THE RULES OF SLEEPWALKING
BY AHMAD AL-TIFASHI

“The Rules of “sleepwalking” is the ninth chapter of The Delight of Hearts by Aḥmad ibn Yusuf al-Tifashi (1184-1253), which, with its translation (through the French of René R. Khawam) into English by Edward A. Lacey, and the amendments to it made on this website, are introduced here. A glossary there is critically important for the reading wanting to understand the real meaning of special expressions used like “sleepwalking”or the precise meaning here of words as ordinary as “boy”.

Chapter IX. The rules of “sleepwalking”. Strange anecdotes and witty verses on this subject. Miscellaneous anecdotes, etc.

THE PREREQUISITE for success in all “sleepwalking”^[1] operations is a small cock. Men who are so unfortunate as to possess too large a member will have great difficulty indulging in these activities. They run the risk of being beaten about with sandals and having their moustaches pulled out whisker by whisker. The following simple case may serve as a warning.

A man endowed with a really monumental cock once ventured to “sting” a particularly tender amrad. The amrad, feeling the pressure of a large-sized object that was attempting to plough its way into him, woke up with a start, grabbed hold of the beast and called for help. A lamp was brought, and, lo and behold, the man’s cock was revealed, fully erect, firmly in the amrad’s grip, and as big as a donkey’s tool.

“O friends,” exclaimed the amrad, speaking to all the onlookers, who had gathered around in a circle, “is that really a cock made for ‘stinging’? I’m such a weakling that I don’t think I could take the battering even if I were awake. As for somebody who’s asleep, I just don’t see how he could handle it….”

With that, all the spectators on all sides began to slap and cuff the “sleepwalker” mercilessly with the palms of their hands.

There are certain other requirements…. The “sleepwalker” must get suitable equipment. I have enumerated ten essentials for the task: a large needle and thread; a roll of paper; three small pebbles; a small bag of fine-grained dust; a small empty water-skin; a pair of scissors; a canteen full of cream; a fur cap; a purse full of counterfeit coins; and a raw egg.

 Let’s start with the needle and thread. Here’s how they are used. If the boy is going to sleep in a room with other men, he will, unfortunately, probably already feel a certain threat to his integrity. If so, once the lights are out, he’ll wait until his companions have fallen asleep, then get up and discreetly go and lie down a little further away. In this manner, anybody who had any idea of making out with him under cover of darkness will have his hopes dashed: he’ll stumble upon somebody else and will be disgraced…and his intended victim will escape unscathed. The expert “sleepwalker” gets around this difficulty like this: he will previously have taken the precaution of sticking a needle in the hem of the beloved’s garment and will have lain down not too far away, carefully holding the end of the thread in his hand. If the boy decides to move to another spot, the pull on the thread and its direction will indicate where he is. All the “sleepwalker” will have to do is get up and follow his quarry silently, cloaked in darkness. When he is ready to join the boy, he shortens the thread imperceptibly and this time sticks the needle in the boy’s mat or floor rug, which the boy would of course move if he resolved to get up again. In this case the thread would be sufficiently short to allow the sleepwalker to pick up the trail once more and reach his goal.

The use of the roll of paper is very simple. The sleepwalker shapes it into a long horn and blows smartly into it if any of his neighbours who happen to have a lamp take it into their heads to try to catch him in the act. The lamp will immediately go out.

The three little pebbles also have a very special function. The sleepwalker, aided by darkness, starts off by throwing the first pebble at a copper pot or some other metal object—just as if the pebble were a piece of plaster that had fallen from the ceiling, for example. That way, he can find out whether everybody round about is really fast asleep. If somebody raises his head, he waits patiently for a moment and then throws the second pebble. Finally he throws the third one. If there is no response, he can go ahead, with the certainty that on one will notice what he’s doing.

Our sleepwalker may find his victim lying in a position that will make his operations more difficult—on his back or on his side, for example. In that case, he takes the bag of dust from his pocket and scatters a thin cloud of it over the sleeper’s eyes. The latter will mechanically wipe his face off and then turn over on his stomach, thinking, no doubt, that a bit of dust has fallen from the ceiling. The sleepwalker will then find it easy to mount comfortably on top of him.

