al-Ma'arri

Abu al-'Ala' was born in December 973 in al-Ma'arra (present-day Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, Syria), southwest of Aleppo, whence his nisba ("al-Ma'arri"). At his time, the city was part of the Abbasid Caliphate, the third Islamic caliphate, during the Islamic Golden Age.{{Cite web|title = Al-Ma'arri – Visionary Free Thinker, The Genius of Disability, The Essay |website=BBC Radio 3 |url = http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04wmklk|access-date = 13 July 2015}} He was a member of the Banu Sulayman, a notable family of Ma'arra, belonging to the larger Tanukh tribe.1940 {{lang|ar|أبو العلاء المعري: نسبه وأخباره وشعره ومعتقده، تأليف أحمد تيمور باشا، ص.3، ط}}

Miguel Asín Palacios, Islam and the Divine comedy, Routledge, 1968, {{ISBN|978-0-7146-1995-8}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=hbHv0Hi-VbsC&pg=PA55 p. 55] One of his ancestors was probably the first qadi of Ma'arra. The Tanukh tribe had formed part of the aristocracy in Syria for hundreds of years and some members of the Banu Sulayman had also been noted as good poets.{{Cite web|title = The 11th Century poet who pissed off al-Qaeda {{!}} All About History|url = http://www.historyanswers.co.uk/medieval-renaissance/al-maarri-the-11th-century-poet-that-pissed-off-al-qaeda/|website = historyanswers.co.uk| date=2 February 2015 |access-date = 13 July 2015}} He lost his eyesight at the age of four due to smallpox. Later in his life he regarded himself as "a double prisoner", which referred to both this blindness and the general isolation that he felt during his life.{{Cite book |last=Hitti |first=Philip Khuri |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6FklfLSxpIkC&q=al+ma'arri&pg=PA147 |title=Islam: A Way of Life |date=1971 |publisher=U of Minnesota Press |isbn=978-1-4529-1040-6 |language=en}}

He started his career as a poet at an early age, at about 11 or 12 years old. He was educated at first in Ma'arra and Aleppo, then in Antioch and other Syrian cities. Among his teachers in Aleppo were companions from the circle of Ibn Khalawayh. This grammarian and Islamic scholar had died in 980 CE, when al-Ma'arri was still a child.{{Cite book|title = Epistle of Forgiveness: Hypocrites, Heretics, and Other Sinners|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=iiegAgAAQBAJ&q=epistle+of+forgiveness&pg=PR11|publisher = NYU Press|date = 1 January 2014|isbn = 9780814768969|first = Abu l-Ala|last = al-Maarri}} Al-Ma'arri nevertheless laments the loss of Ibn Khalawayh in strong terms in a poem of his Risālat al-Ghufrān.{{Cite book|title = The Encyclopaedia of Islam|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=_JY3AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA932|publisher = Brill Archive|date = 1 January 1954|first = Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen|last = Gibb}} Al-Qifti reports that when on his way to Tripoli, al-Ma'arri visited a Christian monastery near Latakia where he listened to Hellenistic philosophy debates that birthed his secularism, but other historians such as Ibn al-Adim deny that he had been exposed to any theology other than Islamic doctrine.

In 1004–05, al-Ma'arri learned that his father had died and, in reaction, wrote an elegy where he praised his father. Years later he would travel to Baghdad where he became well received in the literary salons of the time, though he was a controversial figure. After the eighteen months in Baghdad, al-Ma'arri returned home for unknown reasons. He may have returned because his mother was ill, or he may have run out of money in Baghdad, as he refused to sell his works. He returned to his native town of Ma'arra in about 1010 and learned that his mother had died before his arrival.

