‘ LIKE THE WICK OF THE LAMP , LIKE THE SILKWORM THEY ARE ’ : STUPID SCHOOLTEACHERS IN CLASSICAL ARABIC LITERARY SOURCES

The alleged stupidity of schoolteachers was a common topos in adab literature of the Abbasid period as well as in later sources. Indeed, ‘the stupid schoolteacher’ was a stereotype much like ‘the dull person’, ‘the smart sponger’ and ‘the ridiculous bedouin’. Frequent references to such images indicate that the intended audience revelled in this kind of literary device. This article examines diverse ways of reading and interpreting the adab sources which deal as much in fantasy as reality. Indeed, while the standard stereotypes of schoolteachers are varied, amusing and predominantly negative, they are not always as they at first appear.

the sources to these indicate that the intended audience enjoyed these kinds of literary topoi and stereotypes, and had fun in reading or listening to the stories connected to them.Being literary topics, these images should not be taken at face value -they do not necessarily reflect historical reality and at best, reflect it only to a certain extent.This must be carefully considered when reading and interpreting adab sources where we are in the realm of representation more than of actuality.
In what ways were schoolteachers supposed to have behaved to have merited such a reputation in literature and seemingly in common opinion too?Why was their stupidity considered as some inherent characteristic?Before answering this, we must first examine the role of the muʿallim, what he was supposed to be teaching as well as the notion of 'stupidity' in classical sources. 4In the medieval period, the term taʿlīm (a less common equivalent is taʾdīb) referred to instruction at a basic level, and in this sense it is opposed to tadrīs, which referred to the teaching of religious law.Hence, muʿallim (and less frequently muʾaddib) is the term employed for primary-school instructors who were basically Qurʾānic teachers.Apart from the Qurʾān, other subjects were often taught in elementary teaching, such as numeracy, poetry, grammar and philology.Ibn Ḫaldūn (d.808/1406) briefly illustrates the curricula of elementary education in the Arab world at his time and stresses its differences according to geographical regions. 5Considering the conservative character of teaching in the medieval Arab world, we can take for granted that his statement has a certain validity for earlier periods too.The Qurʾān was, of course, at the core of teaching in primary schools.However, while Maghribi education almost exclusively centred on it, Andalusian pedagogy focused more on reading, writing and on poetry, thus developing linguistic and literary skills using the Qurʾān as a point of departure.In Ifrīqiya, there was a combined instruction of Qurʾān, the ḥadīṯ as well as some simple scientific notions. 6In the East Medieval Arabic Belles Lettres, on a Chapter of Adab by al-Râghib al-Iṣfahânî, and on a Literary Model in which Admiration and Mockery Coexist', Poetics Today 10 (1989), 471-492. 4 For a brief survey on traditional schools (kuttāb) and elementary school teachers see G. Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges,19,83 and W. Kadi,'Education in Islam',7. 5 Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, 594-596 (The Muqaddimah, vol.3, 301-303, chapter 6, section 38). 6The cultural tradition in Ifrīqiyā was also marked by a keen interest in education.The first treatises showing a remarkable concern for pedagogy were JAIS ONLINE too, children had a mixed curriculum.Primary schoolteachers there were supposed to be able to instruct their pupils in the religious sciencesnamely to have them learn the sacred text by heart, as well as in grammar and mathematics, even if only at an elementary level. 7n spite of the high esteem that the Prophet showed towards education and teachers,8 in later times the muʿallim did not enjoy general respect.In law, the oath of schoolteachers has only partial validity 9 and, if we believe literary sources, the famous judge Ibn Šubruma (d.144/761), one of the emblematic personalities at the beginning of Islam, 10 did not accept the testimony of schoolmasters. 11The contempt showed towards primary-school teaching is clearly illustrated in the story reported on the authority of al-Ǧāḥiẓ: when a Qurayshī once noticed a child studying the Kitāb of Sībawayh 'he could not help exclaiming: 'Bah!This is the science of schoolteachers and the pride of beggars'. 12Al-Rāġib al-Iṣfahānī (fl.fourth/tenth century) dedicates a section of his anthology Muḥāḍarāt al-udabāʾ (Conversations of the Men of Letters) to the notion that teaching is considered a shortcoming for people of excellence (ḏamm al-tāʾdīb wa-kawnuhu naqṣan li-ḏawī l-faḍl) (which, in any case, comes immediately after a section claiming the contrary -ḥamd alproduced by authors such as Ibn Ṣaḥnūn (d.255/868-9), Ibn Abī Zayd (d.386/996) and al-Qābisī (403/1012).See C. Bouyahia,La Vie littéraire,[260][261][262][263][264][265] For a list of the subjects covered, see S. Günther, 'Advice', 117ff.Apparently, the range of topics to be taught in traditional education had not widened in more recent times -the muʾaddib al-aṭfāl is defined as the 'šayḫ of the primary traditional school (kuttāb) who teaches children the letters of alphabet…the reading of the Qurʾān, writing and some mathematics'.This quotation is taken from a dictionary of traditional crafts in Damascus drawn up at the end of the nineteenth century.It also gives an idea of the wage system still in use -teachers usually received payments from the parents of their pupils.The greater the kuttāb was, the richer (and happier) the teacher was.See S. al-Qasimy, Dictionnaire, 407-408.taʾdīb).13 Among the evidence he cites, there is this effective poetic verse: 'It is enough as a defect for a man to be qualified as schoolmaster, even if he is excellent!' (kafā l-marʾa naqṣan an yuqāla bi-annahu muʿallimu ṣibiyānin wa-in kāna fāḍilan).14 The same Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ apparently considered it a loss of dignity for a noble person to become a schoolmaster at the end of his life.15 'Teachers and eunuchs are of the same rank' (as well as slave-traders and the devil who are also of the same rank), is a saying ascribed to the caliph al-Walīd, but the rationale of this warranted no explanation in our source.16 The general lack of prestige of this professional