Abu l-'Ala al-Ma'arri

Abu l-'Ala al-Ma'arri

Biography, Biographie, Biografie

Al-Ma'arri, the autor, was born Born 973 A.D in Ma'arra, what is now Syria. Al-Ma’arri, blind from an early age, is one of the greatest poets in the Arab tradition. 

His most famous work, The Epistle of Forgiveness, in which he describes visiting paradise and meeting Arab poets of the pagan period, has often been compared to Dante’s Divine Comedy

Abu l-'Ala al-Ma'arri

Today we have become used to thinking of the Islamic world as walled-in, insular, hostile to reason and freethinking, and with a single, unquestioned, and unquestionable, view of God, faith and the Qur’an.

But during the Abbasid period (750-1258), there was within the Islamic empire an extraordinary flourishing of philosophical debate and of freethinking that would be unseen until the Enlightenment.

The most influencal of those Islamic philosopher, were the Rationalits, who where dedicated to the ideal of falsafah. Most were deeply pious, and accepted the Qur’an as the word of God. But they challenged the idea that religious truths could be accessed only through divine revelation, many insisting that reason alone would suffice. Falsafah was not simply the discipline of philosophy, but rather a way of living rationally in accordance with the laws of the cosmos. Learning was an ethical duty. The movement emerged as the newly created Islamic empire discovered within its borders a treasure house of Greek and Persian learning and began a comprehensive project of translating into Arabic all the works of Greek and Persian philosophers.  The faylasufs took from the Greeks not just their spirit of rational inquiry but also their faith in the boundless power of human intellect and its ability to derive the ultimate truths through reason alone.

The starting point for most of the Rationalists was God’s truth as revealed to Muhammad. Those Rationalist freethinkers posed an open challenge to Islamic dogma, and until the twelfth century they were largely tolerated and, many, like, al-Ma’arri built a considerable following. Al-Ma'arris world seemed forever static and immovable. It was a world in which without God there seemed no possibility of comfort and solace, no prospect of infusing life with a sense of meaning, no hope of recompense for life of pain and torment. In such a world it took immense courage to look into the void and accept the darkness, to examine one’s life and acknowledge unflinchingly its unremitting pain. Most Rationalists leavened that pain by accepting God’s existence and viewing reason, not as a challenge to Scripture, but as an alternative path to Scripture’s truths. Not so al-Ma’arri, he was a sceptic and denounced superstition and religious dogmatism. Therefore, he was referred as a pessimistic freethinker.

By the twelfth century, the Rationalists were on the defensive, under sustained criticism from Traditionalist thinkers, who viewed human reason as weak and corrupt as human beings themselves, and for whom Revelation and Scripture was the only sure path to truth. ‘We should not be ashamed to acknowledge truth and to assimilate it from whatever source it comes to us, even if it is brought to us by former generations and foreign peoples’, insisted al-Kindi. It was precisely such openness that the Traditio-nalists so feared and detested.

The triumph of the Traditionalists signaled the closing in of the Islamic mind. The Rationalist tradition foundered, freethinkers and other heretics were hunted down, persecuted, often killed. Thinkers such as Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd and al-Ma’arri came to be influential – but not in the Islamic world. Ironically, it was in Christian Europe that their philosophy found its greatest following. There never had been a tradition of freethinking within Christianity. But from the twelfth century onwards, Christian thinkers, most notably Thomas Aquinas, rediscovered their Aristotle, and other Greek philosophers, through Muslim commentaries and translations, a development that would eventually lead to the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution and to the breaking asunder of the closed world of Christendom.

Al-Ma'arri wurde 973 als Sohn einer angesehenen Familie - sein Vater Abdallah ibn Sulaiman war Dichter und Philologe - in der nordsyrischen Stadt Ma'arra geboren. Im Alter von vier Jahren verlor er infolge einer Pockenerkrankung sein Augenlicht. Diese Behinderung machte er zwar später durch sein ausgezeichnetes Gedächtnis wett, er empfand seine Blindheit jedoch zeitlebens als „Gefängnis“. In seiner Heimatstadt und in Aleppo studierte al-Ma'arri den Islam und die arabische Sprache und Literatur.

