{{Short description|Poetry collection by Al-Ma'arri}} {{Infobox book | name = The Luzumiyat | title_orig = اللزوميات / لُزوم ما لا يلزم | translator = Ameen Fares Rihani (one translation) | image = Al-Luzumiyyat.jpg | caption = Title page of a modern edition of the ''Luzumiyat''. | author = Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī | country = Abbasid Caliphate / Islamic Golden Age Syria | language = Arabic | genre = Classical Arabic poetry, philosophical poems | publisher = J. T. White (for selected‐edition) | pub_date = (original composition period: 10th–11th century) | english_pub_date = 1918 (selected edition) | media_type = Print (poetry collection) | pages = 119 (in the 1918 edition) | isbn = <!-- fill if known for particular edition --> | preceded_by = Saqt az-Zand | followed_by = }}
The '''''Luzumiyat''''' ({{langx|ar|اللزوميات}}) is the second collection of poetry by al-Ma'arri, comprising nearly 1600 short poems<ref name="NYU">{{cite book|author=Abu l-'Ala al-Ma'arri|title=The Epistle of Forgiveness: Volumes One and Two|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pAnMCgAAQBAJ|access-date=12 November 2020|date=15 March 2016|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-1-4798-6551-2|page=xxv}}</ref> organised in alphabetical order and observing a novel double-consonant rhyme scheme devised by the poet himself.<ref name="Imad">{{cite thesis |last=Abedalkareem Taha Ababneh |first=Imad |date=2006-07-04 |title=La Epístola del Perdón de Abú Al-Alá Al-Ma'arrí y su relación con la literatura occidental. Traducción española y estudio crítico |type=PhD |chapter= Introduction 1.3 |publisher=Universidad de Sevilla |url=https://idus.us.es/bitstream/handle/11441/47888/Original_TD-109.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y |page=14 |access-date=12 November 2020}}</ref><ref name="Julia">{{cite book|first1=Julia |last1=Ashtiany|first2=Gerald Rex |last2=Smith|first3=T. M. |last3=Johnstone|title=Abbasid Belles Lettres|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4sFzGGqA6uoC&pg=PA486|access-date=9 November 2020|date=1990-03-30|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-24016-1}}</ref>{{rp|336}}
The work is also known as '''''Luzūm mā lā yalzam''''' ({{langx|ar|لزوم ما لا يلزم}}) which is variously translated as '''Unnecessary Necessity''', '''The Self-Imposed Compulsion''' or "committing oneself to what is not obligatory"; this title is a reference to the difficult, 'unnecessary', rhyme scheme which al-Ma'arri applied to his work. This self-imposed technical challenge was a parallel to other constraints he adopted in his own life, including veganism and virtual social isolation. The poems were written over a period of many years and bear no individual titles. They were circulated by Al-Ma'arri under the title ''Luzumiyat'' during his lifetime.<ref name="Rihani">{{cite book|author=Ameen Fares Rihani|title=The Luzumiyat of Abu'l-Ala|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NUXezQEACAAJ|access-date=14 November 2020|year=1944|publisher=Albert Rihani|pages=14–15}}</ref> The poems are known chiefly for the ideas they contain, written in an ironic and, at times, cynical tone. Unlike traditional qasidas, they focus on doubt, uncertainty, sin, death, and the afterlife.<ref>{{cite web |title=Al-Maʿarrī |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/al-Maarri |website=britannica.com |publisher=Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date=13 November 2020}}</ref><ref name="Meri2006">{{cite book|author=Josef W. Meri|title=Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H-k9oc9xsuAC&pg=PA7|access-date=12 November 2020|year=2006|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-415-96690-0|page=7}}</ref><ref name="Gibb1960">{{cite book |author=Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_JY3AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA931 |title=The Encyclopaedia of Islam |publisher=Brill Archive |year=1960 |pages=928–31 |id= |access-date=4 August 2020}}</ref>