category is also attested in Ibn Ḫaldūn, who claimed that in his day teaching was nothing more than 'a craft and serves to make a living […] it is a far cry from the pride of group feeling', adding that, 'teachers are weak, indigent and rootless'.17 He also explains that men in government were too proud to do any teaching, and that was why teaching came to be an occupation restricted to individuals deemed weak (al-mustaḍʿafīn).18 He claimed that, 'at the beginning of Islam and during the Umayyad and ʿAbbāsid dynasties, teaching was something different.Scholarship in general was not a craft in that period'.19 Nevertheless, although he gives the impression that he somewhat idealised such ancient times, the textual evidence of other literary sources (belletristic or scientific) tells us that, even in the ʿAbbāsid period, muʿallimūn were generally despised or, at least, they were not ranked at the top of the social scale.20 The testimony of Ibn Ḥawqal (d.second half of the fourth/tenth century) is particularly illuminating in this respect.This famous geographer shows a total contempt for schoolmasters for whom theirs was 'the most miserable 13 Al-Iṣfahānī, Muḥāḍarāt, 1: 52-53.14 Ibid., 1: 53. 15 Ibid., 1: 52-53.16 Ibid., 1: 459.This has perhaps to do with intellectual faculties.See pp.92-3 below.17 Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, 33 (The Muqaddimah, 1: 59).18 Ibid., 33 (The Muqaddimah, 1: 60).The argument offered by Ibn Ḫaldūn is that in ancient times the high dignity of teaching was based on the close link between fighting to propagate Islam and the teaching of its foundations.Once Islam was firmly established and new laws evolved, this link became ever more loose.Thus, teaching was no longer practised by the strongest (i.e.warriors or rulers), but only by weaker people.

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position, the most humble profession, the meanest occupation'. 21Since the most ancient times, he explains, the most stupid and those who did not dare to fight devoted themselves to this profession, which, out of their stupidity, they considered honourable. 22choolteachers, along with other professions, were routinely the subject of prejudicial remarks.As al-Tawḥīdī (d.414/1023) claimed, schoolteachers, grammarians and chancery scribes--in spite of the difference of their ranks--were equal in stupidity. 23Curiously enough, the three categories have (or should have) a thorough knowledge of language and honed linguistic skills in common.Furthermore, if by definition, weavers and cuppers were idiots, slave-traders and goldsmiths were liars, tailors were pious, 24 grammarians were pedantic, 25 teachers were, above all, stupid. 26ut what was stupidity in the classical Arab world?In lexicographical works stupidity, ḥumq, is usually defined as 'the stagnation of intellect', or its absence.A more problematic, but much more stimulating, definition of stupidity is that put forward in adab literature by al-Ǧāḥiẓ (d.255/868-9, see infra) and fully formulated by the famous Iraqi writer Ibn al-Ǧawzī in the work he dedicated to foolish people: 'ḥumq is the choice of the wrong means and of the wrong way to achieve the right 21 Aḫass manzila, awḍaʿ ḥirfa wa-asqaṭ ṣanīʿa: Ibn Ḥawqal, Ṣūrat al-arḍ, 127 (Configuration, 125-126).Many passages of the chapter devoted to Sicily actually consists of an acid criticism of the intelligence, culture and ethics of its inhabitants and in particular of its schoolteachers, with a wealth of first-hand (but largely anecdotal) information about their stupidity (see for e.g.127-130;  Configuration, 126-130).Ibn Ḥawqal,[126][127]125).23 Imtāʿ, 1: 96.24  26 For categories of workers generally considered stupid see al-Ḫaṣḫūṣī, Ḥumq, 93ff.; 95-98 for schoolteachers in particular.Another common allegation was pederasty: al-Iṣfahānī, Muḥādarāt, 1: 54-55 has a section on liwāṭ al-muʾallimīn; the fact that a chapter on pederasty is extant in the Risālat al-muʿallimīn of al-Ǧāḥiẓ, even if it seems to be an interpolation, demonstrates that the allegation of pederasty was common for schoolmasters. pupose'. 27 An actually the bulk of the narrative on stupid schoolteachers turns on this very notion.All in all, cases of stupidity understood as a deficiency of the intellect or as a lack of logical abilities is quite rare.28 Most of the stories featuring stupid schoolteachers involve a distorted relationship between knowledge and appropriate behaviour.
It is worth noting that the charge of stupidity is a very serious one, since it was often defined as part of one's innate character--'a chronic disease that has no remedy' 29 --something so incurable and irreparable that even miracles cannot rectify it. 30Thus, Jesus himself must admit that he was able to revive dead and cure leprosy, but he was not able to cure foolishness. 31As an innate characteristic, it manifests itself through a number of physical traits such as a small head; a long beard (often a typical trait of schoolteachers 32 ); a short neck; protruding eyes and such like. 33If these signs, based on the medical and physiognomical theories of the Greek world, are purely physical, there are also clear signs pertaining to behaviour.Stupid people are vain and loquacious; they speak out of turn; they meddle in what does not concern them.They can be recognised by careful observation, and consequently they can and should be avoided because they are harmful. 34Moreover, they must also be avoided because stupidity was potentially contagious, as reported by al-Nīsābūrī (d.406/1015): 'stay away from the vicinity of stupid people JAIS ONLINE since by being their neighbour you might become like them'. 35This is a noteworthy point.Both the idea that stupidity can be transmitted and the notion that foolishness can result from, or be comparable to, a process of consumption, are tightly bound to the stereotype of stupid schoolteachers, as we shall later see.A vivid image found in adab literature compares foolish people with worn-out clothes: neither foolish people nor worn-out clothes can be redeemed: every time they are fixed in one respect, they are torn in another. 36After all, it is an image consistent with the notion of consumption that the words of al-Maʾmūn previously quoted suggest: both the wick of the lamp and the silkworm undergo a process of gradual reduction (even if we know that in the case of the silkworm it is transformation and not consumption).