Später zog al-Ma'arri nach Bagdad. Dort machte er die Bekanntschaft zahlreicher Gelehrter. In seine Bagdader Zeit fällt sein Streit mit dem Literaten al-Murtada. Nach einem erhitzten Disput über den Rang der Dichtung al-Mutanabbis liess dieser al-Ma'arri an den Füssen aus seinem literarischen Salon schleifen.

1010 kehrte al-Ma'arri in seine Heimatstadt zurück. In seinem Haus, dass er bis zu seinem Tod nur noch einmal verlassen sollte, sammelte er Schüler um sich und unterhielt eine rege Korrespondenz mit führenden Gelehrten seiner Zeit. Im Alter von 84 Jahren starb al-Ma'arri nach kurzer Krankheit.

Al-Ma'arri war ein Skeptiker und prangerte Aberglauben und religiösen Dogmatismus an. Er wurde daher als pessimistischer Freidenker bezeichnet.
Al-Ma'arri lehrte, dass Religion eine „von den Vorvätern ersonnene Fabel“ sei, ohne Wert ausser für Ausbeuter leichtgläubiger Massen. Zu Lebzeiten al Ma'arris waren in Ägypten, Bagdad und Aleppo mehrere Kalifate entstanden, welche alle die Religion zur Stützung ihrer Macht instrumentalisierten. Er wies den Wahrheitsanspruch des Islams wie auch anderer Religionen zurück

***

About Religion / Zu Religion / Sur la Religion

… “Make not, when you work a deed of shame, The scoundrel's plea, 'My forbears did the same.”

Al-Maʿarri

Al-Ma’arri’spoetry was renowned for his religious skepticism:

…” Sie alle irren - Moslems, Christen, 

Juden und des Zoroaster Legion.

Die Menschheit kennt weltweit nur diese beiden: 

Den einen, mit Verstand wohl aber ohne Religion,

Den andern, religiös, doch ohne Hirnarbeiten.”

…” They all err - Moslems, Jews,

Christians, and Zoroastrians:

Humanity follows two world-wide sects:

One, man intelligent without religion,

The second, religious without intellect.” …

Al-Ma'arri

…” You said, "A wise one created us ";

That may be true, we would agree.

"Outside of time and space," you postulated.

Then why not say at once that you

Propound a mystery immense

Which tells us of our lack of sense?” …

Al-Ma'arri  / Studies in Islamic Poetry by Reynold A. Nicholson. Cambridge University Press, 1921, Cambridge, England.

…” Traditions come from the past, of high import if they be True;

Ay, but weak is the chain of those who warrant their truth.

Consult thy reason and let perdition take others all:

Of all the conference Reason best will counsel and guide.

A little doubt is better than total credulity.” …

Al-Ma'arri / From the Web Site of the Institute for the Secularization of Islamic Society (ISIS)

Al-Ma’arri insisted and pointed: Not to be led by reason, was to give in to tyranny and injustice: …

…” You’ve had your way a long, long time, 

You kings and tyrants, 

And still you work injustice hour by hour. 

What ails you that do not tread a path of glory? 

A man may take the field, although he love the bower. 

But some hope a divine leader with prophetic voice 

Will rise amid the gazing silent ranks. 

An idle thought! There’s none to lead but reason, 

To point the morning and the evening ways.”

For him, Reason was the greatest moral guide, and virtue its own reward: …

…” Reason forbade me many things which, 

Instinctively, my nature was attracted to; 

nd a perpetual loss I feel if, knowing, 

I believe a falsehood or deny the truth.” …

And Religion, was like a ‘fable invented by the ancients’, to hold the masses in thrall: …

…” Had they been left alone with reason, 

They would not have accepted a spoken lie; 

But the whips were raised to strike them. 

