In the Orient’s motley, twisted annals the tale of Ahmed el-Bagdadi’s—“the Thief of Bagdad,” as he is called in the ancient records—search for happiness, which is by the same token the tale of his adventures and exploits and love, has assumed in the course of time the character of something homeric, something epic and fabulous, something close-woven to the golden loom of the desert in both pattern and sweep of romance.
It is mentioned with pride by his own tribe, the Benni Hussaynieh, a raucous-tongued, hard-riding breed of Bedawins, brittle of honor and greedy of gain, of whom—due to a father, tired of the sterile Arabian sands and eager for the pleasures of bazar and marketplace—he was the city-bred descendant. It is spoken of with a mixture of awe and envy by the Honorable Guild of Bagdad Thieves of whom he was once a keen and highly respected member.
It is wide-blown through the flaps of the nomads’ black felt tents from Mecca to Jeddah and beyond; berry-brown, wizen old women cackle its gliding gossip as they bray the coffee for the morning meal or rock the blown-up milk skins upon their knees till the butter rolls yellow and frothing; and, on the sun-cracked lips of the cameleers, on the honeyed, lying lips of overland traders and merchants, the tale has drifted South as far as the Sahara, North to the walls of grey, stony Bokhara, Southeast and Northeast to Pekin’s carved dragon gates and the orchid plains and ochre mountains of Hindustan, and West to the pleasant, odorous gardens of Morocco where garrulous white-beards comment upon it as they digest the brave deeds of the past in the curling, blue smoke of their water-pipes.
“Wah hyat Ullah—as God liveth!” their telling begins. “This Ahmed el-Bagdadi—what a keen lad he was! A deer in running! A cat in climbing! A snake in twisting! A hawk in pouncing! A dog in scenting! Fleet as a hare! Stealthy as a fox! Tenacious as a wolf! Brave as a lion! Strong as an elephant in mating-time!”
Or, taking a blade of grass between thumb and second finger, another ancient will exclaim:
“Wall hyat hatha el-awd wah er-rub el-mabood—by the life of this stem and the blessed Lord God! Never, in all Islam, lived there one to equal Ahmed the Thief in quality and pride, the scope and exquisite charm of his thievery!”
Or perhaps:
“Wah hyat duqny—by the honor of these my whiskers! Once, O True Believers, it happened in Bagdad the Golden! Aye—may I eat dirt—may I not be father to my sons if I lie! But once, indeed, it happened in Bagdad the Golden!”
And then the full, rich tale. The wondrous ending.
Yet the tale’s original cause was simple enough, consisting in the snatching of a well-filled purse, a hungry belly craving food, and the jerk and pull of a magic rope woven from the hair of a purple-faced witch of the left-handed sect; while the scene was the Square of the One-Eyed Jew—thus called for reasons lost in the mists of antiquity—in the heart of Bagdad.
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