The considerable interest among medieval men of letters for the figure of the stupid schoolmaster is easily understood if we observe how this stereotype lay at the intersection of two main themes of adab culture: intellect and knowledge, both of which are represented by their negative counterparts -stupidity and ignorance.In the Aḫbār al-ḥamqā wa-lmuġaffalīn of Ibn al-Ǧawzī, the summa of materials on foolish people, the notion of stupidity and its different manifestations are widely illustrated by a considerable number of anecdotes.More significantly, it is precisely in this work that both the substantial themes of intelligence and knowledge meet. 37Indeed, the whole book is based on this thematic link. 38Fourteen out of twenty-four chapters containing anecdotes in the Aḫbār al-ḥamqā involve idiots whose professional activity is closely related to different branches of knowledge: ḥadīṯ transmitters, grammarians, judges, chancery officers, Qurʾān reciters, preachers and so forth. 39If adab literature contains several stories in which scholars and men of science are represented as irreparably stupid, schoolteachers are by far the class of men of science in which stupidity dominates, to the point that they are considered idiots by definition.Nevertheless, Ibn al-Ǧawzī shows a more nuanced attitude towards them and defines them as 35 Al-Nīsāburī, ʿUqalāʾ, 68. 36Ibid., 68 and passim. 37Al-Ḫaṣḫūṣī (Ḥumq, 35-46) puts forward the theory that in adab literature there are three levels of stupidity, and that the first, the cognitive one, is very similar to ǧahl (ignorance).
muġaffalūn, which means simple minded or gullible rather than stupid.
As we shall see, in the end he seems to implicitly justify their intellectual deficiencies.
That schoolmasters are considered stupid by definition is a fact we can ascertain with ease simply by considering the wide range of proverbs and aphorisms on this topic.Schoolmasters very quickly become feeble minded, and they are well known for their foolishness and mental deficiency (yaḫrafu fī amadin yasīrin yattasimu bi-ḥumqin ṣahīrin wayataqallabu bi-ʿaqlin ṣaġīrin), as stated by Abū Zayd al-Sārūǧī in the 46th maqāma of al-Ḥarīrī (m.516/1122), al-Ḥalabiyya. 40The chapter on the muʿallimūn in the Aḫbār al-ḥamqā of Ibn al-Ǧawzī opens with the assumption that foolishness of schoolteachers 'is a matter which hardly escapes, and we see constant'. 41Other statements aim in the same direction: 'God assists [people] against the insolent and ungrateful behaviour of youngsters with the stupidity of schoolmasters': 42 'you are a tall schoolteacher with the longest beard: our Lord is enough for us and the best defence', 43 and 'if you are a copyist, you are debarred from the means of subsistence, and to be stupid you need only to be a schoolteacher', 44 and so on.The most representative proverb in this connection is perhaps the incisive saying, 'more stupid than a schoolteacher' (aḥmaq min muʿallim kuttāb), 45 with the variant, 'as stupid as a schoolmaster'. 46This prejudice was so widespread that Ibn Ḥawqal severely criticised the people of Sicily, who held schoolteachers in high esteem, in these terms: 'out of their short discernment, their scarce knowledge and absolute lack of intelligence, all the Sicilians consider this category (i.e.schoolteachers) as their most notable men, their élite...'. 47Obviously, even thinking well of the muʿallimūn was itself a sign of stupidity, something that only people affected by unsound JAIS ONLINE intellect (as seemingly Sicilians are in the author's opinion) can do. 48ometimes stupidity is so strongly associated with teachers as to be a genetic inheritance, for example in the case of the schoolteacher, the son of a schoolteacher, who replied when somebody asked why he was so stupid that, 'If I weren't so stupid, I'd be a bastard!' (law lam akun aḥmaqa kuntu walada zinan). 49The acid test of this strong association is that in al-Ḥarīrī's al-Maqāma al-Ḥalabiyya, teaching is plainly defined as 'the profession of the inane (ḥirfat al-ḥamqā). 50ut how does stupidity manifest itself in the case of schoolteachers and of what does it consist?Inappropriate behaviour, ignorance, gullibility, immorality, defects in intellectual faculties, skewed logic: all these cases are represented in the stories featuring stupid muʿallimūn.In narratives, the stupidity of schoolteachers is multi-faceted indeed, but in most cases it relates to a distorted relationship with knowledge.It can be a glaring deficiency in the most elementary notions of mathematics as happened in the case of the muʿallim Abū Ǧaʿfar of Ḥims: 'A women asked him, "If four raṭl of dates cost one dirham, how many will I have 48 The foolishness of Sicilians was considered the consequence of an excessive consumption of onions which negatively inhibited the sense faculties and thus impaired the reasoning abilities of the brain (ḫaṣṣyat al-baṣal iḥdāṯ fasād fī-l-dimāġ, Ibn Ḥawqal, Ṣūrat al-arḍ 124; Configuration, 123).Translating Ibn Ḥawqal, A. Mez (Renaissance, 185) puts it in these terms "The daily consumption of onions has made the Sicilians weak-minded with the result that they see things otherwise than they are.As an illustration they regards [sic]  the school-masters of whom there are more than 300, as the noblest and the most important members of their community and out of them make confidants [sic] and choose assessors in their courts.But we all know how cribbed and confined is the understanding of the schoolmasters and how light-headed they are!".Although suggestive, this is far from being faithful to the Arabic text of the Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ: the passage is a summary of remarks that can be found in Kramers' edition at 124 (on the effect of eating onions on the mental faculties), 126 (on the great number of teachers) and 127 (on their contemptible status).These passages from the year 973, however, appear in a specific historical context in the wake of great victories against the Byzantines (which were not followed up) and the departure of soldiers to Egypt with the Fatimids.Ibn Ḥawqal claimed that school-teaching was a type of 'reserved occupation', attracting those wishing to shirk the call-up for the ǧihād since they were exempt from fighting. 