Traditions were brought to them, 

And they were ordered to say, 

‘We have been told the truth’; 

If they refused, the sword was drenched with their blood. 

They were terrified by scabbards of calamities, 

And tempted by great bowls of food, 

Offered in a lofty and condescending manner.”

Holy or Sacred Books like Torah & Tanakh, the Bible or the Qur’an were for Al-Ma’arri 

‘only such a set of idle tales as any age could have and indeed did actually produce’:

… “So, too, the creeds of man: the one prevails 

Until the other comes; and this one fails 

When that one triumphs; ay, the lonesome world 

Will always want the latest fairytales. 

And religious rites were a means of enslaving the masses: 

O fools, awake! The rites you sacred hold 

Are but a cheat contrived by men of old, 

Who lusted after wealth and gained their lust 

And died in baseness—and their law is dust.”

In Al-Ma’arri’s poetry we can find a deep strain of pessimism, if not a Stoic view of the world: …

…” We laugh, but inept is our laughter, 

We should weep, and weep sore, 

Who are shattered like glass and thereafter 

Remoulded no more.” …

He also had a great belief in the sanctity of life - he became a vegetarian, not wishing to harm other living creatures – he also seemed to be overwhelmed by the ephemeral, pain-filled character of human life. Sometimes it seemed to al-Ma’arri that it would have been better had humans never been created:

… “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.” …

… “Over many a race the sun’s bright net was spread 

And loosed their pearls nor left them even a thread. 

This dire world delights us, though all sup - 

All whom she mothers—from one mortal cup. 

Choose from two ills: which rather in the main 

Suits you? —to perish or to live in pain? “ …

…”Better for Adam and all who issued forth from his loins 

That he and they, yet unborn, created never had been! 

For whilst his body was dust and rotten bones in the earth 

Ah, did he feel what his children saw and suffered of woe.” …

Sources: Al-Ma'arri  / Studies in Islamic Poetry by Reynold A. Nicholson. Cambridge University Press, 1921, Cambridge, England.

Al-Ma'arri / From the Web Site of the Institute for the Secularization of Islamic Society (ISIS)

The Luzumiyat of Abu’L-Ala

1

THE sable wings of Night pursuing day 

Across the opalescent hills, display 

The wondrous star-gems which the fiery suns 

Are scattering upon their fiery way.

2

O my Companion, Night is passing fair, 

Fairer than aught the dawn and sundown wear; 

And fairer, too, than all the gilded days 

Of blond Illusion and its golden snare.

3

Hark, in the minarets muazzens call 

The evening hour that in the interval 

Of darkness Ahmad might remembered be,- 

Remembered of the Darkness be they all.

4

And hear the others who with cymbals try 

To stay the feet of every passer-by: 

The market-men along the darkling lane 

Are crying up their wares. — Oh! let them cry.

5

Mohammed or Messiah! Hear thou me, 

The truth entire nor here nor there can be; 

How should our God who made the sun and moon 

Give all his light to One, I cannot see.

6

Come, let us with the naked Night now rest 

And read in Allah’s Book the sonnet best: 

The Pleiads — ah, the Moon from them departs, - 

She draws her veil and hastens toward the west.

7

The Pleiads follow; and our Ethiop Queen, 

Emerging from behind her starry screen, 

Will steep her tresses in the saffron dye 

Of dawn, and vanish in the morning sheen.

8

The secret of the day and night is in 

The constellations, which forever spin 

Around each other in the comet-dust;- 

The comet-dust and humankind are kin.

9

But whether of dust or fire or foam, the glaive 

Of Allah cleaves the planet and the wave 

Of this mysterious Heaven-Sea of life, 

And lo! we have the Cradle of the Grave.

10

The Grave and Cradle, the untiring twain. 

Who in the markets of this narrow lane 

Bordered of darkness, ever give and take 

In equal measure — what’s the loss or gain?

11

Ay, like the circles which the sun doth spin 

Of gossamer, we end as we begin; 

Our feet are on the heads of those that pass, 

But ever their Graves around our Cradles grin.