The small empty water-skin is used in much the same fashion. This time it’s a matter of finding some way to slip in beside the prey, who has had the ill-advised idea of sleeping too close to some bothersome neighbour. The sleepwalker places the skin bag between the two bodies he wants to separate, and inflates it little by little by blowing into it, until there’s room for him between the two sleepers.

The scissors are used merely to cut the cord that holds up the boy’s trousers, or, even easier, to cut a square hole in the seat of them.

What about the cream? The tension he is under will often make our adventurer’s throat feel dry. If so, he need only drink a little cream form the canteen he is carrying. This beverage will also help produce saliva more copiously, and that’s indispensable for his final attack.

All he has to do now is cover his head with the fur cap (furry side out, of course). He will, naturally, already have take the wise precaution of taking off all his clothing, since the victims of sleepwalkers, when they wake up at the wrong moment, have the annoying habit of grabbing hold of their aggressor’s garments or, failing that, of clutching at his turban or at his hair, while they shout for help. This way, in case of any danger, he simply leaves behind his hairy headpiece, which the hysterical young fool has mistaken for a head of hair. And the neighbours who have been jolted awake will not know what to think of this enigmatic object which they discover in the boy’s hand.

The counterfeit coins are useful in the same kind of situation. Our “sleepwalker” will hastily slip them into the hands of his tender prey if the latter happens to wake up in the middle of the operation. In most cases, the boy accepts this act of homage—and he doesn’t realize that he’s been cheated until the following day… by which time it’s too late.

Last, but not least, there’s the raw egg, which is used only in serious crises. If our “sleepwalker” is in danger of being caught in the act, he quickly lies down on the ground, face down, a little distance away, bares his bottom, and daubs his crotch with a little liquid eggwhite. Then he lies perfectly still, pretending to be sound asleep. If the others bring a lighted lamp and chance upon him in that condition, he will simply hear a voice near him exclaiming:

“Look! Here’s another one the ‘sleepwalker’ couldn’t resist.”

And nobody, at first, will dream of suspecting him.

*       *       *

At this point, four short anecdotes intervene which are not Greek love since they are about men predicating other men by stealth. In the first and last cases, no reason is given for such untypical behavior; in the second, we are told the “stung” man had been mistaken for someone else; in the third, that the “sleepwalker” was totally indiscriminate as to whom he “stung”.

*       *       *

Here’s another story. A man stole up to a sleeping boy, intending to “sting” him. The boy woke up and threw a stone at him. It hit the man’s head, and next day his face was caked with blood.

“You should do the same thing to that boy,” his friends advised him.

He answered them indignantly:

“My friends. I’m not made that way. To me, trying to fuck someone without his permission, and then, if I get the worst of it, trying to retaliate by doing the same thing to him as he did to me is a completely immoral procedure.”

*       *       *

Muhammed son of Musa was an old man of ninety when he recounted the following adventure:

I was spending a pleasant evening with a small group of friends. There was a young singer with us, an amrad who kept drinking all evening until night came. Shortly after that, everybody took a pillow and we all lay down to sleep right there. But I had a secret yen to fuck the singer. While I was waiting in the darkness for the right moment to arrive, I felt someone approach me, and that someone began to untie the cord of my Turkish trousers. I grabbed his hand and brought it to my beard. He realized the mistake he had made, left me and went on. Soon after someone else came up with the same idea in mind. I was afraid to call out my name, because that would have wakened everyone up, and I’d have forever lost my chance with the young singer. So this time I pretended to be asleep, and I let myself be fucked. But no sooner had the stranger got up off me than someone else jumped on top of me and took his place. There was another round of fucking, and all through it I pretended to be completely unconscious.

Then it was the turn of our host himself. He kept grinding on and on endlessly, until finally I lost all patience.      

