The Epistle of Forgiveness. Abu l-'Ala al-Ma'arri

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Название The Epistle of Forgiveness
Автор произведения Abu l-'Ala al-Ma'arri
Жанр Историческая литература
Серия Library of Arabic Literature
Издательство Историческая литература
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780814771976



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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, 363h (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 several anecdotes are related; apparently he had the aural equivalent of a photographic memory and he stood out in a milieu that was already accustomed to memorization on a large scale. His blindness meant that he wrote his numerous works by dictating them; his pupil al-Tibrīzī mentioned that al-Maʿarrī at one stage had four well-qualified secretaries and a servant girl (jāriyah), who wrote down his dictations.9 As a boy he studied with several teachers, including his own father, in his hometown and Aleppo; his main interest was poetry and he became an ardent admirer of the great poet al-Mutanabbī (d. 354/965), on whose poetry he was to write a commentary, entitled Muʿjiz Aḥmad (Aḥmad’s Miracle), exploiting not only the fact that he shared his given name with the poet but also, rather daringly, alluding to the Qurʾan, which was the prophetic “miracle” (muʿjizah) of the Prophet Muḥammad, who is sometimes called Aḥmad.