12

And what avails it then that Man be born 

To joy or sorrow? — why rejoice or mourn? 

The doling doves are calling to the rose; 

The dying rose is bleeding o’er the thorn.

13

And he the Messenger, who takes away 

The faded garments, purple, white, and gray 

Of all our dreams unto the Dyer, will 

Bring back new robes to-morrow — so they say.

14

But now the funeral is passing by, 

And in its trail, beneath this moaning sky, 

The howdaj comes, — both vanish into night; 

To me are one, the sob, the joyous cry

15

With tombs and ruined temples groans the land 

In which our forbears in the drifting sand 

Arise as dunes upon the track of Time 

To mark the cycles of the moving hand

16

Of Fate. Alas! and we shall follow soon 

Into the night eternal or the noon; 

The wayward daughters of the spheres return 

Unto the bosom of their sun or moon.

17

And from the last days of Thamud and ‘Ad 

Up to the first of Hashem’s fearless lad, 

Who smashed the idols of his mighty tribe, 

What idols and what heroes Death has had!

18

Tread lightly, for the mighty that have been 

Might now be breathing in the dust unseen; 

Lightly, the violets beneath thy feet 

Spring from the mole of some Arabian queen.

19

Many a grave embraces friend and foe 

Behind the curtain of this sorry show 

Of love and hate inscrutable; alas! 

The Fates will always reap the while they sow.

20

The silken fibre of the fell Zakkum, 

As warp and woof, is woven on the loom 

Of life into a tapestry of dreams 

To decorate the chariot-seat of Doom.

21

And still we weave, and still we are content 

In slaving for the sovereigns who have spent 

The savings of the toiling of the mind 

Upon the glory of Dismemberment.

22

Nor king nor slave the hungry Days will spare; 

Between their fanged Hours alike we fare: 

Anon they bound upon us while we play 

Unheeding at the threshold of their Lair.

23

Then Jannat or Juhannam? From the height 

Of reason I can see nor fire nor light 

That feeds not on the darknesses; we pass 

From world to world, like shadows through the night.

24

Or sleep - and shall it be eternal sleep 

Somewhither in the bosom of the deep 

Infinities of cosmic dust, or here 

Where gracile cypresses the vigil keep!

25

upon the threshing-floor of life I burn 

Beside the Winnower a word to learn; 

And only this: Man’s of the soil and sun, 

And to the soil and sun he shall return.

26

And like a spider’s house or sparrow’s nest, 

The Sultan’s palace, though upon the crest 

Of glory’s mountain, soon or late must go: 

Ay, all abodes to ruin are addrest.

27

So, too, the creeds of Man: the one prevails 

Until the other comes; and this one fails 

When that one triumphs; ay, the lonesome world 

Will always want the latest fairy-tales.

28

Seek not the Tavern of Belief, my friend, 

Until the Sakis there their morals mend; 

A lie imbibed a thousand lies will breed. 

And thou’lt become a Saki in the end.

29

By fearing whom I trust I find my way 

To truth; by trusting wholly I betray 

The trust of wisdom; better far is doubt 

Which brings the false into the light of day.

30

Or wilt thou commerce have with those who make 

Rugs of the rainbow, rainbows of the snake, 

Snakes of a staff, and other wondrous things? - 

The burning thirst a mirage can not slake.

31

Religion is a maiden veiled in prayer, 

Whose bridal gifts and dowry those who care 

Can buy in Mutakallem’s shop of words 

But I for such, a dirham can not spare.

32

Why linger here, why turn another page? 

Oh! seal with doubt the whole book of the age; 

Doubt every one, even him, the seeming slave 

Of righteousness, and doubt the canting sage.

33

Some day the weeping daughters of Hadil 

Will say unto the bulbuls: “Let’s appeal 

To Allah in behalf of Brother Man 

Who’s at the mercy now of Ababil.”

