In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

xv Introduction The lengthy, mocking reply by a cantankerous maverick, obsessed with lexicography and grammar, to a rambling, groveling, and self-righteous letter by an obscure grammarian and mediocre stylist: this does not sound, prima facie, like a masterwork to be included in a series of Arabic classics. It is even doubtful whether it firmly belongs to the canonical works of Arabic literature. The maverick author, Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī, was certainly famous, or infamous, as we shall see, but in the entry on him in the biographical dictionary by Ibn Khallikān (d. 681/1282),1 who calls him the author of “many famous compositions and widely known epistles,” the present work is not even mentioned; in the very long entry on him in a somewhat earlier, similar work by Yāqūt (d. 626/1229) it is merely listed in a long list of works, without commentary.2 It is true that the same Yāqūt has an entry on the rather obscure author of the original letter, the grammarian Ibn al-Qāriḥ, whom he describes as “the one who wrote a wellknown letter to Abū l-ʿAlāʾ, known as ‘the Epistle of Ibn al-Qāriḥ’,”3 which suggests that Abū l-ʿAlāʾ’s reply was famous. However, the work is not often mentioned or discussed in pre-modern times, unlike Abū l-ʿAlāʾ’s poetry. As happens occasionally in the history of Arabic literature, the Risālat al-Ghufrān (The Epistle of Forgiveness), owes its present fame mostly to the rediscovery in modern times, by a western Arabist. Reynold A. Nicholson, in a letter to the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,4 describes a collection of manuscripts gathered by his grandfather, to which, as he writes, “I would call special attention , because it is, as I believe, a genuine work, hitherto unknown and undescribed , of the famous blind poet and man of letters, Abū ’l ʿAlā al-Maʿarrī.” Over the following few years, between 1900 and 1902, he published a partial edition with a summary and at times paraphrasing translation of the contents in a series of articles in the same journal.5 The Epistle’s subsequent rise to fame is mainly due to the fact that it seemed to prefigure Dante’s Commedia Divina and that misguided attempts were made to prove the influence of the Arabic work on the Italian. This thesis has now been abandoned and one can appreciate Risālat al-Ghufrān in its own right. xvi Introduction Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī The earliest appearance of al-Maʿarrī in Arabic literature is found in a work by a contemporary, one of the greatest anthologists of Arabic literature, al-Thaʿālibī (d. 429/1038). In the supplement to his Yatīmat al-dahr, he quotes a certain poet, Abū l-Ḥasan al-Dulafī al-Maṣṣīsī, who told him: In Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān I came across a true marvel. I saw a blind man, a witty poet, who played chess and backgammon, and who was at home in every genre ofseriousnessandjesting.HewascalledAbūl-ʿAlāʾ.Iheardhimsay,“IpraiseGod for being blind, just as others praise Him for being able to see. He did me a favor and did me a good turn by sparing me the sight of boring and hateful people.”6 Our author is usually called Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī,7 the first part (literally “Father of Loftiness”) not being a teknonym8 in this case—for he never had children— but an added honorific name or nickname, and the second part derived from his place of birth, Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān, or al-Maʿarrah for short, a town in northern Syria, between Aleppo and Homs. The medieval biographical dictionaries, usually arranged alphabetically, list him under his given name, Aḥmad, and supply not only the name of his father, ʿAbd Allāh, and grandfather, Sulaymān, but also some twenty to thirty further generations, tracing him back to the legendary realm of pre-Islamic Arab genealogy; he belonged to the famous tribal confederation called Tanūkh, entitling him to the epithet al-Tanūkhī. He was born toward sunset on Friday, 27 Rabīʿ Awwal, 363 (26 December ad 973) in a respectable family of religious scholars and judges. At the age of four he lost his eyesight due to smallpox. He made up for this disability by having a truly prodigious memory, about which...

Share