To Baron A. von Kremer chiefly belongs the credit of bringing home to European scholars the greatness and originality of al-Ma'arrí, to whom he devotes nine pages (pp. 386-394) in the second volume of his admirable Culturgeschichte des Orients, and on whom he has also published a series of excellent monographs. * The three following specimens of al-Ma'arrí's verse are cited by Dawlatsháh in the short notice which he consecrates to the poet (p. 25 of my edition):—
“O thou Abu'l-'Alá, Sulaymán's son,
Surely thy blindness hath been good to thee;
For, wert thou able to behold mankind,
No man amongst them would thy pupil * see!”
Here is the second specimen:—
“The days are but one parent's progeny,
The nights are sisters of one family:
Then seek not, either from the days or nights,
For aught that hath not been in years gone by!”
And here is the third:—
“Who is he whom aught can fright or startle,
Any marvel fill with doubts or fears?
I at least have never seen a marvel,
Though I've watched and waited eighty years:
Still Time's Time, men men, the days one pattern;
Still the World's success to strength adheres!”
The following is from Goldziher's article (Z.D.M.G., xxix, pp. 637-8):—
“Within Jerusalem was rife 'Twixt Christ and Aḥmed bitter
strife:
This with adhán and that with blare Of bell doth summon
men to prayer:
Each seeks to prove his doctrine true; But which is right?
Ah, would I knew!”
According to Muhammadan law a theft exceeding a quarter of a dínár is punished by amputation of the thief's hand, while the compensation for the loss of a hand under other circumstances is fixed at five hundred dínárs. On this al-Ma'arrí says (Goldziher, loc. cit., p. 639):—
“Why for a quarter do they amputate A hand five hundred
serve to compensate?
Such contradictions silent awe compel. Lord God, deliver us
from Fires of Hell!”
The next specimen is given by Von Kremer (Z.D.M.G., xxix, p. 305 ad calc.):—
“We laugh, but foolish is our joyless mirth;
Tears best befit all dwellers upon earth!
'Neath Fortune's Wheel we break like brittle glass,
Which no fresh mould shall e'er restore, alas!”
Al-Ma'arrí, as I have said, had no connection with Persia,
either by birth or residence, and I have only mentioned him
because he is so great and original a poet and thinker, and
because further researches may very probably show that he was
not without influence on the pessimist and sceptic poets of
that country. In his peculiar line of thought he somewhat
recalls 'Umar Khayyám, but is incomparably greater and
more systematic, both as a poet and as an agnostic. His
best-known works are the Siqṭu'z-Zand, which comprises his
earlier poems; the Luzúmiyyát, or Luzúmu má la yalzam,
which embodies his later philosophical and pessimistic verse;
his Letters, admirably edited and translated by Professor
Margoliouth of Oxford, and published in the Anecdota
Oxoniensia (1898); and his Risálatu'l-Ghufrán, a sort of
prose Paradiso and Inferno, in which the author describes
an imaginary visit to the World of Shades, and the conversations
which he held with various heathen and other poets of
the Arabs. Some account of this last, with extracts, has been
published by Mr. R. A. Nicholson, in the Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society for 1900 (pp. 637-720) and 1902 (pp. 75-101;
337-362; 813-847). This last-mentioned work also is of
equal interest and difficulty, especially the latter portion, which
deals with the heretics and Zindíqs, with whom the author, however
much he may have felt by expediency compelled to censure
them, must be supposed to have had considerable sympathy.
His most impious work, from the Muslim point of view,
was probably the parody of the Qur'án which, like al-
I have left till the last in this chapter one of the most influential, if not one of the greatest, thinkers of this period,
Al-Ghazálí. the Imám Abú Ḥámid Muḥammad al-Ghazálí (according to some al-Ghazzálí), * the theologian who did more than any one else to bring to an end the reign of Philosophy in Islám, and to set up in its stead a devotional mysticism which is at once the highest expression and the clearest limitation of the orthodox Muhammadan doctrine. “Ever since his time,” says Dr. T. J. de Boer, in his History of Philosophy in Islám (English translation, p. 155), “Mysticism both sustains and crowns the Temple of Learning in Orthodox Islám.” The admirable account of al-Ghazálí and his doctrine given in Dr. de Boer's lucid and learned work (pp. 154-168) renders it unnecessary that I should discuss at any great length this eminent theologian, whose services to Religion earned for him the title of Ḥujjatu'l-Islám (“The Proof of Islám”), by which he is generally known.Al-Ghazálí was born at Ṭús in Khurásán in A.H. 450 (= A.D. 1058-59) or A.H. 451 (= A.D. 1059-60), about the time of Alp Arslán's accession to the Seljúq throne, and, being left an orphan at a comparatively early age, was, together with his brother, educated first by a Ṣúfí friend of his father's, and afterwards at one of the colleges of his native city. “We sought knowledge,” he used afterwards to say, “otherwise than for God, but it refused to be otherwise than for God.” He also studied for a while in Gurgán with the Imám Abú Naṣr al-Isma'ílí, and, while returning thence, was, it is said, robbed by highwaymen of all his possessions. He followed them to crave the return of his lecture-notes, “for which,” said he, “I left my home, and which contain my knowledge.” Thereat the chief robber laughed and said, “How dost thou pretend to have learned the knowledge contained in them, for, we having taken them from thee, thou art robbed of thy knowledge and left knowledgeless?” And thereafter al-Ghazálí, having recovered his note-books, did not rest till all their contents had been learned and digested, “so that,” as he said, “should I again be robbed, I should not be deprived of my knowledge.”
Thereafter al-Ghazálí went to Níshápúr, where he continued
his studies and began to attract attention by his
writings, which finally brought him to the notice of
the great minister, Nidhámu'l-Mulk, who, in A.H. 484
(= A.D. 1091-92), appointed him a Professor in the Nidhá-