PATHICS AND THEIR WAYS
BY AHMAD AL-TIFASHI

“Pathics and their ways. Everything that is told and written about them. Strange facts, anecdotes, jokes and poetry” is the twelfth and final 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 reader wanting to understand the precise meaning in what follows of various key words as ordinary as “boy”. 

As one would expect from the foregoing introductory description, almost none of it is of Greek love interest. Excluding stories of homosexual inverts wanting to take the passive role with well-endowed youths, only five short stories having some Greek love by coincidence are of sufficient interest for presentation on this site. 

[1. Al-Dalal, the Boy and the Emir of Medina]

Al-Dalal was also from Medina: his real name was Majid. Among the pathics of that period, he was reputed to be the one with the most beautiful features, the most elegant clothing and the most refined manners. He was dubbed “the Quintessential Flirt.” He was a member of the group of pathics at Medina who were forcibly castrated.^[1] After the operation, he is said merely to have remarked:

“Perfect! I was accustomed to devote myself to the pleasure of others, and from now on I’m ideally equipped for the task.”

I shall not go on here to speak of the reasons for al-Dalal’s castration. The explanations can be found in every history book, and the aim of this work is to present the reader with a collection of unusual facts that have seldom been mentioned in books up until now.

Another story about al-Dalal is the one about the time he was caught out with a boy. They were both taken before the emir of medina, who shouted at al-Dalal:

“You degenerate!”

“May the words that leave your mouth rise directly to the gates of Heaven,” al-Dalal replied.

“You enemy of God!” continued the governor. “As if your house weren’t big enough…you had to go out and lure this boy out into the desert, the better to perform your filthy acts!”

“If I had known that His Eminence the Emir was envious of me and also wished to have relations with this boy, I certainly would never have taken the liberty of removing the boy from the precincts of my own home.”

“Strip him and administer the penalty prescribed by law,” ordered the emir.

“What do these blows matter to me compared to the ones I receive every day?”

“And who beats you?”

“The tools of the Faithful.”

“Lay him on the ground and sit on his back!” the emir ordered the jailers.

“I see that His Eminence the Emir wishes to observe the way I get fucked.”

“Pick him up—God damn him—and parade him around town in a march of shame along with this boy!”

The two culprits were taken out and marched through the streets of the city. As they went by, someone yelled at the accused:

“What happened, Dalal?”

“Well, the emir felt the urge to satisfy his own prurient desires by arranging an assignation between two men. He chose this boy and me, and then he made haste to shout the story to the high heavens. And now he gets angry if anyone points out that he acted as a go-between.”

As soon as al-Dalal’s words were reported to the emir he hurriedly ordered:      

“Release him—and may Almighty God damn him to eternity!”

[2. The Pathic Secretary’s Boy Bait] 

On an unnamed invert, another anecdote concerning whom can be dated to AD 1194 or 1195 and implies he lived in Egypt:

I learned that at the same period there lived another old man, who belonged to the government secretarial staff, where he occupied a very prominent position. He was an extremely competent scribe and had a high reputation. […]

There were many more tales told about our friend the secretary….For instance, he had in his employ a smooth-cheeked Greek boy nicknamed “Jewel,” handsome and elegant, who used all sorts of tricks to get sturdy, well-endowed studs for his master. He picked up sodomites by luring them with the charms of his own body. He’d respond immediately to the advances of anyone who flirted with him, and would then draw the stranger away to some solitary spot nearby. There he’d always make the same demand:

“I won’t go with you unless you show me your cock first.”

The other man would expose himself. If he turned out to be poorly endowed, the boy would drop him like a hot potato and would go try his luck somewhere else. If he was well enough hung to satisfy Jewel’s master, he would say:

“I live alone. Come to my place.”

And he’d lead him straight to his master’s bedside.