34

Of Ababil! I would the tale were true, - 

Would all the birds were such winged furies too; 

The scourging and the purging were a boon 

For me, O my dear Brothers, and for you.

35

Methinks Allah divides me to complete 

His problem, which with Xs is replete; 

For I am free and I am too in chains 

Groping along the labyrinthine street.

36

And round the Well how oft my Soul doth rope 

Athirst; but lo! my Bucket hath no Rope: 

I cry for water, and the deep, dark Well 

Echoes my wailing cry, but not my hope.

37

Ah, many have I seen of those who fell 

While drawing, with a swagger, from the Well; 

They came with Rope and Bucket, and they went 

Empty of hand another tale to tell.

38

The I in me standing upon the brink 

Would leap into the Well to get a drink; 

But how to rise once in the depth, I cry, 

And cowardly behind my logic slink.

39

And she: “How long must I the burden bear? 

How long this tattered garment must I wear?” 

And I: “Why wear it? Leave it here, and go 

Away without it — little do I care.”

40

But once when we were quarreling, the door 

Was opened by a Visitor who bore 

Both Rope and Pail; he offered them and said: 

Drink, if you will, but once, and nevermore.”

41

One draught, more bitter than the Zakkum tree, 

Brought us unto the land of mystery 

Where rising Sand and Dust and Flame conceal 

The door of every Caravanseri.

42

We reach a door and there the legend find. 

“To all the Pilgrims of the Human Mind: 

Knock and pass on!” We knock and knock and 

knock; 

But no one answers save the moaning wind.

43

How like a door the knowledge we attain, 

Which door is on the bourne of the Inane; 

It opens and our nothingness is closed, - 

It closes and in darkness we remain.

44

Hither we come unknowing, hence we go; 

Unknowing we are messaged to and fro; 

And yet we think we know all things of earth 

And sky — the suns and stars we think we know.

45

Apply thy wit, O Brother, here and there 

Upon this and upon that; but beware 

Lest in the end — ah, better at the start 

Go to the Tinker for a slight repair.

46

And why so much ado, and wherefore lay 

The burden of the years upon the day 

Of thy vain dreams? Who polishes his sword 

Morning and eve will polish it away.

47

I heard it whispered in the cryptic streets 

Where every sage the same dumb shadow meets: 

“We are but words fallen from the lips of Time 

Which God, that we might understand, repeats.”

48

Another said: “The creeping worm hath shown, 

In her discourse on human flesh and bone, 

That Man was once the bed on which she slept- 

The walking dust was once a thing of stone.”

49

And still another: “We are coins which fade 

In circulation, coins which Allah made 

To cheat Iblis: the good and bad alike 

Are spent by Fate upon a passing shade.”

50

And in the pottery the potter cried, 

As on his work shone all the master’s pride- 

“How is it, Rabbi, I, thy slave, can make 

Such vessels as nobody dare deride?”

51

The Earth then spake: “My children silent be; 

Same are to God the camel and the flea: 

He makes a mess of me to nourish you, 

Then makes a mess of you to nourish me.”

52

Now, I believe the Potter will essay 

Once more the Wheel, and from a better clay 

Will make a better Vessel, and perchance 

A masterpiece which will endure for aye.

53

With better skill he even will remould 

The scattered potsherds of the New and Old; 

Then you and I will not disdain to buy, 

Though in the mart of Iblis they be sold.

54

Sooth I have told the masters of the mart 

Of rusty creeds and Babylonian art 

Of magic. Now the truth about my self- 

Here is the secret of my wincing heart.

55

I muse, but in my musings I recall 

The days of my iniquity; we’re all - 

An arrow shot across the wilderness, 

Somewhither, in the wilderness must fall.

56

I laugh, but in my laughter-cup I pour 

The tears of scorn and melancholy sore; 

I who am shattered by the hand of Doubt, 

Like glass to be remoulded nevermore.

57

I wheedle, too, even like my slave Zeidun, 

Who robs at dawn his brother, and at noon 

Prostrates himself in prayer — ah, let us pray 

That Night might blot us and our sins, and soon.

