a woman of the palace gives birth to a deaf child - the possessions of the king will be lost." (p. 70) "If a woman of the palace gives birth, and (the child) has six fingers on its left hand - the prince will plunder the land of his enemy", and hundreds of other predictions. [6]
Al-Mas'udi (c. 896-956) related that the people of Kufa wanted to send a man to Baghdad to plead with Caliph Ma'mun to dismiss their governor. The preferred advocate was deaf, and they enquired whether this would be acceptable. Ma'mun agreed, promising to listen patiently. The advocate came and denounced the governor as a terrible rogue and oppressor who was eating up their lives and property. Ma'mun replied angrily that it was a pack of lies. He had specifically chosen a strong, honest governor because he knew the Kufaites were a bunch of scoundrels. The deaf man promptly agreed that the Caliph's view was accurate; and in consequence, it was high time to transfer the governor somewhere else, where there was even greater need for a strong and incorruptible ruler. Stunned by this effrontery, Ma'mun cursed the man, told him to get out... and agreed to transfer the governor. [7]
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Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, trans. de Slane, Paris, I: 662-667.
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E. Cassin, 1987, Le semblable et le différent. Paris, pp. 81-82, 92.
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M. Dols, 1983, Speculum 58: p. 901.
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Ibn Khallikan, trans. de Slane, vol. III: 32.
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Kitab al-Agani, vol. 3, 180f.
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Omen Series Summa Izbu, trans. E. Leichty, 1970, Locust Valley, NY: Augustin.
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Meadows of Gold. The Abbasids, trans. Lunde & Stone, 1989, London, pp. 193-194.
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