24 | The Giving Divide
hierarchy, both the social organization that this giving requires and the very fact
that the primary sources use collective nouns to refer to the crowd argue for the
existence of social cohesion among craftsmen, whereas it is much harder to see
such coordination of activity among, say, the urban poor. In fact, the only other
group that appears to be similarly organized is that of the dervishes, the members
of Sufi brotherhoods. That the latter carried a clear sense of collective identity is
apparent throughout the hagiographies of their spiritual masters. And indeed,
Ibn Battutah’s mention (in the passage translated above) that single young crafts-
men were also in the habit of sharing their living spaces does strengthen the pos-
sibility that this shared identity entailed a solidarity or sense of belonging going
far beyond a mere public image.
Food Gifts and the Religious Folk
This comparison between craftsmen and Sufis brings up the core concern of this
chapter, the religious professionals (an expression I discuss shortly), whether
they be scholars or dervishes, and the way their social identity appears when we
examine it through the divide that runs between food givers and food recipients.
Interestingly, the highest ranking among people whose professional identity
stems from religious activities appear as recipients rather than providers of food
gifts. The way these many cases combine a remarkable consistency in contents
with a variety of contexts makes it unlikely that these are no more than liter-
ary motifs. Thus, there seems to have been a common practice, when visiting a
religious master, to bring along some simple but tasty food items such as fruits
or ۊalwâɆ. These, incidentally, were snack foods (as opposed to the types of foods
one would eat as part of a meal), but they needed to meet certain standards of
refinement, as we can see from a mention that lentils were seen as too lowly a
present for such an occasion. In any case, these foods were meant for immediate
consumption, and after the master tasted them, they could be distributed among
the people in attendance:
One day, one of the beloved friends [dervish followers of Rumi] brought a fig
to our master [Rumi] from the orchards of the brothers. [Rumi] picked up the
fig and said: “Indeed, this is a nice fig, but this fig has a pit,” and he put it down.
This dervish was surprised, for how could a fig have a pit? Modestly, he stood
up, picked up those figs, and went away. After a while he came [back] and put
another basket of those figs in front of Rumi. The latter ate one of them, declar-
ing: “This fig does not have a pit.” The Shaykh Muhammad Khâdim ordered
that they be distributed to those present. The disciples were amazed by this
intricate [feat]. When that dervish got out and went away, they followed him
and asked him about the figs. He said, “By God, I had a gardener friend, and
I could not find him in his orchard. Without his permission I gathered a bas-
ketful of figs and brought them to our master, intending to pay the gardener