58

But in the fatal coils, without intent, 

We sin; wherefore a future punishment? 

They say the metal dead a deadly steel 

Becomes with Allah’s knowledge and consent.

59

And even the repentant sinner’s tear 

Falling into Juhannam’s very ear, 

Goes to its heart, extinguishes its fire 

For ever and forever, — so I hear.

60

Between the white and purple Words of Time 

In motley garb with Destiny I rhyme: 

The colored glasses to the water give 

The colors of a symbolry sublime.

61

How oft, when young, my brothers I would shun 

If their religious feelings were not spun 

Of my own cobweb, which I find was but 

A spider’s revelation of the sun.

62

Now, mosques and churches - even a Kaaba Stone, 

Korans and Bibles — even a martyr’s bone, - 

All these and more my heart can tolerate. 

For my religion’s love, and love alone.

63

To humankind, O Brother, consecrate 

Thy heart, and shun the hundred Sects that prate 

About the things they little know about - 

Let all receive thy pity, none thy hate.

64

The tavern and the temple also shun, 

For sheikh and libertine in sooth are one; 

And when the pious knave begins to pule, 

The knave in purple breaks his vow anon.

65

“The wine’s forbidden,” say these honest folk, 

But for themselves the law they will revoke; 

The snivelling sheikh says he’s without a garb, 

When in the tap-house he had pawned his cloak,

66

Or in the house of lust. The priestly name 

And priestly turban once were those of Shame - 

And Shame is preaching in the pulpit now - 

If pulpits tumble down, I’m not to blame.

67

For after she declaims upon the vows 

Of Faith, she pusillanimously bows 

Before the Sultan’s wine-empurpled throne, 

While he and all his courtezans carouse.

68

Carouse, ye sovereign lords! The wheel will roll 

Forever to confound and to console: 

Who sips to-day the golden cup will drink 

Mayhap to-morrow in a wooden bowl –

69

And silent drink. The tumult of our mirth 

Is worse than our mad welcoming of birth: - 

The thunder hath a grandeur, but the rains, 

Without the thunder, quench the thirst of Earth.

70

The Prophets, too, among us come to teach. 

Are one with those who from the pulpit preach; 

They pray, and slay, and pass away, and yet 

Our ills are as the pebbles on the beach.

71

And though around the temple they should run 

For seventy times and seven, and in the sun 

Of mad devotion drool, their prayers are still 

Like their desires of feasting-fancies spun.

72

Oh! let them in the marshes grope, or ride 

Their jaded Myths along the mountain-side; 

Come up with me, O Brother, to the heights 

Where Reason is the prophet and the guide.

73

“What is thy faith and creed,” they ask of me, 

“And who art thou? Unseal thy pedigree.” - 

I am the child of Time, my tribe, mankind, 

And now this world’s my caravanseri.

74

Swathe thee in wool, my Sufi friend, and go 

Thy way; in cotton I the wiser grow; 

But we ourselves are shreds of earth, and soon 

The Tailor of the Universe will sew.

75

Ay! suddenly the mystic Hand will seal 

The saint’s devotion and the sinner’s weal; 

They worship Saturn, but I worship One 

Before whom Saturn and the Heavens kneel.

76

Among the crumbling ruins of the creeds 

The Scout upon his camel played his reeds 

And called out to his people, - “Let us hence! 

The pasture here is full of noxious weeds.”

77

Among us falsehood is proclaimed aloud, 

But truth is whispered to the phantom bowed 

Of conscience; ay! and Wrong is ever crowned, 

While Right and Reason are denied a shroud.

78

And why in this dark Kingdom tribute pay? 

With clamant multitudes why stop to pray? 

Oh! hear the inner Voice: - “If thou’lt be right, 

Do what they deem is wrong, and go thy way.”

79

Thy way unto the Sun the spaces through

Where king Orion’s black-eyed huris slew 

The Mother of Night to guide the Wings that bear 

The flame divine hid in a drop of dew.