49 for a dāniq and a half?"He remained pensive for a long while.Then he put his hands under the hem of his garment and began to count on the fingers.In the end he brought his hands out, joined them and exclaimed, "A lump as big as this one!"' 51Worse still, it could be crass ignorance of the rules of recitation of the Qurʾān.For example, making pauses when they are not allowed 52 or making wrong readings of Quranic verses, 53 even worse when the teacher tries to justify his mistake. 54Stupidity could also include commenting and replying to citations from the Qurʾān as if they were normal speech addressed to the teacher himself.This basically hints at the incompetence of the teachers to recognise the quotations, but it could also be taken as a sign of their inability to place matters in their correct context or, even worse, of their attitude to tinker with the sacred text. 55This last possibility is not the most remote, and relates to allegations of their dubious ethical qualities which can be found elsewhere too.Among several instances of this inability to deal with Quranic quotations, the following is particularly illustrative: A teacher of Medina was excessive in beating and insulting the children for which they reproached him.One day--relates the anonymous source--he asked me to take a seat with him and to see how he behaved.I sat down near to him and all of a sudden a child exclaimed 'O master!'Upon thee shall rest the curse, till the Day of Doom!' 56 Thereupon, he replied, 'And upon you and your parents!' 57 Clearly the teacher did not recognize the quotation or, even worse, if he had identified it correctly, he misses the point of the sacred text and interpreted it as a statement performed in the frame of 'normal' communication.
Another example of this behaviour, going beyond the limits of the

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respect due to the sacred text, and even verging on obscenity, is that of the muʿallim who, instead of correcting the wrong reading of his pupil, takes it at face value and explodes with an insulting exclamation.The story goes thus: one of the pupils says innī urīdu an ankiḥaka ('I want to get married with you'), instead of the correct innī urīdu an unkiḥaka… ('I desire to marry thee [to one of these my two daughters])'. 58The schoolteacher's witty retort is immediate: 'Get married with that shameless mother of yours!' (inkiḥ ummaka l-fāʿila). 59iving insulting or even obscene answers is another trait of the foolishness of schoolteachers.They also are a peculiar side of that inappropriate conduct in their duties which is so often reproached to our muʿallimūn and which constitutes a consistent expression of ḥumq. 60here are teachers who coarsely abuse their pupils as a means of keeping them quiet 61 or when they give the wrong answer. 62But there are also lascivious schoolmasters who do not hesitate to propose sexual intercourse to their pupils' mothers, or even to have sex with them in front of their children, or to boast adulterous relations. 63This is no doubt a serious perceived shortcoming in their ethics, and it questions their dignity.This issue is likewise raised by their opportunism and servility, as shown in their disposition towards the rich and powerful.We read that a schoolteacher had the habit of having the offspring of well-off families sit in the shade, and the offspring of poor people in the sun, saying: 'Oh you people of Paradise, spit on the Hell dwellers!' 64 Otherwise, stupidity can appear as inappropriate behaviour in general or, more precisely, the kind of gap between theory and practice, between what the situation requires and what is actually done that--as we have seen earlier--is one of the definitions of foolishness in adab literature.In 58 Qurʾān 28:27, transl.Arberry. 59Al-Ābī, Naṯr, 5: 330 and 332; al-Iṣfahānī, Muḥāḍarāt, 1: 54. 60 In lexicography, stupidity also consists of 'putting things in the wrong place' (see A. Ghersetti, 'Paradigmi', 85 A longer version is found in al-Šarišī, Šarḥ, 3: 366.Shade and sun were a sensible topic in connection with teaching and actually several ḥadīṯ concern the position the teacher should avoid when teaching: the edge of the shade, or the place between sun and shade, is the place where Satan sits (see C. Melchert, 'Etiquette', 41; see also 44).
the following anecdote, we see al-Ǧāḥiẓ, much to his disappointment, telling the following story: I passed by, he says, a schoolmaster whom I found very knowledgeable.Some days later, passing to say hello to him, I found him lying on the floor like a dead man while the pupils were praying around him.I was deeply distressed, but when they finished praying, he stood up.'What's that?'I exclaimed.And he replied 'I was teaching them the funeral prayer'. 65teresting in relation to this is the story of the schoolteacher of a village in the countryside who, seeking to free a calf whose head was stuck in a well, first kills the calf by slitting its throat and then breaks the well by beating it with a stone. 66This serves as a clear example of the adab definition of foolishness: the purpose was right (to free the calf), but the means chosen to achieve it were wrong.
