“Ataba”... and Revenge!! A Lebanese Anecdote

In the year 1612 circumstances forced the great Emir Fakhr al-Din al-Ma'ni II to leave Lebanon and travel to Italy, leaving the government to his brother Emir Yunus and to his son Emir Ali.

The Ottoman state saw that the opportunity had come to spread the canopy of its rule over Lebanon, and set about rousing its agents and partisans — of the Harfush clan, the Sayfas, and others — supplying them with men and materiel to strip the Ma'nis of their authority over certain provinces and districts and annex these to themselves.

Yusuf Pasha Sayfa was among the bitterest enemies of the Banu Ma'n. He fell upon Kisrawan with his horse and his men, forcing its Khazen governors to flee, and threw the reins of its rule to his two sons, the Emirs Hasan and Husayn.

Among the agents whom he set over this district, under the authority of his two aforesaid sons, was a man called Ali ibn Skeiker.

This man was one of those who harbored envy and rancor toward the house of Khazen. Hardly had he taken over the government when he set about plundering their houses and sequestering their properties, and persecuting everyone loyal to them, until there was no one left in the country who did not harbor a grudge against him and a longing for revenge.

What most stirred hatred against him was the baseness of his nature and his debauchery... He did not scruple to molest any woman who pleased his eyes, nor hesitate to use every means at his command to possess her, caring nothing for the outrage his conduct aroused among the people, nor for the revolt against him that such outrage might breed in men's souls.

Often the proud men of Kisrawan thought of rising, but the orders they secretly received from their Khazen sheikhs, calling on them to keep still, stood between them and being swept into the current of their revolt.

And this served only to make the depraved agent bolder in pursuing his abominations.

It happened once that on the threshing floors of Ajaltoun he saw a girl whose beauty seized him... He asked about her and was told: she is the daughter of a man called Khater, one of the servants of the Khazens, who lives in a house of his near the village.

Khater was among the men closest to the sheikhs, and one of the most devoted to them. He had tried to leave Kisrawan and join them after they were forced to depart, but they refused him that, and ordered him to remain in Ajaltoun to look after their properties, to watch the doings of the usurpers, and secretly to send them their news.

Ibn Skeiker did nothing less than summon him and ask for his daughter's hand... The man was appalled that the profligate should make such a request... but he did not think it wise to declare what was passing through his mind, so he said to him:

— I do not oppose what you ask, but I prefer to take my daughter's opinion in the matter.

Ibn Skeiker saw no harm in that... Then his suspicions awoke, and something whispered to him that the man would flee with his daughter; so he sent a party of his men to watch him, ordering them to carry off the daughter, and not to hesitate to kill the father if they saw him trying to escape with her.

And so it was... Khater resolved to take his daughter and fly with her... When midnight came, they set out in earnest on their flight — and suddenly the tyrant governor's men fell upon them, covered the father with wounds, snatched the daughter, and carried her off to their master.

Sheikh Abu Nader, the elder of the Khazens, having left his province, was living in Deir al-Qamar, at the side of Emir Yunus al-Ma'ni.

One evening a man came in to him whom he recognized at once, and he cried out:

— Khater... what news do you bring?

Khater had managed — thanks to some plowmen who had picked him up from the road and bandaged his wounds — to reach Deir al-Qamar... and he told Sheikh Abu Nader his story, weeping...

The great Khazen's anger blazed up at this, and at the many other reports of the profligate that had been carried to him, and he went to lay his complaint before Emir Yunus, and the Emir said to him:

— Go to Kisrawan and take your revenge.

One evening, while Ibn Skeiker sat on the threshing floors of Ajaltoun, resting from the works of plunder that he and his men had carried out that day, he saw a band of laborers coming along singing the ataba... He delighted in this kind of singing, so he invited them to sit with him, and fell to jesting and bantering with them, calling for more song, and swaying with delight... So it went on until night let down its curtain, when he rose to bid them farewell and made to return to his house. Hardly had he done so when he felt a hand gripping his neck, and a voice saying to him:

— By my hand and no other's, you tyrant.

Skeiker had strength to utter only a single word:

— Abu Nader.

And he fell dead by a thrust of the Khazen's dagger.

At that very moment Khater came up, beaming, and said:

— I have found her... I have found my daughter Latifa, and she is as she was — chaste, of unstained skirt.

For the profligate had tried to entice her and she had repulsed him violently... so he had shut her up in a house adjoining his own, under the guard of an old woman... But the girl was a model of courage and daring: she fled from her prison and took refuge with one of her father's friends.

The friend carried her to a neighboring village, for fear that Ibn Skeiker should track her down, and hid her with one of his kinswomen.

Khater had come in the company of the Khazen sheikh, in disguise, and went about scenting out news of his daughter; it was natural that he should turn to his friends, and the friend who had hidden her guided him to her.

And before morning had spread its light over the mountains and valleys of Lebanon, the Khazen sheikh and his band had crossed the borders of Kisrawan, with Khater and his daughter among them... The father seemed unable to believe that his daughter had come back to him: from time to time he would envelop her in a glance in which his heart overflowed with tenderness, and bend over her radiant brow to plant a kiss upon it.