Ameen Rihani

“ The East still remains the battle-ground of the creeds. And the Europeans, though they shook off their fetters of moral and spiritual slavery, would keep us in ours to facilitate the conquests of European commence. Thus the terrible Dragon, which is fed by the foreign missionary and the native priest, by the theologians and the ulama, and which still preys upon the heart and mind of Orient nations, is as active to-day as it was ten centuries ago. Let those consider this, who think Von Kremer exaggerated when he said, "Abu'l-Ala is a poet many centuries ahead of his time." ”

“ But whether of dust or fire or foam, the glaive
Of Allah cleaves the planet and the wave
Of this mysterious Heaven-Sea of life,
And lo! we have the Cradle of the Grave.
X
The Grave and Cradle, the untiring twain.
Who in the markets of this narrow lane
Bordered of darkness, ever give and take
In equal measure—what's the loss or gain?
XI
Ay, like the circles which the sun doth spin
Of gossamer, we end as we begin;
Our feet are on the heads of those that pass,
But ever their Graves around our Cradles grin. ”

“ Abu'l-Ala had humor; but his earnest tone is never so little at an ebb as when he is in his happiest mood. I quote from The Epistle of Forgiveness:
"Sometimes you may find a man skilful in his trade," says the Author, "perfect in sagacity and in the use of arguments, but when he comes to religion he is found obstinate, so does he follow in the old groove. Piety is implanted in human nature; it is deemed a sure refuge. To the growing child, that which falls from his elders' lips is a lesson that abides with him all his life. ”

“ Like most of the scholars of his age, in the absence of regular educational institutions, with perhaps one or two exceptions, he had to devote a part of his time to the large number of pupils that flocked to Ma'arrah from all parts of Asia Minor, Arabia, and India. Aside from this, he dictated to his numerous amanuenses on every possible and known subject. He is not only a poet of the first rank, but an essayist, a literary critic, and a mathematician as well. Everything he wrote was transcribed by many of his admirers, as was the fashion then, and thus circulated far and near. ”

“ In justice to both the Persian and the Arab poet, however, I give the 43d quatrain of Heron-Allen's, which I think contains two lines of that of Fitzgerald, together with Abu'l-Ala's own poetic-fancy.
"Everywhere that there has been a rose or tulip
bed
There has been spilled the crimson blood of a
king;
Every violet shoot that grows from the earth
Is a mole that was once upon the cheek of
beauty." ”

“ Sparks of the log of evil are all men
Allwhere—extinguished be the race entire!
CVIII
If miracles were wrought in ancient years,
Why not to-day, O Heaven-cradled seers?
The highway's strewn with dead, the lepers weep,
If ye but knew,—if ye but saw their tears!
CIX
Fan thou a lisping fire and it will leap
In flames, but dost thou fan an ashy heap?
They would respond, indeed, whom thou dost call,
Were they not dead, alas! or dead asleep.
CX
The way of vice is open as the sky. ”

“ Before closing, I wish to call attention to a question which, though unimportant in itself, is nevertheless worthy of the consideration of all admirers of Arabic and Persian literature. I refer to the similarity of thought which exists between Omar Khayyam and Abu'l-Ala. The former, I have reason to believe, was an imitator or a disciple of the latter. The birth of the first poet and the death of the second are not very far apart: they both occurred about the middle of the eleventh century. The English reading public here and abroad has already formed its opinion of Khayyam. ”

“ An intransigeant with the exquisite mind of a sage and scholar, his weapons were never idle. But he was, above all, a poet; for when he stood before the eternal mystery of Life and Death, he sheathed his sword and murmured a prayer.
Abu'l-Ala'l-Ma'arri,a the Lucretius of Islam, the Voltaire of the East, was born in the spring of the year 973 A.D., in the obscure village of Ma'arrah,b which is about eighteen hours' journey south of Halab (Aleppo) . ”

“ Do what they deem is wrong, and go thy way."
LXXIX
Thy way unto the Sun the spaces through
Where king Orion's black-eyed huris slew
The Mother of Night to guide the Wings that bear
The flame divine hid in a drop of dew.
LXXX
Hear ye who in the dust of ages creep.
And in the halls of wicked masters sleep:—
Arise! and out of this wan weariness
Where Allah's laughter makes the Devil weep.
LXXXI
Arise! for lo! the Laughter and the Weeping
Reveal the Weapon which the Master 's keeping
Above your heads; Oh! take it up and strike!
The lion of tyranny is only sleeping. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And from Heron-Allen's, quatrain 145:
"O Soul, if thou canst purify thyself from the
dust of the clay.
Thou, naked spirit, canst soar in the heav'ns.
The Empyrian is thy sphere—let it be thy shame
That thou comest and art a dweller within the
confines of earth."
XLVIII
"The walking dust was once a thing of stone," is my rendering of the line,
"And he concerning whom the world is puzzled
Is an animal evolved of inorganic matter." ”