Inappropriate behaviour can also take shape as childish conduct.This happens, for instance, in the story of the muʿallim of Basra who refuses to address directly one of his pupils and asks another to speak to him in his place. 67Sometimes foolish behaviour is closely connected with food, and this perhaps hints at the low salaries teachers received, as in the case of the schoolteacher accused by one of his pupils to steal his breakfast 68 or of another that was found crying out of despair because the boys stole his bread. 69Schoolteachers can so be equal to their pupils in their way of acting, and show a childish attitude that is inconsistent with the dignity their position requires.For instance, they can have recourse to tricks to oblige children to accomplish their school duties.The following tale tells the case of a particularly zealous schoolteacher who gives chase to his lazy pupil: al-Ǧāḥiẓ was passing by some ruins when he caught sight of a schoolteacher barking like a dog.When a boy came out from a house, the teacher slapped him and insulted him.So al-Ǧāḥiẓ asked the teacher to explain that odd situation, and he replied: This boy is a bad fellow: he hates being educated, runs away and hides himself in this house and does not want to come out.But he has the habit of playing with a JAIS ONLINE dog, and when he hears my voice he thinks it's the dog barking.Then he comes out and I seize him. 70is is an unconventional way of convincing students to attend classes, and by no means a rude educational practice, but this story also vouches for the strong commitment of teachers to their mission and can also be taken as a demonstration of their attachment to the salary families paid for the education of their offspring. 71 similar kind of childish, odd behaviour (which eventually turns out to be successful) is that of a colleague of the barking schoolteacher.Al-Ǧāḥiẓ is again the authority to whom the sources attribute this anecdote.One day he passed by a muʿallim kitted out with a short and a long stick, a polo mallet, a ball, a drum and a trumpet.When this one was asked 'What's that?' he explained: 'I have to deal with very young riffraff and when I ask one of them to read his tablet, he whistles to me breaking wind; then I strike him with the short stick and he hesitates, and when I strike him with the long one he flees from me.Then I put the ball onto the polo mallet, I beat it and I split it, and all the children stand up and come towards me with their tablets.At that moment I hung the drum up to my neck, I put the trumpet into my mouth and I start playing the drum and the trumpet.When the people of the alley hear this, they rush to me and save me from them'. 72One cannot help thinking that such a show must have offered a good reason to conjure up commonplace ideas of the stupid schoolteacher.Indeed, the equipment used, typical of infantile games, also testifies to an infantile regression so often ascribed to primary-school teachers and which is considered the main cause of their stupidity.
Of course, if we consider this kind of behaviour and the lack of concern muʿallimūn showed for the dignity expected from those in such positions, it is not surprising to see that many of the stories concerning stupid schoolteachers focus on the irreverent behaviour their pupils had 70 Al-Ibšīhī, Mustaṭraf, 2: 520; French translation R. Basset, Mille et un contes, 1: 265, n. 153, with other sources; Ch.Pellat, Milieu, 61; Ibn al-Ǧawzī, Ḥamqā, 135 with some slight variants -the teacher is hidden behind a curtain, in a royal palace, and he is on all fours. 71The question of the teacher's responsibility for a student's attendance was closely related to the question of his salary.See, for example, what the Šāfiʿī jurist Ibn Ḥaǧar al-Haytamī (d.974/1567), even if in a later period, says in this connection (S. A. Jackson, 'Discipline', 21-23).
towards them: teachers are slapped and beaten; 73 their beards are pulled out; 74 their eyes are gouged with a cane; 75 their food is stolen. 76This is probably a kind of ideal revenge that reflected a real habit of inflicting corporal punishment on students who were often beaten with sticks or scourges, 77 figuratively represented in the anecdote featuring al-Ǧāḥiẓ's surprise to see a teacher without his usual stick. 78The disturbing thing with this kind of anecdote where, on the contrary, the muʿallim is beaten, is that it often accepts and even justifies the abuses, for instance, by claiming that he is in debt to the boy who is slapping him, or that he will complain to his pupil's father the following day, or even that he had placed a bet with his pupils and lost.The irreverent behaviour children had towards their teachers was seemingly so common as to raise the concerns of a poor muʿallim who, fearing to be battered to blindness by the children who wrestle with one another in the alley, preferred to remain all alone in the kuttāb. 79If in literary sources pupils did not hesitate to be disrespectful towards their teachers, it was perhaps also because some of them had not the slightest idea about their own self- 77 Corporal punishments were so common that they had to be carefully regulated: no more than three cane strokes were allowed by the Ifrīqiyan Ibn Ṣaḥnūn, the author of a manual for schoolteachers who dedicates a whole chapter to this subject (French translation by G. Lecomte, pp.81, 92, 103; some anecdotes at 81; on the utility of corporal punishments 87).The concern with abuse is also reflected in ḥisba manuals and legal treatises.For ḥisba manuals, see for instance Ibn al-Uḫuwwa, Engl.transl.by R. Levy 60; Arabic text 171 ('[boy] must be beaten for bad manners, insulting speech and other breaches of law'.However, 'beating must not be done with a stick thick enough to break bones, nor thin enough to harm the body, but with a medium one.A scourge with a wide thong should be used and the aim should be at the rump, thighs and lower parts of the feet, for in these places no disease or injury is to be feared').For legal treatises, see Ibn Ḥaǧar al-Haytamī's Taqrīr al-maqāl, in S. A. Jackson, 'Discipline', 25-28.

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respect and the decorum they were supposed to show.Al-Tanūḫī (d.384/994) gives first-hand evidence in this regard when in his Nišwār almuḥāḍara (The Table-Talk of a Mesopotamian Judge) he relates the story of a muʿallim who, without restraint, insults his pupils that are heaping curses on one another. 80nother facet of teachers' stupidity was gullibility.This shows itself in anecdotes featuring the poor muʿallim mocked by his pupils, as in the following story.Ibn al-Ǧawzī relates that 'a boy proposed to the children "What about setting the šayḫ free today?"The children accepted and he said: "Let's go and tell him he's unwell".A child then went to him and exclaimed "I see that you are very feeble: I think you're going to run a temperature.You'd be better go home and have a rest".Hereupon, the teacher asked another child: "Your fellow says I'm sick…" and that one replied "He's right by God, and this is clear to everybody here!Ask them and they'll tell you!"The schoolmaster asked them and they testified it was true, so he told them "Go home today, and come tomorrow!"' 81.