80

Hear ye who in the dust of ages creep. 

And in the halls of wicked masters sleep: - 

Arise! and out of this wan weariness 

Where Allah’s laughter makes the Devil weep.

81

Arise! for lo! the Laughter and the Weeping 

Reveal the Weapon which the Master ‘s keeping 

Above your heads; Oh! take it up and strike! 

The lion of tyranny is only sleeping.

82

Evil and Virtue? Shadows on the street 

Of Fate and Vanity, — but shadows meet 

When in the gloaming they are hastening forth 

To drink with Night annihilation sweet.

83

And thus the Sun will write and will efface 

The mystic symbols which the sages trace 

In vain, for all the worlds of God are stored 

In his enduring vessels Time and Space.

84

For all my learning’s but a veil, I guess, 

Veiling the phantom of my nothingness; 

Howbeit, there are those who think me wise, 

And those who think me - even these I bless.

85

And all my years, as vapid as my lay, 

Are bitter morsels of a mystic day, - 

The day of Fate, who carries in his lap 

December snows and snow-white flowers of May.

86

Allah, my sleep is woven through, it seems, 

With burning threads of night and golden beams; 

But when my dreams are evil they come true; 

When they are not, they are, alas! but dreams.

87

The subtle ways of Destiny I know; 

In me she plays her game of “Give and Go.” 

Misfortune I receive in cash, but joy, 

In drafts on Heaven or on the winds that blow.

88

I give and go, grim Destiny, - I play 

Upon this checker-board of Night and Day 

The dark game with thee, but the day will come 

When one will turn the Board the other way.

89

If my house-swallow, laboring with zest, 

Felt like myself the burden of unrest, 

Unlightened by inscrutable designs, 

She would not build her young that cozy nest.

90

Thy life with guiltless life-blood do not stain - 

Hunt not the children of the woods; in vain 

Thou’lt try one day to wash thy bloody hand 

Nor hunter here nor hunted long remain.

91

Oh! cast my dust away from thee, and doff 

Thy cloak of sycophancy and like stuff: 

I’m but a shadow on the sandy waste, - 

Enough of thy duplicity, enough!

92

Behold! the Veil that hid thy soul is torn 

And all thy secrets on the winds are borne: 

The hand of Sin has written on thy face 

“Awake, for these untimely furrows warn!”

93

A prince of souls, ’tis sung in ancient lay, 

One morning sought a vesture of the clay; 

He came into the Pottery, the fool - 

The lucky fool was warned to stay away.

94

But I was not. Ohl that the Fates decree 

That I now cast aside this clay of me; 

My soul and body wedded for a while 

Are sick and would that separation be.

95

“Thou shalt not kill!” - Thy words, O God, we heed, 

Though thy two Soul-devouring Angels feed 

Thy Promise of another life on this, - 

To have spared us both, it were a boon indeed.

96

Oh I that some one would but return to tell 

If old Nubakht is burning now in hell, 

Or if the workers for the Prophet’s prize 

Are laughing at his Paradisal sell.

97

Once I have tried to string a few Pearl-seeds 

Upon my Rosary of wooden beads; 

But I have searched, and I have searched in vain 

For pearls in all the caverns of the creeds

98

And in the palaces of wealth I found 

Some beads of wisdom scattered on the ground, 

Around the throne of Power, beneath the feet 

Of fair-faced slaves with flowers of folly crowned.

99

Thy wealth can shed no tears around thy bier, 

Nor can it wash thy hands of shame and fear; 

Ere thou departest with it freely part - 

Let others plead for thee and God will hear.

100

For me thy silks and feathers have no charm 

The pillow I like best is my right arm; 

The comforts of this passing show I spurn. 

For Poverty can do the soul no harm.

101

The guiding hand of Allah I can see 

Upon my staff: of what use then is he 

Who’d be the blind man’s guide? Thou silent oak, 

No son of Eve shall walk with me and thee.

