In The 1001 Nights, the story of the “Merchant and the Demon” proffers a scapegoat escaping his fate in exchange for marvelous stories, and in it the mercantile model of payment in full for moral debts is invoked. While The Nights offers a vivid late medieval illustration, we can find earlier examples of this approach to scapegoating in the poetry of al-Mutanabbi (d. 965). This paper examines a suite of four poems composed and performed by al-Mutanabbi to ransom four scapegoats. The poems stage the capacity of poetry to serve as a peace offering and payment in full for moral debts in exchange for liberty.