16. The Two Legalists

Jabra Ghubrayl and Dāwūd Wāṣif were each known as “the Legalist.” Both were illiterate even in Arabic. The title they earned resulted from numerous incidents of wrangling and disputation—or rather, it described a character the people knew in both men. They bestowed the title, and by it each became known.[60]

The first, Jabra Ghubrayl, was a factory worker. The other, Dāwūd Wāṣif, was a property agent who rented homes to his countrymen. The first lived in one of the houses let by the second. There lay the whole affliction, for this arrangement made the two champions—champions of the law—meet morning and evening like mountains.

Anyone seeking entertainment at the theater needed only watch for a meeting of these two Legalists. The scenes they performed would spare him the need for a thousand comic acts on the stage.

Each was accustomed to contradicting the other even on visible and tangible facts. If Jabra said snow was white, Dāwūd answered that it was black. Each possessed proofs, arguments, heavenly revelations, and spiritual inspirations for which God had sent down no authority.

Neighbors and others habitually crowded around the two for amusement. Most kindled the fire between them, then stood back to watch the sparks of debate rise, laughing and entertaining themselves.

When either Jabra’s or Dāwūd’s voice was heard in the market, spectators gathered from every direction. To them that voice was a bell summoning those waiting for the church doors to open so they might enter for prayer. The moment a raised tone came from either man, people formed a ring and the two began their performances.

Their disagreements mattered little to them, for the sun of a second day never rose upon one. Both were therefore known among the public as overbearing but kindhearted. They shouted, disagreed, and sometimes fought, yet once their fury cooled they forgot everything that had happened as though the thing decreed had never been.

One day Jabra was climbing the stairs to his apartment while Dāwūd descended. First they exchanged the customary greeting, like wrestlers or boxers in an arena: the match and the blows that might snatch away one man’s soul would follow, but salutation had to come first.

After greeting him, Dāwūd said, “Neighbor, today while walking in front of the building, a pane of glass fell from above. I told myself, ‘God protect us from this day! Our neighbor Jabra will make the earth rise and fall, drag down the sky, and destroy the heavens upon our heads before he pays for the broken windowpane in his apartment.’ But praise be to God, neighbor, it did not come from one of your windows but from another tenant’s. The matter passed, and God drew His veil over us.”

While Dāwūd spoke, Jabra kept preparing to interrupt. He forced down his inner impulses so that he might learn the whole report. When Dāwūd finished, he answered:

“Why should I pay for a pane of glass when I did not break it?”

“Because you occupy the apartment and are responsible for everything in it except the roof.”

“You are wrong. Repairs fall upon the landlord, especially when the tenant was outside.”

“Do not start with us, Jabra. I thanked God a thousand times for delivering me from your mischief today. The matter needs no shouting or wrangling. Ask anyone you wish and he will answer that when a window breaks, the tenant repairs it.”

“By God, if the house collapsed and became scattered dust whose particles the wind snatched away, I would not pay one para. It would not be just.[61] The law always stands with the tenant against the landlord and agent. Ask someone else if you are ignorant of that fact.”

“Do not say ‘ignorant’ or any such thing. I know the matter better than you. I made the man whose window broke pay for it at once. Why wrangle, neighbor? Stop this and do not let people gather around our shouting. If they hear such talk from you, they will eat their fill of laughter.”

There is no need to reproduce their whole exchange; this was only its introduction. An intelligent reader can picture what results followed, especially between two men called “Legalists” because each was so overbearing and neither gave the other a path by which to withdraw and go away.

As usual, the quarrel occupied nearly an hour. Each supported his opinion with proofs and rained taunts and then curses upon the other, mocking his slight knowledge and scandalous ignorance of simple matters known to anyone.

People gathered from outside the building, inside it, on the sides, and above. They watched the champions of the law litigate a matter from which neither could see a way out.

At last it took a serious turn. The wrangling ended, and the spectators’ amusement with it. Both men had gone too far after making the other hear the coarsest things. They pushed and nearly came to blows. Spectators intervened. The matter grew until one group carried off Jabra and another seized Dāwūd. The first was taken into one apartment, the second into another. Both had fists clenched, blood ready to burst from their cheeks, and mouths emitting lava and thunderbolts at the other.

Part of the crowd gathered around Jabra, another part around Dāwūd, calming each until the time came for reconciliation. After much coming and going, they decided that both should take a step toward the other. Jabra was moved from the apartment into which he had been taken to a neighboring one; Dāwūd was moved from his refuge to the apartment in which Jabra now sat.

There troubles and emotions began anew. Each refused to rise and go toward the other for reconciliation, claiming that he himself was right and his companion wrong. The place of the man in the right must be respected: he should not rise to seek peace before the other came to him.

The eldest man present raised a shout that quieted the room. Once silence was complete, he stood between the antagonists.

“Both men are at fault—”

He had scarcely begun when both rose to argue with him. They were forced back into their places. He continued:

“We are all brothers, and no one among us is at fault—”

He had scarcely reached this phrase when both sprang up again. Each extended an arm toward the other and said, “No, he is at fault.”

Again they were dragged forcibly to their seats. When calm returned, the elder smiled and continued:

“Brothers, I am the oldest among you. I ask one thing of these two: let each accept the other once he has received his right. A pane broke, and a new pane has a price. Let neither tenant nor agent bear the cost. Allow me to pay from my pocket, so that we may disperse the difficulty, finish the matter, and let the waters return to their channels.”

He put a hand into his pocket, drew out all the money it contained, and opened his palm before Dāwūd, telling him to take the price of the broken glass.

Dāwūd declined apologetically. The price had been received long ago; there was no need for the elder to suffer a loss.

Jabra, too, pulled the speaker toward him and explained that the broken pane did not belong to his apartment but another one.

At this the people roared. Everyone fell into something like a trance of laughter. Its contagion spread to the Legalists. Each smiled first, then joined the crowd in laughing.

The mediator laughed less than the others, for he was stunned and perplexed by what he had heard and seen.

“Then you quarreled over nothing.”

“Yes, Uncle, over nothing,” Dāwūd said. “Had Jabra taken in my words, we would never have reached all this.”

Jabra answered, “Had you understood what I meant, we would never have come to where we are.”

The people laughed anew. The elder joined them. After returning the money to his pocket, he took each Legalist by an arm and pulled them easily to their feet. Then he joined their hands, and they obeyed.

Laughing aloud, he told them, “Men who quarrel over nothing can also make peace over nothing.”

NOTES

[60] Mutasharriʿ can mean one versed in religious or positive law, but here it is an ironic community nickname for an inveterate amateur disputant. Neither man can read the law in any language.
[61] The para was a small Ottoman coin and survived colloquially as a name for a negligible sum: “not one penny.”