102

My life’s the road on which I blindly speed: 

My goal’s the grave on which I plant a reed 

To shape my Hope, but soon the Hand unseen 

Will strike, and lo! I’m but a sapless weed.

103

O Rabbi, curse us not if we have been 

Nursed in the shadow of the Gate of Sin 

Built by thy hand - yea, ev’n thine angels blink 

When we are coming out and going in.

104

And like the dead of Ind I do not fear 

To go to thee in flames; the most austere 

Angel of fire a softer tooth and tongue 

Hath he than dreadful Munker and Nakir.

105

Now, at this end of Adam’s line I stand 

Holding my father’s life-curse in my hand, 

Doing no one the wrong that he did me: - 

Ah, would that he were barren as the sand!

106

Ay, thus thy children, though they sovereigns be. 

When truth upon them dawns, will turn on thee. 

Who cast them into life’s dark labyrinth 

Where even old Izrail can not see.

107

And in the labyrinth both son and sire 

Awhile will fan and fuel hatred’s fire; 

Sparks of the log of evil are all men 

Allwhere — extinguished be the race entire!

108

If miracles were wrought in ancient years, 

Why not to-day, O Heaven-cradled seers? 

The highway’s strewn with dead, the lepers weep, 

If ye but knew, - if ye but saw their tears!

109

Fan thou a lisping fire and it will leap 

In flames, but dost thou fan an ashy heap? 

They would respond, indeed, whom thou dost call, 

Were they not dead, alas! or dead asleep.

110

The way of vice is open as the sky. 

The way of virtue’s like the needle’s eye; 

But whether here or there, the eager Soul 

Has only two Companions — Whence and Why.

111

Whence come, O firmament, thy myriad lights? 

Whence comes thy sap, O vineyard of the heights? 

Whence comes the perfume of the rose, and whence 

The spirit-larva which the body blights?

112

Whence does the nettle get its bitter sting? 

Whence do the honey bees their honey bring? 

Whence our Companions, too — our Whence and Why?

O Soul, I do not know a single thing!

113

How many like us in the ages past

Have blindly soared, though like a pebble cast, 

Seeking the veil of mystery to tear, 

But fell accurst beneath the burning blast?

114

Why try to con the book of earth and sky, 

Why seek the truth which neither you nor I 

Can grasp? But Death methinks the secret keeps, 

And will impart it to us by and by.

115

The Sultan, too, relinquishing his throne 

Must wayfare through the darkening dust alone 

Where neither crown nor kingdom be, and he, 

Part of the Secret, here and there is blown.

116

To clay the mighty Sultan must return 

And, chancing, help a praying slave to burn 

His midnight oil before the face of Him, 

Who of the Sultan makes an incense urn.

117

Turned to a cup, who once the sword of state 

Held o’er the head of slave and potentate, 

Is now held in the tippler’s trembling hand, 

Or smashed upon the tavern-floor of Fate.

118

For this I say, Be watchful of the Cage 

Of chance; it opes alike to fool and sage; 

Spy on the moment, for to-morrow’ll be, 

Like yesterday, an obliterated page.

119

Yea, kiss the rosy cheeks of new-born Day,

And hail eternity in every ray 

Forming a halo round its infant head. 

Illumining thy labyrinthine way.

120

But I, the thrice-imprisoned, try to troll 

Strains of the song of night, which fill with dole 

My blindness, my confinement, and my flesh - 

The sordid habitation of my soul.

121

Howbeit, my inner vision heir shall be 

To the increasing flames of mystery 

Which may illumine yet my prisons all, 

And crown the ever living hope of me.

***

Of himself, al-Ma'arri wrote:

…Men of acute mind call me an ascetic, but they are wrong in their diagnosis. Although I disciplined my desires, I only abandoned worldly pleasures because the best of these withdrew themselves from me." But his somewhat misanthropic nature appears in another remark:  "I was made an abstainer from mankind by my acquaintance with them and my knowledge that created beings are dust."

***

Abu l-'Ala al-Ma'arri