“Curse you all,” I shouted, “Am I going to have to put up with being fucked uninterruptedly all night long until tomorrow morning?”

“Is that you, Abu-Jafar?”^[2] inquired my host.

Realizing his error, he took advantage of the situation and leaped in front of the young singer, scolding him in these words:

“I’d not be being faithful to my friendship with Abu-Jafar if I didn’t take you on until he’s ready to come and fuck you. Can you imagine?! Everybody thought he was you, and they’ve all jumped on him! And he’s not somebody I met just yesterday! We’ve been intimate friends for seventy years!”

*       *       *

Abu-Saïd al-Jarini relates that he was drinking with some acquaintances when he noticed a good-looking boy who was there with his father. He waited until the small hours of the night and crept up to the boy, with the intention of “stinging” him, but unfortunately he picked the father instead.

“What’s going on?” the father cried out.

“It’s me, Abu-Saïd. I told you to go to the market. Why didn’t you go?” answered the “sleepwalker”, in an attempt to justify his actions.

“My dear chap,” the father retorted, “if someone is asked to go to the market and forgets to do so, is that really a reason for screwing him?”

*       *       *

One evening, they say, a group of friends were together drinking. Nobody had been able to take his eyes off a handsome young singer who was present and who was quite obviously an amrad for hire. Night fell, everybody decided to lie down and go to sleep, and the lights were put out. A short time later, the young rascal got up stealthily and went and lay down a few feet away. As luck would have it, a respectable old gentleman lay sleeping near the spot the boy had vacated. One of the members of the group mistook him for the boy and began to fuck him. When the old fellow woke up, it was too late: he could feel the weight of a man on his back and the rhythmic bumping and grinding of a certain organ in his hindquarters. He immediately reflected: “This chap must have made a mistake.” So, taking hold of the sleepwalker’s hand he guided it to his beard. But the other man, who was probably on the point of coming, just kept pumping away harder than ever, saying only:

“Oh, sir, I really must ask you to excuse me! As God is my witness, I never imagined I was doing this to such a venerable old man!”

“My friend,” rejoined the graybeard with dignity, “you keep your cock firmly stuck in my rear end—may God keep you and prosper you!—you keep on humping away faster than ever, and at the same time you ask me to excuse you! What kind of excuses are those?!”

*       *       *

It’s said that one day al-Sakhri was “stinging” a boy when the boy woke up with a start and grabbed hold in the dark of the cock that was trying to ram him, crying out:

“What’s this?”

“It isn’t me,” answered al-Sakhir.

“Fine,” replied the boy. “I’ll keep on holding this cock in my hand until the son of a bitch it belongs to turns up.”

*       *       *

And here’s a final anecdote. Some friends were drinking together at the home of one of the most respected pillars of society in North Africa. There was a boy there who happened to belong to the master of the house. When everybody was asleep, one of the guests approached the boy and started to fuck him. The boy was drunk and didn’t put up any resistance, but when he felt the sleepwalker’s cock deep inside him, he couldn’t control himself any longer and shouted in a loud voice:

“God be praised!”

The members of the gathering no doubt must have thought that he all of a sudden was rapt in some profound meditation. Even the owner of the house was awakened by the cry and queried:

“Who’s reciting the Koran at this time of night?”

A man who happened to be lying nearby and who was quite perceptive raised his head in the darkness. He had just realized what was going on, and he paraphrased:

“If he weren’t one of those that cry ‘God be praised!’ he would have stayed inside him until Judgment Day!”…^[3] 

*       *       *

Now, to end the discussion, here are some amusing poems on the topic.

The first is quoted by Abu-Halima and supposedly was composed by Abu-Ishaq al-Kufi, about a boy he had “stung” while the boy was asleep (or, in the author’s opinion, was pretending to be):

I woke him up again
among the banquet guests
while the whole household slept,
drowsed by the cupbearer.

When the “sleepwalker” neared
he stirred imperceptibly,
turned gently on his side,
his eyelids sweetly closed
on his cheeks’ glowing flowers.