He remained in Ma'arra for the rest of his life, where he opted for an ascetic lifestyle, refusing to sell his poems, living in seclusion and observing a strict moral vegetarian diet.D. S. Margoliouth, [https://archive.org/stream/journalroyalasi69irelgoog#page/n323/mode/1up Abu 'l-ʿAla al-Ma'arri's correspondence on vegetarianism], Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1902, p. 289. His personal confinement to his house was only broken one time when violence had struck his town. In that incident, al-Ma'arri went to Aleppo to intercede with its Mirdasid emir, Salih ibn Mirdas, to release his brother Abu'l-Majd and several other Muslim notables from Ma'arra who were held responsible for destroying a winehouse whose Christian owner was accused of molesting a Muslim woman. Though he was confined, he lived out his later years continuing his work and collaborating with others.{{Cite web|title = Abu-L-Ala al-Maarri Facts|url = http://biography.yourdictionary.com/abu-l-ala-al-maarri|website = biography.yourdictionary.com|access-date = 13 July 2015}} He enjoyed great respect and attracted many students locally, as well as actively holding correspondence with scholars abroad. Despite his intentions of living a secluded lifestyle, in his seventies, he became rich and was the most revered person in his area. Al-Ma'arri never married and died in May 1057 in his home town.

Al-Ma'arri was a skeptic who denounced superstition and dogmatism in religion. This, along with his general negative view on life, has made him described as a pessimistic freethinker. Throughout his philosophical works, one of the recurring themes that he expounded upon at length was the idea that reason holds a privileged position over traditions. In his view, relying on the preconceptions and established norms of society can be limiting and prevent individuals from fully exploring their own capabilities.{{Cite web|title = Al Ma'arri|url = http://www.humanistictexts.org/al_ma'arri.htm|website = Humanistictexts.org |access-date = 13 July 2015|url-status = dead|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20161127200338/http://www.humanistictexts.org/al_ma'arri.htm|archive-date = 27 November 2016}} Al-Ma'arri taught that religion was a "fable invented by the ancients", worthless except for those who exploit the credulous masses.Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, 1962, A Literary History of the Arabs, page 318. Routledge

{{blockquote|Do not suppose the statements of the prophets to be true; they are all fabrications. Men lived comfortably till they came and spoiled life. The sacred books are only such a set of idle tales as any age could have and indeed did actually produce.{{cite book |last=Hastings |first=James |author-link=James Hastings |date=1909 |title=Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. 2 |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.56055/page/n212 |location=Edinburgh |publisher=T&T Clark |page=190}}}}

Al-Ma'arri criticized many of the dogmas of Islam, such as the Hajj, which he called "a pagan's journey".Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs, 319. He rejected claims of any divine revelation and his creed was that of a philosopher and ascetic, for whom reason provides a moral guide, and virtue is its own reward.Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs, 317.Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs, 323. His secularist views included both Judaism and Christianity as well. Al-Ma'arri remarked that monks in their cloisters or devotees in their mosques were blindly following the beliefs of their locality: if they were born among Magians or Sabians they would have become Magians or Sabians.Reynold A. Nicholson Adapted from Studies in Islamic Poetry Cambridge University Press, 1921, Cambridge, England. pp. 1–32 Encapsulating his view on organized religion, he once stated: "The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts: those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains."{{cite book|last=Maalouf|first=Amin|title=The Crusades Through Arab Eyes|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5ie3ib8YbTcC|year=1984|publisher=Schocken Books|isbn=978-0-8052-0898-6|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=5ie3ib8YbTcC&pg=PA37 37]}}The full poem (in Arabic) to be found e.g. on [https://arabic-poetry.com/أبو-العلاء-المعري/إن-هللت-أفواهكم-فقلوبكم/ arabic-poetry.com] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191201141757/https://arabic-poetry.com/%d8%a3%d8%a8%d9%88-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b9%d9%84%d8%a7%d8%a1-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d8%b9%d8%b1%d9%8a/%d8%a5%d9%86-%d9%87%d9%84%d9%84%d8%aa-%d8%a3%d9%81%d9%88%d8%a7%d9%87%d9%83%d9%85-%d9%81%d9%82%d9%84%d9%88%d8%a8%d9%83%d9%85/ |date=1 December 2019 }} and [https://www.aldiwan.net/poem23175.html www.aldiwan.net] (direct links to the poem).

