The Luzumiyat
By Abu al-ʻAlaʼ al-Maʻarri.
Translated by Ameen Rihani.
Imprint
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To His Royal Highness
Emir Feisal
in whom are centred
the hopes and aspirations
of the Syrian people
for a united Syria
this book
is dedicated
To Abu al-ʻAlaʼ
In thy fountained peristyles of Reason
Glows the light and flame of desert noons;
And in the cloister of thy pensive Fancy
Wisdom burns the spikenard of her moons.
Closed by Fate the portals of the dwelling
Of thy sight, the light thus inward flowed;
And on the shoulders of the crouching Darkness
Thou hast risen to the highest road.
I have seen thee walking with Canopus
Through the stellar spaces of the night;
I have heard thee asking thy Companion,
“Where be now my staff, and where thy light?”
Abu al-ʻAlaʼ, in the heaving darkness,
Didst thou not the whisperings hear of me?
In thy star-lit wilderness, my Brother,
Didst thou not a burdened shadow see?
I have walked and I have slept beside thee,
I have laughed and I have wept as well;
I have heard the voices of thy silence
Melting in thy Jannat and thy hell.
I remember, too, that once the Saki
Filled the antique cup and gave it thee;
Now, filled with the treasures of thy wisdom,
Thou dost pass that very cup to me.
By the God of thee, my Syrian Brother,
Which is best, the Saki’s cup or thine?
Which the mystery divine uncovers—
If the cover covers aught divine.
And if it lies hid in the soul of silence
Like incense in the dust of ambergris,
Wouldst thou burn it to perfume the terror
Of the caverns of the dried-up seas?
Where’er it be, Oh! let it be, my Brother.—
Though “thrice-imprisoned,”1 thou hast forged us more
Solid weapons for the life-long battle
Than all the Heaven-taught Armorers of yore.
“Thrice-imprisoned,” thou wert e’en as mighty,
In the boundless kingdom of the mind,
As the whirlwind that compels the ocean,
As the thunder that compels the wind.
“Thrice-imprisoned,” thou wert freer truly
Than the liegeless Arab on his mare—
Freer than the bearers of the sceptre—
Freer than the winged lords of the air.
“Thrice-imprisoned,” thou hast sung of freedom
As but a few of all her heroes can;
Thou hast undermined the triple prison
Of the mind and heart and soul of man.
In thy fountained peristyles of Reason
Glows the light and flame of desert noons;
And in the cloister of thy pensive Fancy
Wisdom burns the spikenard of her moons.
Preface
When Christendom was groping amid the superstitions of the Dark Ages, and the Norsemen were ravaging the western part of Europe, and the princes of Islam were cutting each other’s throats in the name of Allah and his Prophet, Abu al-ʻAlaʼ al-Maʻarri was waging his bloodless war against the follies and evils of his age. He attacked the superstitions and false traditions of law and religion, proclaiming the supremacy of the mind; he hurled his trenchant invectives at the tyranny, the bigotry, and the quackery of his times, asserting the supremacy of the soul; he held the standard of reason high above that of authority, fighting to the end the battle of the human intellect. An intransigent with the exquisite mind of a