Gullibility is also at the core of the most famous anecdotes of the series (a rather late one, since--as far as we know--it first occurs in al-Mustaṭraf of al-Ibšīhī), which portrays al-Ǧāḥiẓ as very doubtful about the real intellectual nature of schoolteachers.'I myself--he says--wrote a treatise on anecdotes concerning schoolteachers and their carelessness (taġafful), but afterwards I changed my mind and decided to rip it up'.He explains that he happened to meet a muʿallim in Medina who was so accomplished in all the branches of learning that his determination to tear apart his risāla was strengthened yet further.But one day there was a catastrophe: the teacher was absent from his kuttāb, and having been informed that he was off because of a death, al-Ǧāḥiẓ decided to go and see him at his house.When he inquired about the identity of the dead (his son, his father, his brother, his wife…) the muʿallim gave this astonishing answer: 'My beloved'.But, much to our surprise (and to al-Ǧāḥiẓ's surprise as well) we discover that the poor simpleton has never met nor even seen his beloved: he simply heard a passer-by reciting some verses praising the beauty of a certain Umm ʿAmr, and he fell in love with her.And when the same passerby recited some verses announcing her departure, he understood that she was dead, left his kuttāb disconsolate and remained at home.Hearing all this, al-Ǧāḥiẓ exclaimed: 'Oh man, I wrote a book about your stories, you schoolteachers, and 80 Nišwār, 3: 148. 81Ibn al-Ǧawzī, Ḥamqā, 135; for other stories see also 136-137 and al-Ābī,  Naṯr, 5: 329, 331.when I met you I decided to tear it apart.But now, I'm more than ever resolved to keep it, and furthermore I'll begin just with you'. 82his story enjoyed remarkable success as its several occurrences testify, since we also find it, with some slight variations, in The Thousand and One Nights in both the Būlāq and Beirut editions. 83In this latter version, al-Ǧāḥiẓ is replaced by an anonymous 'outstanding man' (baʿḍ al-fuḍalāʾ), and the sciences (qirāʾāt, naḥw, šiʿr, luġa), knowledge of which was considered necessary for a teacher, are accurately listed -itself of importance for the history of education.But the most relevant variation of The Thousand and One Nights version is the explicit admission of the mental deficiency of schoolmasters: 'Intelligent people all agree on the mental deficiency of teachers of primary school', boldly says the anonymous source relating the anecdote.This statement then leaves no room for doubt: by general consensus, muʿallimūn are most definitely idiots. 84Incidentally, among the droll stories on idiot muʿallimūn that are found in The Thousand and One Nights, the anecdote which immediately follows this one relates how a schoolteacher emasculated himself having incorrectly evaluated the usefulness of his testicles.Needless to say, this one has been curiously neglected in the expurgated Beirut edition of the Jesuits. 85l-Ǧāḥiẓ is present in many of the anecdotes we have mentioned, but, and this must be stressed, only in later sources.The several anecdotes linked to al-Ǧāḥiẓ which Ibn al-Ǧawzī includes in his Aḫbār al-ḥamqā do not actually show any connection with the famous ʿAbbasid writer when quoted in earlier works.Thus, we can safely maintain that the attribution to al-Ǧāḥiẓ of the bulk of anecdotes about ridiculous teachers is a somewhat late phenomenon dating from the sixth/twelfth century This could well be the consequence of the fame of his Kitāb al-muʿallimīn.

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The following story illustrates al-Ǧāḥiẓ's reputation as the author of such a treatise: 'They say that a schoolteacher went to al-Ǧāḥiẓ and asked him if he was the author of the Kitāb al-muʿallimīn in which he had blamed them.When he answered in the affirmative, the man continued: 'And you mentioned in it that a teacher went to a fisherman and asked him what he was fishing for, fresh or salty game?' 'Yes, that's right', replied al-Ǧāḥiẓ.The man thereupon exclaimed: 'That fellow was an idiot!Had he been intelligent, he would have stayed and seen, and he would have known if what was coming out was fresh or salty".' 86 However, as in the anecdote we quoted previously, in which al-Ǧāḥiẓ himself features presenting his famous risāla as a stern criticism of stupid schoolteachers, this story shows a distortion of both the real contents of his treatise and his opinions as well.We are clearly in the realm of representation, if not of fancy.The attribution to al-Ǧāḥiẓ of the anecdotes where he plays the role of protagonist, the pretension that they were taken from his risāla on schoolteachers and, last but not least, the allegation that he was in the end deeply convinced of the stupidity of schoolteachers, are not supported by textual evidence.In the 1950s Ch.Pellat wondered if the attribution of all these anecdotes to al-Ǧāḥiẓ was a legend, and noticed that his risāla contained none of the stories later quoted on his authority.He even forwarded the hypothesis that there were two drafts of the same treatise. 87A few decades later some of the doubts have found an answer, and since then two critical editions of the Kitāb al-muʿallimīn have been published, one by ʿAbd al-Salām Hārūn88 and the other by Ibrāhīm Ǧirīs. 89The extant text of the risāla, unfortunately very fragmentary, bears no trace of the amusing anecdotes on stupid schoolmasters which the tradition ascribes to al-Ǧāḥiẓ, and which were supposed to exist in his work.Furthermore, the opinion that he had a negative attitude towards this category of people, an opinion widely spread in ancient sources (e.g.Ibn al-Ǧawzī, al-Šarīšī, al-Ibšîhī,)  and in modern scholarship as well, turns out to be wrong. 90Even the hypothetical existence of a treatise on the blame of schoolteachers, a Risāla fī ḏamm al-muʿallimīn, has not been proved up to now.