Al-Ma'arri was an ascetic, renouncing worldly desires and living secluded from others while producing his works. He opposed all forms of violence. In Baghdad, while being well received, he decided not to sell his texts, which made it difficult for him to live. This ascetic lifestyle has been compared to similar thought in India during his time.

In al-Ma'arri's later years he chose to stop consuming meat and all other animal products (i.e., he became a practicing vegan). He wrote:{{cite web |title=Do not desire as food the flesh of slaughtered animals |url=http://www.humanistictexts.org/al_ma'arri.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010305091340/http://www.humanistictexts.org:80/al_ma'arri.htm |archive-date=5 March 2001 |website=Humanistictexts.org |type=in poem #14}}

{{poemquote|Do not unjustly eat what the water has given up, and do not desire as food the flesh of slaughtered animals,
Or the white (milk) of mothers who intended its pure draught for their young, not for noble ladies.
And do not grieve the unsuspecting birds by taking their eggs; for injustice is the worst of crimes.
And spare the honey which the bees get betimes by their industry from the flowers of fragrant plants;
For they did not store it that it might belong to others, nor did they gather it for bounty and gifts.
I washed my hands of all this; and would that I had perceived my way ere my temples grew hoar!"The Meditations of Al-Maʿarri", Studies in Islamic Poetry (1921) by Reynold A. Nicholson, Verse 197, pages 134–135}}

Al-Ma'arri's fundamental pessimism is expressed in his antinatalist recommendation that no children should be begotten, so as to spare them the pains of life.{{Cite news|last=Fisk |first=Robert |title=Syrian rebels have taken iconoclasm to new depths, with shrines, statues and even a tree destroyed – but to what end? |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/syrian-rebels-have-taken-iconoclasm-to-new-depths-with-shrines-statues-and-even-a-tree-destroyed--but-to-what-end-9021017.html |date=22 December 2013 |work=The Independent |location=London |access-date=28 October 2019}} In an elegy composed by him over the loss of a relative, he combines his grief with observations on the ephemerality of this life:

{{poemquote|Soften your tread. Methinks the earth's surface is but bodies of the dead,

Walk slowly in the air, so you do not trample on the remains of God's servants.}}

Al-Ma'arri's self-composed epitaph, on his tomb, states (in regard to life and being born): "This is my father's crime against me, which I myself committed against none."{{Cite web|title=An Elegy by al-Ma'arri|url=https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/32488|last=Blankinship|first=Kevin|date=2015-09-20|website=Jadaliyya|language=en|access-date=2020-05-04}}

Al-Ma'arri is controversial even today as he was skeptical of Islam. In 2013 the al-Nusra Front, a branch of al-Qaeda, demolished a statue of al-Ma'arri during the Syrian Civil War. The statue had been crafted in 1944 by the sculptor Fathi Muhammad. The motive behind the destruction is disputed; theories range from the fact that he was a heretic to the fact that he is believed by some to be related to the Assad family.France24, "[https://web.archive.org/web/20130216053220/http://observers.france24.com/content/20130214-jihadists-behead-statue-syrian-poet-abul-ala-al-maari Jihadists behead statue of Syrian poet Abul Ala al-Maari]", 14 February 2013

{{listen|filename=Poem by Abu 'ala al-Ma'arri ("I no longer steal from nature") read in Arabic.ogg|title=Poem from Luzūmīyāt, read in Arabic|description=The restrictive rhyme and meter can be heard in the start of poem 197Reynold Nicholson, [https://archive.org/stream/studiesinislamic00nichuoft#page/134/mode/2up Studies in Islamic Poetry and Mysticism], 1921, p. 134.}}

An early collection of his poems appeared as The Tinder Spark (Saqṭ az-Zand; {{lang|ar|سقط الزند}}). The collection of poems included praise of people of Aleppo and the Hamdanid ruler Sa'd al-Dawla. It gained popularity and established his reputation as a poet. A few poems in the collection were about armour. A second, more original collection appeared under the title Unnecessary Necessity (Luzūm mā lam yalzam {{lang|ar|لزوم ما لا يلزم}}), or simply Necessities (Luzūmīyāt {{lang|ar|اللزوميات}}). The title refers to how al-Ma'arri saw the business of living and alludes to the unnecessary complexity of the rhyme scheme used.