==Style== [[File:Al-Maʿarri by Khalil Gibran (cropped).png|thumb|A depiction of Al-Maʿarri by Khalil Gibran]] The Luzumiyat are perhaps the most expressive of al-Ma'arri's works, sharing a human vision not in a systematic philosophy but in poetic fragments. The language is for the most part distinctively erudite, including legal, medical, scientific and philosophical terms as well as many rarely-used words, but also includes proverbs and casual speech.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Al-Dayyoub |first1=Samar |author-link=Samar Al Dayyoub|title=فيزياء الشعر: لزوميات أبي العلاء المعري أنموذجاً |url=https://www.nizwa.com/%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%B2%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%A1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D8%B9%D8%B1-%D9%84%D8%B2%D9%88%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%A3%D8%A8%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%A1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%B1/ |website=nizwa.com |access-date=13 November 2020}}</ref> Abu Zakaria al-Tabrizi said about him: "I don't know that the Arabs uttered any word without al-Ma'ari knowing it." Taha Hussein said of his work "There is no other scholar of language.... who achieved what Abu al-Ala'a [al-Ma'arri] did. There was scarcely a single expression in the language that he did not use in poetry or in prose, and I do not think any other writer or poet so well commanded the matter of the Arabic language, measured it and deployed it to best use, with such accuracy and sincerity as Abu al-Ala'a did".<ref name="Bayyan"/><ref name="Saad">{{cite web |last1=As-Sa'ad |first1=Muhammad |title=أبو العلاء المعري في سجون اللغة |url=https://www.slaati.com/2017/03/12/p727088.html |website=Slaati.com |access-date=13 November 2020}}</ref>
The most striking aspect of Al-Ma'arri's style is his extraordinary command of grammar and morphology which mark him out as a master of the Arabic language. These stylistic elements are means by which the poet imparts the quality of complexity to his readers, as he points the way towards unconventional ideas while leaving readers aesthetic and intellectual space to come to their own conclusions.<ref name="Bayyan">{{cite news |last1=Najm |first1=As-Said |title=اللزوميات.. فوح رحيق "رهين المحبسين" |url=https://www.albayan.ae/books/eternal-books/2015-03-27-1.2340672 |access-date=13 November 2020 |agency=Al-Bayyān |date=27 March 2015}}</ref>
Not all critics have taken such a positive view of the work, which has also been characterised as "taṣannuʿ" ({{langx|ar|تصنع}}) (mannerism, affectation or hypocrisy) and "almost devoid of artistic beauty or novelty."<ref>{{cite book|author=Stefan Sperl|title=Mannerism in Arabic Poetry: A Structural Analysis of Selected Texts (3rd Century AH/9th Century AD - 5th Century AH/11th Century AD)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mF8pdXMEx9cC|access-date=13 November 2020|date=2004-06-07|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-52292-2|pages=1–2}}</ref>
==Ideas== thumb|Carlyle's introduction to Al-Ma'arri and a quatrain from the Luzumiyat. thumb|Carlyle's free translation of a quatrain from the Luzumiyat. In his own introduction, al-Ma'arri described the work as a glorification of God, an admonition for the forgetful, an awakening of the negligent, and a warning against the world's derision of God. He also condemned the falsity of many poets, who lived comfortably but pretended, in their verse, to be facing the hardships of the desert or describing the beauties of an imagined beloved.<ref name="Gibb1960"/>
The poems are terse, each having six or seven lines on average. Each of these poems represents a brief and painful thought, or some paradox, or the overturning of a common idea. Exploits of rhyme and abstruse grammar contain a wry humour and moments of absurdity. Nothing is discussed at length; each poem contains ideas left incomplete or questions unresolved.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hatem |first1=Anouar |title=Présentation d'Al-Ma'arri |journal=Oriente Moderno |date=March 1954 |volume=34 |issue=3 |pages=122–136 |jstor=25812391 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25812391.pdf |access-date=10 November 2020}}</ref>
