Al-Ma'arri

Abu al-'Ala' al-Ma'arri
al-Ma'arri by Kahlil Gibran
BornDecember 973
Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, Hamdanid Emirate of Aleppo
DiedMay 1057 (aged 83)
Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, Mirdasid Emirate of Aleppo
EraPost-classical era
RegionMiddle Eastern philosophy
School
Main interests
Poetry, skepticism, ethics, antinatalism
Notable ideas
Veganism

Abu al-Ala Ahmad ibn Abd Allah ibn Sulayman al-Tanukhi al-Ma'arri (Arabic: أبو العلاء أحمد بن عبد الله بن سليمان التنوخي المعري, romanized: ʾAbū al-ʿAlāʾ Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sulaymān al-Tanūkhī al-Maʿarrī; December 973 – May 1057),[1] also known by his Latin name Abulola Moarrensis;[2] was an Arab philosopher, poet, and writer from Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, Syria.[3] Because of his controversially irreligious worldview, he is known as one of the "foremost atheists" of his time according to Nasser Rabbat.[3]

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 as a "pessimistic freethinker", al-Ma'arri was a controversial rationalist of his time,[3] rejecting superstition and dogmatism. His written works exhibit a fixation on the study of language and its historical development, known as philology.[1][4] He was pessimistic about life, describing himself as "a double prisoner" of blindness and isolation. He attacked religious dogmas and practices,[5][6] was equally critical and sarcastic about Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism,[4][5][6] and became a deist.[4][6] He advocated social justice and lived a secluded, ascetic lifestyle.[1][3] 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."[7] 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.[1] Saqt az-Zand, Luzūmiyyāt, and Risalat al-Ghufran are among his main works.

  1. ^ a b c d "al-Maʿarrī". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 21 February 2018. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
  2. ^ 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).
  3. ^ a b c d Tharoor, Kanishk; Maruf, Maryam (8 March 2016). "Museum of Lost Objects: The Unacceptable Poet". BBC News. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  4. ^ a b c Lloyd Ridgeon (2003), Major World Religions: From Their Origins To The Present, Routledge: London, page 257. ISBN 0-415-29796-6
  5. ^ a b James Hastings, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, Part 2, page 190. Kessinger Publishing.
  6. ^ a b c Ma'arrat al-Nuʿman, The Luzumiyat, stanza 35.
  7. ^ "Do not desire as food the flesh of slaughtered animals". Humanistictexts.org (in poem #14). Archived from the original on 5 March 2001.