His third work is a work of prose known as The Epistle of Forgiveness (Risalat al-Ghufran {{lang|ar|رسالة الغفران}}). The work was written as a direct response to the Arabic poet Ibn al-Qarih, whom al-Ma'arri mocks for his religious views.{{Cite book|title = The Epistle of Forgiveness: Volume Two: Hypocrites, Heretics, and Other Sinners|url = https://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780814768969|publisher = NYU Press|date = 2014|location = New York|isbn = 9780814768969|first1 = Abu l-Ala|last1 = al-Maarri|first2 = Geert Jan Van|last2 = Gelder|first3 = Gregor|last3 = Schoeler}} In this work, the poet visits paradise and meets the Arab poets of the pagan period. This view is shared by Islamic scholars, who often argued that pre-Islamic Arabs are indeed capable of entering paradise.{{Cite web|title=The Fate of Non-Muslims: Perspectives on Salvation Outside of Islam|url=https://yaqeeninstitute.org/jonathan-brown/the-fate-of-non-muslims-perspectives-on-salvation-outside-of-islam|access-date=2021-02-22|website=Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research|language=en}}

Because of the aspect of conversing with the deceased in paradise, the Risalat al-Ghufran has been compared to the Divine Comedy of DanteWilliam Montgomery Watt and Pierre Cachia, A History of Islamic Spain, 2nd edition, Edinburgh University Press, 1996, pp. 125–126, {{ISBN|0-7486-0847-8}}. which came hundreds of years after. The work has also been noted to be similar to Ibn Shuhayd's Risala al-tawabi' wa al-zawabi, though there is no evidence that al-Ma'arri was inspired by Ibn Shuhayd nor is there any evidence that Dante was inspired by al-Ma'arri.{{Cite book|title = The Biographical Encyclopedia of Islamic Philosophy|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=iX-8BwAAQBAJ&q=al+qifti+al-ma+arri&pg=PT364|publisher = Bloomsbury Publishing|date = 16 July 2015|isbn = 9781472569462|first = Oliver|last = Leaman}} Algeria reportedly banned The Epistle of Forgiveness from the International Book Fair held in Algiers in 2007.

Paragraphs and Periods (al-Fuṣūl wa al-Ghāyāt) is a collection of homilies. The work has been accused of being a parody of or an attempt to imitate the Quran.{{Sfn|Stewart|2017}}{{Sfn|Grigoryan|2023|p=50–52}} Al-Ma'arri also composed a significant corpus of verse riddles.Pieter Smoor, '[http://www.jstor.org/stable/43377840 The Weeping Wax Candle and Ma'arrī's Wisdom-tooth: Night Thoughts and Riddles from the Gāmi' al-awzān]', Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 138 (1988), 283–312.

File:Saqt al-Zand.jpg|Saqt al-Zand

File:Resalat Al-Ghufran book cover, Commerial library edition (1923).jpg|Risalat al-Gufran

• Risalat al-Ghufran, a Divine Comedy. Translated by G. Brackenbury 1943.
• The Epistle of Forgiveness: Volume One: A Vision of Heaven and Hell. Translated by Geert Jan Van Gelder and Gregor Schoeler. Library of Arabic Literature, New York University Press 2013.
• The Epistle of Forgiveness: Volume Two: Hypocrites, Heretics, and Other Sinners. Translated by Geert Jan Van Gelder and Gregor Schoeler. Library of Arabic Literature, New York University Press 2014.
• Those riddles of al-Maʿarrī that are cited in al-Ḥaẓīrī's twelfth-century Kitāb al-Iʿjāz fī l-aḥājī wa-l-alghāz have been edited as Abū l-ʿAlāˀ al-Maʿarrī, Dīwān al-alġāz, riwāyat Abī l-Maʿālī al-Ḥaẓīrī, ed. by Maḥmūd ʿAbdarraḥīm Ṣāliḥ (Riyadh [1990]).

