Abu al-Ala al-Ma'arri (; December 973May 1057), also known by his Latin name Abulola Moarrensis,Or more often simply Abulola; see Catalogue of Arabic Books in the British Museum, vol. 1, 1894 (p. 115); Christianus Benedictus Michaelis, Dissertatio philologica de historia linguae Arabicae, 1706 (p. 25); in an English context: Charles Hole, A Brief Biographical Dictionary ( p. 3). was an Arab philosopher, poet, and writer from Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, Emirate of Aleppo (in present day Syria). Al-Ma'arri's religious beliefs and philosophical worldview have been the subject of extensive historical and modern academic debate. While his critical poetry led detractors and early Western scholars to characterize him as a deist, freethinker, or one of the "foremost atheists" of his time, this categorization is highly disputed by other scholars and by Al-Ma'arri's own subsequent writings. In his self-defensive treatise Zajr al-Nabeh (The Repelling of the Barker), al-Ma'arri explicitly affirmed his orthodox Islamic faith—including his belief in the Day of Judgment—and sought refuge in God from claims that his poetry was proof of atheism.Zajr al-Nabeh, pp. 21, 27. In these texts, he clarified that his verses were not a rejection of Islam itself, but rather harsh critiques directed at the corruption of religious scholars, hypocritical practices, and the theological ignorance of his contemporaries.Zajr al-Nabeh, p. 28.
Born in the city of al-Ma'arra (present-day Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, Syria) during the later Abbasid era, he became blind at a young age from smallpox but nonetheless studied in nearby Aleppo, then in Tripoli and Antioch. Producing popular poems in Baghdad, he refused to sell his texts. In 1010, he returned to Syria after his mother began declining in health, and continued writing, which gained him local respect.
Described by various scholars as a "pessimistic freethinker", al-Ma'arri was a controversial rationalist of his time, known for challenging superstition and dogmatism. His written works exhibit a fixation on the study of language and its historical development, known as philology.Lloyd Ridgeon (2003), Major World Religions: From Their Origins To The Present, Routledge: London, page 257. He was pessimistic about life, describing himself as "a double prisoner" of blindness and isolation. Because his poetry fiercely critiqued the religious practices of his era, several critics interpreted his work as an attack on Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism,James Hastings, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, Part 2, page 190. Kessinger Publishing.The Luzumiyat, stanza 35. with some historians asserting he became a deist. However, in response to contemporary accusations of heresy stemming from these poetic critiques, al-Ma'arri authored Zajr al-Nabeh. In this text, he explicitly denied holding atheistic or anti-Islamic beliefs, clarifying that his verses targeted the corruption, hypocrisy, and ignorance of religious figures rather than the core tenets of the faith itself.Zajr al-Nabeh, pp. 24, 28.
He advocated social justice and lived a secluded, ascetic lifestyle. He was a vegan, known in his time as a moral vegetarian, entreating: "Do not desire as food the flesh of slaughtered animals / Or the white milk of mothers who intended its pure draught for their young." Al-Ma'arri held an antinatalist outlook, in line with his general pessimism, suggesting that children should not be born to spare them of the pains and suffering of life. Saqt az-Zand, Luzumiyat, and Risalat al-Ghufran are among his main works.
Consistent with his pervasive pessimism, al-Ma'arri harbored a deep skepticism regarding gender relations and advocated for the strict seclusion of women. As analyzed by the Egyptian scholar Taha Hussein, al-Ma'arri advised against teaching women to read or write to shelter them from societal corruption, and controversially argued that the Hajj pilgrimage should not be obligatory for them.<ref>Hussein, Taha (1915). Tajdid Dhikra Abi al-'Ala''' [Renewing the Memory of Abu al-'Ala']. Dar al-Ma'arif. See the sections analyzing his social pessimism and views on women.</ref>
Life 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. He was a member of the Banu Sulayman, a notable family of Ma'arra, belonging to the larger Tanukh tribe.1940 Miguel Asín Palacios, Islam and the Divine comedy, Routledge, 1968, , 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. 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 his blindness and the general isolation that he felt during his life.
He began his career as a poet at a young age, around 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. Al-Ma'arri nevertheless laments the loss of Ibn Khalawayh in strong terms in a poem of his Risālat al-Ghufrān. 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. Aisha Abd al-Rahman details Ibn al-Adim's evidence regarding anachronisms in the accounts of later compilers, including Ibn Kathir. She highlights Ibn al-Adim's documentation that the House of Knowledge (Dar al-Ilm) in Tripoli was established by Qadi Jalal al-Mulk Ibn Ammar in 472 AH (1079 CE), twenty-three years after al-Ma'arri's death in 449 AH (1057 CE). These accounts confused al-Ma'arri's verified journey to the House of Knowledge in Baghdad with the later Tripoli institution. Abd al-Rahman attributes the monastery narrative to subsequent transmitters who sought to tie his scholarship to Hellenistic philosophy. She argues that the widespread presence of Christian monasteries across Islamic territories makes the claim of a singular, transformative philosophical encounter illogical. She documents that Greek philosophical works were already translated and integrated into Arabic scholarship over two centuries before al-Ma'arri's era. She concludes that chroniclers formulated these narratives to credit foreign origins, discounting the capacity of his native Islamic environment.
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 vegetarian diet.D. S. Margoliouth, 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 once 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. 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 hometown.
Works The Tinder Spark (Saqṭ az-Zand; )
An early collection of his poems appeared as The Tinder Spark (Saqṭ az-Zand; ). 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.
Unnecessary Necessity (Luzūm mā lam yalzam ) A second, more original collection appeared under the title Unnecessary Necessity (Luzūm mā lam yalzam ), or simply Necessities (Luzūmīyāt ). The title refers to how al-Ma'arri saw the business of living and alludes to the unnecessary complexity of the rhyme scheme used.
The Epistle of Forgiveness (Risalat al-Ghufran ) His third work is a work of prose known as The Epistle of Forgiveness (Risalat al-Ghufran ). The work was written as a direct response to the Arabic poet Ibn al-Qarih, whom al-Ma'arri mocks for his religious views. 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. 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, . 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. Algeria reportedly banned The Epistle of Forgiveness from the International Book Fair held in Algiers in 2007.France24, "Jihadists behead statue of Syrian poet Abul Ala al-Maari", 14 February 2013
Other worksParagraphs 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.
Al-Ma'arri also composed a significant corpus of verse riddles.Pieter Smoor, '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.
Views
Opposition to religion In early Western scholarship, Al-Ma'arri has frequently been characterized as a skeptic who denounced superstition and dogmatism in religion. This specific interpretation of his poetry, along with his general negative view on life, has led to descriptions of him as a pessimistic freethinker. Throughout his philosophical writings, a recurring theme highlighted by these early critics is the idea that reason holds a privileged position over traditions, suggesting that relying on the preconceptions and established norms of society can be limiting.
Based on English translations of select verses, early orientalists such as Reynold A. Nicholson argued that Al-Ma'arri viewed religion as a "fable invented by the ancients", alleging he considered it worthless except for those who exploit the credulous masses.Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, 1962, A Literary History of the Arabs, page 318. Routledge This historical viewpoint is frequently illustrated by translations found in early 20th-century encyclopedias: