Health, Suffering, Life, and Death in the Works of أبو العلاء أحْمَد بن عبْد الله بن سُليمان التَّنوخي المَعرِّي Abū al-‘Alā’ Aḥmad bin ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sulaymān al-Tanūkhī al-Ma‘arrī (973-1057)

Abstract

Using as a springboard the poetry of al-Ma‘rrī (973-1057), including excerpts from the acclaimed satirical text رسَالة الغُفرَان Risālat al-Ghufrān and his second collection of poetry, لزُوم مَا لا يَلزَم  Luzūm mā lā yalzam, better known as لزُوميات Luzūmiyyāt, in this work I look at how the motif of suffering and the dichotomy life vs. death play a pivotal role in our physical and spiritual journeys on Earth as well as in the Afterlife (or lack thereof).  Selected verses from al-Ma‘arrī’s poetry will help me unravel the tropes associated with humanity’s lifecycle in Arabic/Islamic writing as well as Western literature.  Indeed, parallels, with pre-Islamic Arab literature—as in the case of the قَصِيدة qaṣīdah—the Qur’ān, Arabic, and Aljamiado literature hailing from the Iberian Peninsula, Swahili poetry written in عَجَمِيَة ‘Ajamiyah (الإَنكِشَاف, The Soul’s Awakening, composed after 1749),[1] and Dante’s Divine Comedy (c. 1308-1320) will elucidate al-Ma‘rrī’s message and possible solutions to human suffering

[1] For information on Aljamiado and Aljamia, please see sections 5 and 7.