Death of Abul-'Ala' Al-Ma'arri
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Written by Islamstory
3rd of Rabi' Al-Awwal 449 AH/ May 10th, 1057 AD: Abul-'Ala' Al-Ma'arri died. He was a great Arab poet, known for his virtuosity and for the originality and pessimism of his vision. Al-Ma'arri was a descendant of the Tanukh tribe. He was born in the Syrian town of Ma'arrat al-No'man near Aleppos. A childhood disease left him virtually blind. His early poems were collected in Saqt az-zand ("The Tinder Spark"), which gained great popularity. Al-Ma'arri enjoyed respect and authority locally and many students came to study with him. Al-Ma'arri wrote a second, more original collection of poetry, Luzum ma lam yalzam ("Unnecessary Necessity"), or Luzumiyat ("Necessities"), referring to the unnecessary complexity of the rhyme scheme. The skeptical humanism of these poems was also apparent in Risalat al-ghufran (Eng. trans. by G. Brackenbury, Risalat ul Ghufran, a Divine Comedy, 1943), in which the poet visits paradise and meets his predecessors, heathen poets who have found forgiveness. Al Fusul wal ghayat ("Paragraphs and Periods"), a collection of homilies in rhymed prose, has even been called a parody of the Qur'an.
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