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{{Reflist|30em}}

{{notelist}}

• {{Cite book |last=Beeston |first=A. F. L. |title=The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature |publisher=Cambridge University Press}}
• {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fshmK9xYD6cC&pg=PA289 |title=A Literary History of Persia |first=Edward Granville |last=Browne |orig-year=1906 |year=1999 |publisher=Curzon|isbn=978-0-7007-0406-4 }}
• {{Cite encyclopedia |year=2001 |entry=al-Ma'arrī, Abū-l-'Alā' |publisher=AltaMira Press |others=Introduction by Huston Smith |isbn=9780759101906 |entry-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=focLrox-frUC&pg=RA1-PA278 |first1=Cyril |last1=Glassé |title=The New Encyclopedia of Islam}}
• {{Cite book |last=Grigoryan |first=Sona |title=Neither Belief nor Unbelief: Intentional Ambivalence in al-Maʿarrī’s Luzūm |date=2023 |publisher=De Gruyter}}
• {{Cite book |last=Hitti |first=Philip Khuri |author-link=Philip K. Hitti |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6FklfLSxpIkC&pg=PA147 |title=Islam, a Way of Life |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |year=1968 |isbn=9781452910406}}
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• {{cite book |title=Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period |first=Tarif |last=Khalidi|author-link=Tarif Khalidi |date=1994 |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511583650 |isbn=0-521-46554-0 |publisher=Cambridge University Press}}
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• {{Cite book |last=Nicholson |first=Reynold Alleyne |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7jKIOJ4qAxMC&pg=PA166 |title=A Literary History of the Arabs |publisher=Kessinger Publishing |year=2006|isbn=978-1-4286-3576-0 }}
• {{Cite encyclopedia |year=1984 |title=al-Ma'arri |encyclopedia=The Encyclopaedia of Islam |publisher=Brill |last=Smoor |first=P. |editor-last=Gibb |editor-first=H. A. R. |volume=3, Part 1 |pages=927–935}}
• {{Cite encyclopedia |year=2006 |title=Medieval Islamic Civilization |publisher=Routledge |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MypbfKdMePIC&pg=PA6 |last=Smoor |first=Pieter |isbn=978-0-415-96691-7 |editor-last=Meri |editor-first=Josef W. |editor-first2=Jere L. |editor-last2=Bacharach}}
• {{Cite book |last=Stewart |first=Devin |title=The Qur'an and Adab. The shaping of literary traditions in classical Islam |date=2017 |publisher=Oxford University Press |editor-last=Alshaar |editor-first=Nuha |pages=239–272 |chapter=Rhythmical Anxiety: Notes on Abu l-'Ala al-Maarri's (d. 449/1058) al-Fusul wa'l-Ghayat and Its Reception}}
• {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jzWIgNm1NRYC&pg=PA125 |title=A History of Islamic Spain |first1=William Montgomery |last1=Watt |first2=Pierre |last2=Cachia |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |year=1996|isbn=978-0-7486-0847-8 }}
• {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u5dJj2dSp3AC&pg=PA168 |title=The Production of the Muslim Woman |first=Lamia Ben Youssef |last=Zayzafoon |isbn=9780739110782 |publisher=Lexington Books |year=2005}}

{{sister project links|auto=1|d=y}}

• {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/abu-al-ala-al-maarri}}
• {{Gutenberg author | id=26732}}
• {{librivox author|id=13439}}
• The Epistle of Forgiveness: A Vision of Heaven and Hell (Volume One), Abū Al ʿAlāʾ Al Maʿarrī
• [https://archive.org/details/Abul-Ala-Veganism Abu 'l-ʿAla al-Ma'arri's correspondence on vegetarianism, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1902, p. 289], by D. S. Margoliouth
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20161127200338/http://www.humanistictexts.org/al_ma'arri.htm 37 of al-Ma'arri's poems {{in lang|en}}, posted by Humanistictexts.org]
• [http://www.idleworm.com/literature/luzumiyat.shtml The Luzumiyat]

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