Surprisingly, if we compare it with the image conveyed by the anecdotes we have analysed, the Kitāb al-muʿallimīn is far from a celebration of the commonplace notion of the 'idiot teacher'.On the contrary, it 'deals, from a literary-philosophical point of view, with questions of learning and teaching at the more advanced levels', 91 and thus constitutes a manifest praise of the role of schoolmasters in society. 92The epistle of al-Ǧāḥiẓ had a wide renown among literati, as we have seen.Several anecdotes circulating in adab literature feature the genial writer, hinting at his risāla, and commenting on its validity and contents.But this is part and parcel of the process of representation so typical of adab literature, and does not necessarily correspond to a factual report.For sure, if al-Ǧāḥiẓ mentioned the common observation of the stupidity of schoolteachers, it was merely to dismantle it, as it already had been in the Kitāb al-bayān wa-l-tabyīn (The Book of Clear and Eloquent Exposition).The pages he dedicates to the topic in this work open with the quotation of the saying aḥmaqu min muʿallimi kuttāb ('more stupid than a schoolteacher'), that al-Ǧāḥiẓ qualifies as 'popular' (min amṯāl al-ʿāmma).This is followed by a famous line of poetry ascribed to Ṣiqlāb al-Muʿallim: How can you hope to find intelligence and sensibility in / those who go back and forth with women and children. 93ecisely the same idea was widespread in other adab works.For instance, as we find it in an anonymous verse quoted by one of al-Ǧāḥiẓ's epigones, al-Bayhaqī, but this time set in a dubitative tone: Do those who always go back and forth with / women and children acquire intelligence? 94Bayān,part 1,139;Ibn Qutayba,ʿUyūn,1.2: 64;Muḥāḍarāt,1: 55;Rabīʿ,1: 517. 94 Al-Bayhaqī, Maḥāsin, 580.

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people who are foolish by nature, namely women and children.This is testified by the advice of wise men that al-Ǧāḥiẓ quotes in connection with the proverb mentioned above.A wise man, he says, told that 'you are never to ask a schoolteacher for advice, a sheep herder or somebody who associates with women'. 95Obviously, being in contact with children, sheep and women has a bad effect on the intellectual faculties of men.Nevertheless, there is seemingly a hierarchy in foolishness: 'the intellect of one hundred schoolmasters is equivalent to the intellect of a woman, that of one hundred women is equivalent to that of a weaver, that of one hundred weavers is equivalent to that of an eunuch and that of one hundred eunuchs is equivalent to that of a child'.The sources consulted attribute this saying to al-Ǧāḥiẓ, but of course there is no such statement in al-Ǧāḥiẓ's works on schoolmasters. 96It is perhaps worth stressing that, in this case, the lowest rung of the social ladder belongs to schoolteachers -even if women come immediately after.But it is more usually women who have this honour.The same 'wise' man mentioned earlier goes on to explain how, 'You must never let the mother of your son beat him, since he is more intelligent than her, even if she's elder'. 97his superstition about feminine intelligence dies hard if a later author, Ibn al-Ǧawzī, attributes to women the lowest position in the hierarchy of intelligent people.In his Aḫbār al-aḏkiyāʾ (Tales of The Sagacious) he divides people into ranks, ordered from top to bottom: women are placed in the penultimate chapter, just after children and the insane, but thankfully before animals.In any case, the kind of acquired stupidity deriving from mixing with the weaker sex must not worry men too much.The caliph al-Maʾmūn again has something to tell us: if men are affected by flippancy (ruʿūna) because of their habitual visiting of women, it is enough for them to stop associating with them and to associate with real men (fuḥūl al-riǧāl) to put an end to this flaw. 98hese are the commonplace views al-Ǧāḥiẓ had to deal with; but, as always, he was not ready to accept clichés.Indeed, immediately after 95 Al-Ǧāḥiẓ, Bayān, part 1, 139. 96Al-Fanǧadīhī, Maʿānī, fol.236 a ; al-Šarīšī, Šarḥ, 3: 364.A variant, quoted in both sources is that 'the intellect of two perfect women is equivalent to that of a man; that of four eunuchs is equivalent to that of a woman; that of forty weavers is equivalent to that of an eunuch; and that of forty schoolteachers is equivalent to that of a weaver'. 97Bayān, part 1, 139. 98Ibn al-Ǧawzī, Ḥamqā, 15.
these quotations, he begins to deconstruct them.The first category he tackles is that of shepherds: people cannot claim on good grounds that shepherds are foolish, since many prophets practised precisely this job.This is, of course, a good reason to refute their imagined stupidity. 99hen he passes to schoolteachers, and demonstrates why it is completely unreasonable to consider them idiots.There are two categories of masters, says al-Ǧāḥiẓ: those who ascended from the education of common people's offspring to educating the elite's offspring, and those who ascended from educating these to educating royal offspring, who were themselves candidates for the future caliphate.

