In different guises, plain or subtle, humour is thus deployed throughout the corpus. These pictorial accents are for the most part lighthearted, but occasionally they wander off in unexpected directions. In the twentieth maqama, Abu Zayd laments over the loss of his virility with age and gathers generous donations from an assembly. He is eventually recognized by al-Harith, who follows him and enjoins him to show his body. Abu Zayd lowers his trousers and points to his penis as they altercate. Al-Wasiti, and like him the illustrators of Arabe 3929 and the Vienna Maqamat, did not hesitate to depict the trickster showing his penis (plate 12). The same detail may have originally been present in Or. Add. 22114, where this part of his body has been erased.
Notwithstanding its frankness, this particular choice can be explained by reference to the text. Yet elsewhere, the propensity to illustrate sexual subjects reaches beyond the obvious. In the thirty-third maqama, a miserly old man, his face contorted by paralysis, appears at the end of Friday prayer in a mosque at Tiflis (modern Tbilisi). He relates to those present the misfortunes of his life, thereby earning a sizeable recompense before his subterfuge is unmasked by al-Harith. In the Vienna manuscript, the mosque setting has been recreated by showing lamps and a dome. But rather than adding a mihrab or minaret, the illustrator has chosen to depict two members of the congregation in prayer, despite al-Hariri’s indication that those present ‘sat still like the hillocks’ in front of Abu Zayd after prayer. What is more, the two men are worshipping in the direction of a half-naked Abu Zayd, whose genitals are clearly evident – a grotesque juxtaposition that was clearly intended to elicit laughter (plate 13). Even the frozen attitude of al-Harith may have contributed to this effect: standing next to them but somewhat removed from the scene, he is staring at us impassively, with the resignation of one who knows what is going on.
Source: "Orality, writing and the image in the Maqamat: Arabic illustrated books in context", by Alain George.
