form–a bamboo reed fermented in excrement to turn it red–and yet also
imbued in the seeming oxymoron of silent speech, double-tongued
because of the notch holding the ink in the nib of a reed pen.
You are a curious beauty, O reed clad in a red garment,
Double-tongued in converse, yet silent.^20
In this Platonic image, writing becomes the perpetually imminent possi-
bility of speech. This shifts into a metaphor where the reed becomes tall as a
tree, and the shadow cast by divine illumination transforms into the black
ink that emerges through its trace.
Showing offyour cypress stature, throwing a shadow
Trailing under your feet a tress of the color of the night...
[*]Not an arrow, yet taking the course of one towards the target,
Which is mostly paper.
At times you are Moses, at times Samiri,
At times taking for device the splitting of a hair,
Or else failing in the task by a hair’s breadth.^21
As on the tablets given to Moses, writing conveys authority. Yet like the
golden calf created by Samiri (Q20:85), writing also deceives and, like
philosophy andqalam, argues. Having traced the pen through its legacy
of divine speech to writing through content, Qadi Ahmad wittily incorpo-
rates painting.
Theqalamis an artist and a painter.
God created two kinds ofqalam:
The one, ravishing the soul, is from a plant
And has become the sugarcane for the scribe;
The other kind ofqalamis from the animal,
And it has acquired its scattering of pearls from the fountain of life.
O painter of pictures that would have enticed Mani
Thanks to you the days of talent have been adorned.^22
Thus differentiating between the reed and the brush (made from the fur of
animals), he explains that the animalqalamis but a hair“by whose enchant-
ment the works of those gifted in like Mani and the wizards of China and
Europe (firang) have settled on the throne of the land of Talent and become
artists (naqsh-band) in the shop of Destiny.”^23 Contemporaneously with(^20) Minorsky, 1959 : 49. (^21) Minorsky, 1959 : 49. (^22) Minorsky, 1959 : 50.
(^23) Minorksy, 1959 : 50.
166 Deceiving Deception