He lived like a lord, doing this. He was comfortably lodged and well fed by the old guy, who gave him ample spending money for his own use. He was actually quite free to come and go as he chose and to take whatever money he wanted from his master’s purse. But he was not happy with the kind of life he led. It exhausted his strength, because whenever he failed to pick up someone to fuck his master, he would have to do the job himself. So he would have given anything to find someone who could replace him in that role.

He had another trick to attract his prey. By day, he’d hang around the crowds of spectators that gathered to watch and listen to professional storytellers, street singers and conjurers. At night, in the hot weather, he would mingle with groups of people attending open-air festivities and popular amusements. On such occasions he’d wear nothing but a long, thin cloth tunic. He’d slip into the tightly packed, standing crowd, and he would choose a place right in front of the man he had spotted. He’d lead off by pushing his ass boldly up against the man’s cock, until he felt a reaction through the unsubstantial barrier of flimsy cloth. He’d return to the attack, and the cock which had been thus incited would be quick to rise to the bait. Then he would unobtrusively grope the man, and if the individual in question was willing to go with him, he’d give his cock a gentle tug and ease out of the throng. If not, he’d leave him there and go stand in front of another likely candidate.

One day his master said to him:

“Jewel, if you can bring me the kind of man I’ve always dreamed of finding, with a cock that’s bigger and better than the biggest cock I’ve ever had the luck of experiencing up till now, I swear by God on high I’ll proclaim publicly before everyone that you’re no longer a slave but a freedman, and it won’t cost you a red cent! And you know I always keep my word….Of course, you also know that there isn’t a single cock in this whole country that I haven’t tried some time or other—I can’t deny that.”

The boy was wild with delight at the prospect of soon being free again and no longer subject to his master’s whims. He went to stand watch at the exit from the Cairo bridge, at the spot where boats coming downriver tied up. He waited there until finally a boat arrived from Qus,^[2] full of people from Upper Egypt.^[3] He knew that passengers getting off usually pulled up their tunics before setting foot on the bank of the river, in order not to get their clothes wet. When they did so, any man with a hefty cock never failed to show at least the tip of it under his garments. Our boy was busy watching the passengers disembarking, when he chanced to spy a chap who was a real giant. He was brown-skinned and was holding his robe up, like the others. Between his knees there hung a rod as big as the leg of a camel, with a cleanly slit knob on the end.

When he saw this, the boy rushed up to him and grabbed his hand. The man had no baggage but a bundle of clothing which he was carrying. The youth relieved him of his parcel and said:

“Oh, sir, I’d be so honored if you’d spend the night with us!”

By these words, he clearly gave the man to understand that he was a pathic.

“I accept, out of love and respect for your person,” said the stranger.

They walked along together for a while, and the boy asked:

“What’s your name, honoured sir?”

“Maymun.”

Having got this necessary piece of information, the boy led the man in silence to his master’s house. There was a little private upstairs parlour in that house, overlooking the entranceway. As they were about to cross the threshold, the old man, who no doubt had been waiting for some time, stuck his head out the window and noticed the stranger.

“Maymun, my dear fellow!” he cried. “What a surprise! Peace be unto him who comes in peace! Come on up! What a lucky day—and tonight will be even luckier!”

The newcomer turned to the boy then and asked:

“You wouldn’t happen to be working for Secretary So-and-So, would you?”

And he mentioned the old man’s name.

“Well,” he went on, “I should inform you that I’ve known your master for a long time now—twenty years before you even started to work for him!”

The boy finally realized what was going on and saw that the two men were, in fact, old friends. He turned to his guest and said merely:

“Go on up!”

The stranger climbed the stairs, followed by the boy, who accompanied him to the room where the old man was waiting and said to the latter:

“Master, may God turn His face from your children and all your descendants! I swear by God above, I’m beginning to think I’ll never really be a freedman! I won’t ever actually escape from your grasp until the angle Israfel^[4] sounds the trumpet of the Last Judgment!”

And he went out, leaving the old man alone with his visitor.

