Khan Al-Khalili Read Online Free

he had learned to keep his goalshidden from everyone, but even so that did not stop him telling his colleagues and friends that he was devoting all his spare time to knowledge and learning. The untrammelled domain of knowledge, something that far outclassed school-based learning and government-issued diplomas, and in-depth reading that would turn its practitioner into a scholar of enormous profundity.
    Another year was squandered while his library acquired yet another category of scientific works. After a while he paused in his endeavors. “Precisely what is it,” he wondered in an exhausted quandary, “that my particular talents are cut out for?” It was obvious enough that he himself did not know the answer as yet; if he had, he could have saved himself some time—it would have been much better if he had—rather than wasting his energies to no effect.
    What really interested him? By now he was finished with both law and science, but they were the be-all and end-all of everything. Even so, there was something else that was just as worthwhile and wonderful. How he adored the works of the poet Shawqi and the essayist al-Manfaluti; what bewitching eloquence in their writing! Could his real calling be literature? What a great mode of art it was, one that did not require a degree to practice it nor school learning either. Reading, that was all that was involved; reading poets like Shawqi, Hafiz Ibrahim, and Mutran, just as he had done before. His library soon welcomed some new additions in the form of poetry and prose anthologies that he devoured with such enthusiasm that it aggravated him. During his literary excursions he came across Ibn Khaldun’s quote: “We have heard from our revered shaykhs in literary salons that there are four major sourceworks whenit comes to literature studies. They are:
The Complete Work
by al-Mubarrad,
The Scribe’s Manual
by Ibn Qutayba,
The Book of Eloquence and Clear Expression
by al-Jahiz, and
The Book of Anecdotes
by al-Qali from Baghdad. All other sources apart from these four are derivative.” He let out a sigh of satisfaction; it was as if he had stumbled on a treasure and had acquired the four pillars of literature. With that he read them all with his characteristic zeal and speed. When he had finished, he asked himself—with a good deal of relish—whether he had now become a literature scholar. Grabbing a pen he decided to test his resolve by writing something. The piece he wrote was called “On the Banks of the Nile,” and into it he poured his artistry and inspiration. When it was finished, he sent it by mail to a journal and started picturing the admiration and amazement with which readers would greet it once it had been published. This would be the first stage on the path of glory and fame. For him that would be enough, since the only reward he was looking for was literary recognition. The journal was duly published, and he thumbed through it looking for his article, but it was not there. He began to lose heart, and his high hopes took an awkward tumble. But he did not give up hope and told himself he had to wait another week. Weeks went by, and still the article did not appear. Here he was, someone who had read the four principal pillars of Arabic literature from which all other sources are considered to be derived. According to Ibn Khaldun that made him a literature scholar—Ibn Khaldun, no less! So how could it be that his article had not been published? Was it because the author was unknown, or he had not gone through anintermediary? Was it possible they couldn’t understand his argument? For a short while he thought he might go to the journal in person and find out what had happened, but he soon decided he could not; his innate diffidence was always there as a roadblock.
    He now decided to put the shock of the first rejection behind him and wrote a second article about justice. He had no more luck with it than he did with the first one. He wrote a third piece