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associate with women'-is not taken into consideration and, in fact, there is no refutation of the stupidity of women.In this respect, another proverb comes to our rescue, partially reassuring us about the misogyny of the classical Muslim world.This time, stupidity is considered as an intrinsic feature of weavers, spinners (of yarn), and again, of schoolteachers (al-ḥumqu fī-l-ḥākati wa-l-muʿallimīna wa-l-ġazzālīn).However, women who are so often mentioned in this vein, are ignored.While al-Ǧāḥiẓ hastens to deny this statement for schoolteachers, as we have seen earlier, he takes a different position towards the other two categories that are considered far less than stupid.If one defines stupidity, as al-Ǧāḥiẓ does, in terms of the slippage between thoughts and actions (the foolish person is the one who thinks well but acts wrongly, or 'who speaks well and correctly, then makes a monstrous mistake')104 , then weavers and spinners are beyond even stupidity, since they are neither able to act well, nor to speak well.If this is the view taken by al-Ǧāḥiẓ in al-Bayān wa-l-tabyīn, the perusal of the extant passages of his Kitāb al-muʿallimīn--where the popular saying 'more stupid than a schoolteacher' is not even mentioned--does indeed confirm his attitude towards primary-school teachers: the topic of foolishness is not dealt with, and the stereotype of the stupid schoolteacher is even not hinted at.
It is clear from what precedes, that this cliché, apparently so widely accepted by the wider population, was resolutely rejected in the case of al-Ǧāḥiẓ, who vouched for the excellence of the muʿallimūn.In a later source, the Aḫbār al-ḥamqā of Ibn al-Ǧawzī, the same stereotype, if not rejected, is somehow mitigated and even justified.Let us reconsider al-Maʾmūn's speech related at the beginning of the chapter on schoolmasters from which we have taken the sentence that opened this article.The wise caliph precisely says: What do you think of someone who polishes our intelligences with his good manners (adab), and whose intelligence becomes rusty because of our ignorance, who honours us with his assured knowledge and whom we disdain with our frivolity, who stimulates our minds with his useful lessons, consumes his mind with our errors, does not give up resisting our ignorance with his science, our carelessness with his vigilance, our deficiency with his perfection until we are immersed in his praiseworthy qualities and he sinks into our blameworthy qualities and whenever we have the maximum of profit, he has the maximum of stupidity, whenever we are adorned with the more venerable manners, becomes completely idle.Since we forever deprive him the good manners he had acquired, and acquire them without him, and enter into him our innate natural dispositions that he acquires alone without us.All his life long he makes us acquire intelligence, while he acquires our ignorance: that's why he's like the wick of the lamp and like the silkworm. 105w can we best evaluate this, a true praise of the function and role of schoolteachers?Here stupidity of teachers appears as the result of a process of consumption, a kind of wear and tear, or a type of contagion rather than an innate defect and incurable illness. 106Actually, Ibn al-Ǧawzī through the quotation of al-Maʾmūn's words again takes the explanation that al-Ǧāḥiẓ had hinted at, and in the end justifies the muʿallimūn: if teachers are stupid, they are not stupid by nature.On the contrary, they become stupid because of the intimate association with children who, on the contrary, do seem to be stupid by nature. 107Or, still better, they slowly lose their intelligence, wearing it out in the service of their pupils: a sacrifice that ultimately consecrates schoolmasters as missionaries, or indeed, as martyrs of education.Observable here is the huge gulf between this and the perfect idiots that the literary tradition portrays.Not perhaps a great compliment for their pupils, but a great recognition of the poor and much maligned muʿallim.Dār Ṣādir, 1390/1970).Fahd, Toufiq, 'Les corps des métiers au IV/X siècle à Baghdad d'après le 105 Ibn al-Ǧawzī, Ḥamqā, 134. 106In the same vein is the commentary al-Fanǧadīhī makes on the final words of the 46th maqāma of al-Ḥarīrī.He clarifies the passage saying that the intellect of schoolteachers becomes as small as that of children, quoting also the following verse: 'a child, equal to his teachers in ugliness/and his teachers, equal to children in intellect' (Maʿānī, fol.236b).
100Among them are such personalities as al-Kisāʾī and Quṭrub, both famous and revered grammarians.Incidentally, al-Ǧāḥiẓ himself was appointed by al-Mutawakkil as tutor of his sons, 'but, on seeing me--he relates--he disliked my looks and dismissed me with a present of ten thousand dirhams'.101Notsuchabadanexperience, one might think.But how could these people, al-Ǧāḥiẓ goes on to say, be reasonably called stupid (ḥamqā)?This is inconceivable, for them and for those who are staying on the lower rungs as well, such as the primary school (kuttāb) teachers living in the countryside villages.Al-Ǧāḥiẓ continues to offer numerous concrete examples of revered scholars and literati who were also teachers, such as Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ and ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Kātib.Even the redoubtable governor al-Ḥaǧǧāǧ b.Yūsuf worked as muʿallim, and his father as well, both in al-Ṭāʾif.Interestingly, this same argument--that is, to have been a schoolteacher--is used by his denigrators to belittle al-Ḥāǧǧāǧ. 102al-Ǧāḥiẓ goes beyond this and adds his personal experience to the long list of historical cases.Among his associates in Basra he knew no one more acquainted with the sciences and more eloquent than two schoolteachers called Abū l-Wazīr and Abū ʿAdnān, both of whom figured among his first childhood memories.103Unfortunately,wemustpoint out that the third category mentioned in the proverb quoted earlier-'you are never to ask a schoolteacher for advice, a shepherd or somebody who associates with women' i.e. 'those who99Bayān, part 1, 139. 100 Ibid., 139 (the passage is reported also by al-Iṣfahānī, Muḥāḍarāt, 1: 55).Some of the most famous 'royal' schoolteachers are presented in A. Dietrich, 'Éducation'; as the author underlines, the tutors were mostly philologists and transmitters, but there were also poets and musicians.