[3.  Hard to Have it Both Ways] 

Included among “some notes concerning inverts in our own times”:

Others prefer amrads whom they can both fuck and be fucked by, as in the following anecdote:

One day an old man^[5] who was fond of boys was hustled by one. It was understood that each of them would fuck the other. So the boy began to screw the old man. He must have been performing pretty well because the old man soon felt a certain part of his anatomy beginning to swell.

“Get off me, get off me!” he shouted immediately.

The boy obeyed, and the old man quickly climbed on top of him. But as soon as he began to grind away, he felt his cock go limp.

“Get on top, get on top!” he cried, stretching out on his stomach and signaling to the boy to start screwing him again. The whole operation began again from the start, and the old chap soon felt something rising up below his stomach once more.

“Get off me, get off me!” …

This nonsense went on for a while like that. Then the boy must have had enough. He put his Turkish trousers back on, tightened the cord around his waist and announced:

“I came to your place to fuck you and to be fucked, not to play musical chairs!”

[4.  A Pathic’s Envy of a Boy Being Raped] 

Once in Sijistan^[6] a gang of young hoodlums grabbed a boy and dragged him off to an isolated spot not far from the walls of the city. There the members of the gang subjected him to every kind of immoral act that can be imagined. The news soon reached the victim’s mother, and she rushed out into the street, weeping and lamenting. A pathic came upon her in that state and asked her:

“What’s the matter with you?”

“My son was taken and gang-raped by twenty-two men,” she sobbed.

“Steady now, steady now, madam,” said her interlocutor. Just tell me where this place is where are so many bananas ripe for skinning, so I can go and investigate the situation on the spot for myself!”

[5.  Sleeping Beauty]

A man was madly in love with a boy pathic^[7] who really held out on him. One day he gave a party for nine or ten of his friends, and plied them all with liquor. When they were all fairly drunk, he invited them to gang-rape his beloved, one by one. Knowing how infatuated their host was with the boy and thinking that this was just a drunken fancy of his ― and knowing, besides, that they’d be sorry for what they’d done when they were in their right minds again ― they demurred. Meanwhile, the lovely boy lay there, pretending to be asleep, clearly waiting to be attacked. But when he saw that the would-be rapists were hesitant, he lost patience, until finally he sat up and said to them:

“When fate orders something to happen, man must comply.”

This remark made everybody laugh so hard that Sleeping Beauty and his ardent admirer were reconciled on the spot.

^[1] “The famous story is also reported of the letter of Hisham (or of Sulayman or of al-Walad son of Abd al-Malik). Ordering the governor of Medina (or Mecca) to take a census (absi) of the effeminate men of the two holy towns. Having read ikbsi (castration) instead, the official had two (or nine) of them castrated, notably the singer al-Dalal….The whole account is, by all appearances, nothing but an amusing anecdote forged to provide evidence of the inconveniences of Arabic script.” Encyclopedia of Islam, vol. IV, p. 1087. [Note by Lacey]
     The three brothers al-Walid, Sulayman, and Hisham, all sons of Abd al-Malik were between them caliphs in AD 705-17 and 724-43, the only indication of the date of this story. [Website note]

^[2] A riverine village in Upper Egypt. [Note by Lacey]

^[3] The Negroid Nubians of Upper (southern) Egypt and the Sudan were and still are famed for their stature, strength and generous genital endowment. [Note by Lacey] 

^[4] In Islam, the archangel who will blow the trumpet—which he constantly carries poised at his lips—to announce the Last Judgment. He is the counterpart of the Biblical Raphael. [Note by Lacey]

^[5] The word translated in this paragraph as “old man” is sheikh, which can also mean “chief” or leader”. [Website note]

^[6] The former province of Sijistan or Sistan covered a large part of eastern Iran and southwestern Afghanistan. It lay north of Baluchistan and south of Khorassan. [Note by Lacey, taking in another by Khawam]

^[7] This is a unique instance of al-Tifashi describing a boy who took the passive role as a pathic. Presumably it means that he was so obviously effeminate that he was likely to continue to want the passive role as an adult (unlike most boys involved in Greek love). [Website note]