If he’d not been pretending to be asleep,
his cock would never have risen so high
and he wouldn’t have parted his thighs so wide
at the very moment of union!

Here’s a poem by another author:

O night of fruition
with those we love,
return! Dejection
and distance quicken
age’s attrition.

Aid our conjunction:
Evil tongues plot sedition.
But in darkness, all virtue 
can become fiction
without contradiction….

Jalal-al-Din, Ibn-Makram, son of Abu-Hassan, al-Ansari, has left us the following poem:

I asked for a meeting
to ease my sick heart.
He refused at the start.

He threatened. I appealed
to the wine cup for aid; 
it cleansed his soul, made

him open and friendly.
So I asked him again;
he said “no,” and explained

quite coldly his reasons.
I merely kept pouring
Pure wine, till he was snoring.

So I got what I wanted,
with no fear of “they”
or of “some people say”…

Then I came back to him,
feeling once more the goad,
and I walked the same road.

But this time I awoke him
slowly, little by little,
so as not to startle.

He saw what had happened,
smiled in cooperation,
asked for no explanation.

Thus a lover should act
when the one he loves madly
handles such matters badly.

Abu-Tammam^[4]--may God forgive him his sins—composed these verses:

When, full of sleep and wine,
at last he slumbered,
when his watchful eyes closed
on care and cumber,

I made the journey to him
that a friend makes
knowing the value
of that which he takes,

to “sting” as one must “sting”
beauty that sleeps,
barely to graze him
as a breath creeps.

So the night passed away
--he slept all the while—
until dawn opened
her lips in a smile.  

*       *       *

Muhammad son of Yahya, al-Suli,^[5] has recorded this story told to him by Muhammad son of Bassam:

I fell in love with a servant who worked for my mother’s brother, my uncle Ahmad son of Hamdun. One night I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I got up in the darkness, fully determined to go “sting” him. But I had hardly mounted him when a scorpion stung me. I cried out. My uncle woke up and came over.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I’m pissing.”

“And since when do people piss in my boy‘s bottom?” he asked me in astonishment.

I answered with these verses:

Aided by darkness
I traveled, replying
to the message of someone
much given to lying.

But a black intruder,
to spoil my joy,
had already mounted
on the back of my boy.

Curse this scorpion
in your song, singer:
“stinger stinging”
another “stinger”!

My uncle could only exclaim:             

“May God withhold His favour from you! I hope something like that will always happen to you, to teach you to give up such disgusting habits!”

^[1]  The term in French is piquage,” “the act of stinging”: the associated verb is piquer, “to sting,” the agentive noun, piqueur, “stinger.” These equivalents were found to be rather infelicitous in English, except in the poems, and the substitute terms “sleepwalking,” “to sleepwalk” and “sleepwalker” were generally used instead. The reference is to anal intercourse in which penetration is effected under cover of darkness, while the victim is asleep, and without his knowledge. [Note by Edward Lacey] 

^[2]  Abu-Jafar is Muhammad’s kunys, or nickname. [Note by Edward Lacey]

^[3] This is a Koranic quote and a very funny one. It refers to the story of Jonah in the belly of the whale, but is, as it were, inverted. The reference is to Koran, Sura 37, verses 143-144 “Had it not been that he {Jonah} repented and glorified God, / he would certainly have / remained inside the Fish / till the Day of Resurrection.” Here, of course, it’s the “fish” that would have remained inside “Jonah,” which makes it even funnier. Obviously, the boy’s shouting “God be praised!” woke the others up and prompted his violator, who would have preferred to stay longer, to withdraw from the boy’s body. [Note by Edward Lacey]

^[4]  Syrian Arad poet, 801-845 A.D. He was condemned by other poets for his supposed plagiarisms, his fulsome panegyrics, and his recbercbé style—hence al-Tifashi’s pious comment after his name. [Note by Edward Lacey]

^[5]  A Baghdad historian and poet, 873-947 A.D., one of the most brilliant exponents of Arab culture of his time. [Note by Edward Lacey]