The Epistle of Forgiveness. Abu l-'Ala al-Ma'arri
splendid days have I known, with many new moons, the sky bright, the shade stretching over me, the hours providing me all I desired, smilingly offering me all I longed for. But once it had attached itself to me in all my affairs,102 the world begrudged me all this; it strove to break up my intimacy with it and to shorten its extent. Its splendor was eclipsed to gloom and the desolation of separation blighted its bloom. It has scattered us, dispersed to the horizons, after we had been like limbs held together, like bending, pliant branches;
O my grief, the day my youthful zeal
was gathered in a shroud and grave!
I’ve squandered what I needed
for what I did not need.103
I quote a verse by Ibn al-Rūmī:104
Ah, the grayness of your hairs will not be snatched away:
will you forswear the foibles of old age?
I am perturbed, I weep though weeping is neither useful nor beneficial, and I should rather weep for my weeping and recite:
My tongue speaks but I do not act;
My heart desires but I do naught.
I am aware of the right path but do not let myself be guided;
I know, but act in ignorance.105
6.3
عرض عليّ بعض الناس كأس خمر، فامتنعتُ منها وقلت: خلُّوني والمطبوخَ على مذهب الشيخ الأوزاعيّ. وقلت لهم: عَرَض إبراهيم بن المهديّ على محمد بن حازم الخمرة فامتنع وأنشد:
| أَبعدَ شيبيَ أَصبو | والشيبُ للجهل حَرْبُ |
| سِنٌّ وشيبٌ وجهلٌ | أَمرٌ لَعَمرُكَ صَعْبُ |
| يا ابنَ الإِمامِ فَأَلاّ | أَيامَ عُودِيَ رطْبُ |
| وإِذ مَشيبي قليلٌ | ومَنهلُ الحبّ عذبُ |
| وإِذ شفاءُ١ الغواني | مِنِّي حديث وقُربُ |
| فالآنَ لما رأَى بي الـ | ـعُذَّالُ ما قد أَحَبُّوا |
| وآنَسَ الرشدَ منّي | قوم أُعَابُ وأَصبو؟ |
| آليتُ أَشربُ خمرًا | ما حَجّ للهِ ركْبُ |
١ د: (شفاه).
Some people offered me a cup of wine. I refused and said, “Leave me with boiled wine, according to the doctrine of Sheikh al-Awzāʿī!”106 I told them that Ibrāhīm ibn al-Mahdī once offered wine to Muḥammad ibn Ḥāzim, who refused and recited:
Shall I, with my gray hair, be foolish like a child?
Gray hair is at war with brutish ignorance.
Old age, gray hair, and ignorance:
upon your life, they’re hard to reconcile.
O caliph’s son, O for the days
when I was strong and fresh,
When my gray hairs were few
and drinking from love’s spring was sweet,
When I was cured by pretty girls
by conversation and proximity!
But now, when those who chided me
see in me all they yearned to see,
And people see me taking the right path:
shall I once more be chided and be foolish like a child?
I swear that I shall never drink wine
as long as pilgrims ride to go on hajj for God!
6.4.1
وأقبلت على نفسي مخاطبًا، ولها معاتبًا، والخطاب لغيرها والمعنى لها:
لقد أَمهَلكم حتى كأنه أهملكم! أما تستحيون من طول ما لا تستحيون! فكنْ كالوليد تُقَلِّبُه يد اللطف به على فراش العطف عليه، تُصرَف إليه المنافع بغير طلب منه لصغره، وتُصرف عنه المضارّ بغير حذر منه لعجزه. أما سمعتَ الرسول عليه الصلاة والسلام إذ يقول في دُعائه: اللهم اكلأْني كلاءةَ الوليد الذي لا يدري ما يُراد به ولا ما يريد. ألا متعلق بأذيال دليله؟١ ألا مُعدٌّ مطيّةً ورَحلًا ليوم رحيله؟ يا هلاه! الدُلجةَ الدلجة! إنه من لم يسبق إلى الماء يَظْمَ. إنما منعتُك ما تشتهي ضنًّا بك وغيرةً عليك، قال الرسول عليه الصلاة والسلام: إذا أحبَّ الله عبدًا حماه الدنيا، وأنت تشكوني إذا حميتُك، وتكره صيانتي إذا صُنتُك. ألا لائذٌ بفنائنا ليعزّ؟ ألا فارّ إلينا لا فارّ منا؟ يا من له بدّ من كل شيء، أرحم من لا بدّ له منك على كل حال! الله يُغني بشيء عن شيء، وليس يغنَى عنه بشيء، فلهذا قال جبريل للخليل: ألك حاجةٌ؟ قال: أما إليك فلا، الله يستحقّ أن يُسأل وإن أغنى، لأنه لا يُغنَى بشيء عنه. أطِعْه لتطيعه ولا تطعه ليطيعك فتفتر وتملّ. من ترك تدبيره لتدبيرنا أرحناه! جلّ من لَوالِب القلوب والهمم بيده، وعزائم الأحكام والأقسام عنده:
١ ب: (ألا مُتَعَلِّقٌ والإذلالُ أذيالُ دليلِه). ق، إف، د: (ألا مُتَعَلِّقٌ والأذيالُ أذيالُ دليلِه).
I turned to myself, addressing and reproaching my soul; the address is phrased as if to others but is in fact to it:107
“He has given you respite as if He has neglected you. Are you not ashamed of how long you have been unashamed!”108 Be like a newborn child, turned by a gentle hand in its cot, surrounded by affection, on whom benefits are showered without asking, because of his infancy, and from whom harm is averted without his being on his guard, because of his infirmity. Have you not heard the messenger of God— blessing and peace upon him—when he said in his prayer, “O God, guard me as a newborn child is guarded, who neither knows what is wanted from him nor what he wants himself!” Is