“ THE sable wings of Night pursuing day
Across the opalescent hills, display
The wondrous star-gems which the fiery suns
Are scattering upon their fiery way.
II
O my Companion, Night is passing fair,
Fairer than aught the dawn and sundown wear ”

“ This title refers to the special system of rhyming which the poet adopted. And the poems, published in desultory fashion, were written, it seems, at different periods of his life, and are arranged according to his particular alphabetical system of rhyming. They bear no titles except, "And he also says, rhyming with so and so," whatever the consonant and vowel may be. In his Preface to the Luzumiyat he says:
"It happened that I composed these poems during the past years, and in them I have always aimed at the truth. They are certainly free from the blandishments of exaggeration. ”

“ In one of the Chapters of the Koran, The Saffat, I find this upon it: "And is that a pure bounty, or the Zakkum tree? It is a tree which groweth in hell; its fruits are like unto the heads of the devils, who eat from it, and from it fill their stomachs." ”

“ And any man who writes in such fetters as the meter (he means the rhyme-ending; for Abu'l-Ala made use of every known meter of Arabic prosody) of the Luzumiyat imposes, can exercise but slight control over his thoughts."—D. S. Margoliouth: Letters of Abu'l-Ala.
(s) This work, of which Professor Nicholson says there are but two copies extant, one in Constantinople and the other in his own Collection, was published in Cairo, in 1907, edited by Sheikh Ibrahim ul-Yazeji.
(t) "To let go a flea is a more virtuous act than to give a dirham to a beggar."—Abu'l-Ala. ”

“ Whoever will take the trouble, however, to read Omar Khayyam in conjunction with what is here translated of Abu'l-Ala, can not fail to see the striking similarity in thought and image of certain phases of the creed or the lack of creed of both poets.w To be sure, the skepticism and pessimism of Omar are to a great extent imported from Ma'arrah. But the Arab philosopher in his religious opinions is far more outspoken than the Persian tent-maker. ”

“ And while some of them are written in glorification of God, who is above such glory, others are, as it were, a reminder to those who forget, a pinch to those who sleep, and a warning to the children of the earth against the wiles of the great world, where human rights and human gratitude are often strangled by the same hand of Fate. ”

“ Here are the first three lines of the 122nd quatrain of Heron-Allen's literal translation:
"To him who understands the mysteries of the
world
The joy and sorrow of the world is all the same,
Since the good and the bad of the world all come
to an end." ”

“ As it is, the rare merits of the book, the critical power of the preface, the skill and sincere feeling exhibited in the verse, and the wide knowledge of English Literature shown in the notes, make it, to my mind, a little masterpiece.—Percy White. ”

“ Now, mosques and churches—even a Kaaba Stone,
Korans and Bibles—even a martyr's bone,—
All these and more my heart can tolerate,
For my religion's love, and love alone.
LXIII
To humankind, O Brother, consecrate
Thy heart, and shun the hundred Sects that prate
About the things they little know about—
Let all receive thy pity, none thy hate.
LXIV
The tavern and the temple also shun,
For sheikh and libertine in sooth are one ”

“ This line of Abu'l-Ala is much quoted by his enthusiastic admirers of the present day to prove that he anticipated Darwin's theory of evolution. And it is remarkable how the fancy of the poet sometimes coincides with the logical conclusions of the scientist. ”

“ But a weakness in his eyes continued to trouble him and he became, in middle age, I presume, totally blind.c Some of his biographers would have us believe he was born blind; others state that he completely lost his sight when he was attacked by the virulent disease; and a few intimate that he could see slightly at least with the right eye. As to whether or not he was blind when he was sent to Halab to pursue his studies, his biographers do not agree. ”

“ And when he went to attend a lecture there by one of the leading scholars, he was called by the lecturer, istabl, which is Syrian slang for blind.
(d) "He was four years of age when he had the attack of small-pox. The sight of his left eye was entirely lost and the eyeball of his right had turned white. ”

“ Even before he visited Baghdad he had a pension of thirty dinars (about $100) , half of which he paid to his servant, and the other half was sufficient to secure for him the necessaries of life. "He lived on lentils and figs," says Adh-Dhahabi; "he slept on a felt mattress ”