We find in them his view that religion is a superstition; wine, an unmitigated evil; virtue, its own reward; doubt, a way to truth; reason, the only guide to truth.<ref name="Rihani"/> The heterodox ideas alluded to in these poems include a respect for all living beings that informed al-Ma'arri's veganism, a doctrine described by some of his biographers as Brahminism. He also advocated the Indian custom of cremation and appeared to espouse in Jain belief in final annihilation.<ref name="Georges"/> He also expressed his commitment to non-violence.<ref>{{cite book|author=Chibli Mallat|title=Philosophy of Nonviolence: Revolution, Constitutionalism, and Justice Beyond the Middle East|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xQ67BQAAQBAJ&pg=PA88|access-date=13 November 2020|year=2015|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-939420-3|page=88}}</ref>
In addition to these unorthodox ideas, the ''Luzumiyat'' contained passages mocking not only Jews and Christians, but also fanatic Muslims.<ref name="Georges">{{cite book |last1=Salmon |first1=Georges |url=http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/arabe/almaari/extraits.htm |title=Le Poète Aveugle: Extraits des Poèmes et des Lettres d'Aboû 'l-'Alâ' Al-Ma'arrî (363 A. H.) |date=1904 |publisher=Charles Carrington |location=Paris |access-date=12 November 2020}}</ref> During the poet's life, the ideas in the collection do not seem to have led to any lack of regard for him. After his death however, pious Muslim scholars were inclined not to emphasise his thought.<ref name="Rihani"/>
==Western scholarship== The Dutch Arabist Jacobus Golius acquired a manuscript of the ''Luzumiyat'', now held in the collections of the University of Leiden.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Witkam |first1=Jan Just |title=Inventory of the Oriental Manuscripts of the Library of the University of Leiden |url=http://www.islamicmanuscripts.info/inventories/leiden/or01000.pdf |website=islamicmanuscripts.info |publisher=Ter Lugt Press |access-date=11 November 2020}}</ref> He also published a few short extracts of al-Ma'arri's work in his 1656 edition of Erpinius's work on Arabic grammar.<ref name="Georges"/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Loop |first1=Jan |title=Arabic Poetry as Teaching Material in Early Modern Grammars and Textbooks |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.1163/j.ctt1w8h2b9.15.pdf |website=jstor.org |date=2017 |page=240 |publisher=Brill |jstor=10.1163/j.ctt1w8h2b9.15 |access-date=10 November 2020}}</ref>
The first English scholar to mention the ''Luzumiyat'' was J. D. Carlyle, who included and freely translated a quatrain from it in his 1796 ''Specimens of Arabic Poetry''.<ref name="Rihani"/> The collection came to the general attention of European scholars through the work of Alfred von Kremer and his book ''Ueber die philosophischen Gedichte des Abul'alâ Ma'arry: Eine culturgeschichtliche Studie'' (Vienna, 1888) as well as his articles in the ''Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft'' (vols. xxix., xxx., xxxi. and xxxviii).<ref name="Gibb1960"/><ref name="Georges"/> The first major English language edition of the ''Luzumiyat'' was Ameen Rihani's ''The Luzumiyat of Abu'l-Ala: Selected from His Luzum ma la Yalzam and Suct uz-Zand'', published in 1918.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rihani |first1=Ameen |title=The Luzumiyat of Abu'l-Ala |date=1918 |publisher=J.T.White |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/luzumiyatabulal00rihagoog/page/n22/mode/2up |access-date=14 November 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Abu al-Ala al-Maarri|title=The Luzumiyat of Abu'l-Ala: Selected from his Luzum ma la Yalzam and Suct us-Zand|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bNLCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT58|access-date=14 November 2020|date=2019-11-25|publisher=Good Press|pages=58–}}</ref>
==See also== *''Saqt az-Zand'' *''Risalat Al-Ghufran''
==External links== {{Wikiquote|Al-Ma'arri}} {{Wikisource|Luzumiyat}} * {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/abu-al-ala-al-maarri/the-luzumiyat/ameen-rihani|name=''The Luzumiyat'', translated by Ameen Rihani|noitalics=true}} *Carlyle's ''Specimens of Arabian Poetry'' *Rihani's translated selections from the ''Luzūmiyyāt''
==References== {{reflist}} {{Authority Control}} Category:Arabic poetry Category:Medieval Arabic literature