The Epistle of Forgiveness. Abu l-'Ala al-Ma'arri

The Epistle of Forgiveness

Muʿjam al-udabāʾ, xv, 83–88; shortened in al-Ṣafadī, Wāfī, xxii, 233–35; al-Suyūṭī, Bughyat al-wuʿāh, ii, 207. It is said that he died after 421/1030 (al-Ṣafadī, xxii, 234; Yāqūt, implausibly, has “after 461/1068”). 27 For a fragment of four verses, see Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-udabāʾ, xv, 84. 28 For a German translation and study, see Schoeler, “Abū l-Alāʾ al-Maʿarrīs Prolog zum Sendschreiben über die Vergebung.” 29 ʿĀʾishah ʿAbd al-Raḥmān “Bint al-Shāṭiʾ,” Qirāʾah jadīdah fī Risālat al-Ghufrān, pp. 52–54; eadem, “Abū ʾl-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī,” p. 337. 30 Schoeler, “Abū l-Alāʾ al-Maʿarrīs Prolog,” p. 421. 31 Schoeler, “Die Vision, der auf einer Hypothese gründet: Zur Deutung von Abū ’l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrīs Risālat al-Ġufrān.” 32 Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām: Ḥawādith wa-wafayāt 441–50, 451–60, pp. 199–200; the Arabic words are mazdakah, istikhfāf, and adab. The term mazdakah, instead of the normal mazdakiyyah, is unusual but found elsewhere, e.g., al-Ṣafadī, Wāfī, xv, p. 426. Since Mazdak is not mentioned in Risālat al-Ghufrān, Nicholson suggests (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1900, p. 637) that mazdakah could be a corruption of the common word zandaqah, which has a related meaning. The former is derived from Mazdak, who was the leader of a pre-Islamic revolutionary religious movement in Sassanid Iran in the early sixth century ad, while zandaqah is derived from zindīq, “heretic,” often implying Manichaeism. 33 He is followed by Brackenbury in his English translation, which is based on Kaylānī’s edition. 34 Qusṭākī l-Ḥimṣī, in articles published in Majallat Maʿhad al-Lughah al-ʿArabiyyah (Damascus), 7 (1927) and 8 (1928); see Hassan Osman, “Dante in Arabic.” 35 See Strohmaier, “Chaj ben Mekitz – die unbekannte Quelle der Divina Commedia.” 36 “The Risālatu’l-Ghufrān,” p. 76. 37 True Histories, in Lucian, Chattering Courtesans, pp. 308–46; see esp. pp. 330–39. 38 Keith Sidwell, in his introduction to Lucian, Chattering Courtesans, p. xx. 39 See e.g. Tibbets and Toorawa, section “The tree” in the entry “Wāḳwāḳ,” EI2, xi (2002), pp. 107–8. 40 Lucian, Chattering Courtesans, p. 312. 41 See e.g. J. M. Continente Ferrer, “Consideraciones en torno a las relaciones entre la Risālat al-Tawābiʿ wa-l-Zawābiʿ de ibn Šuhayd y la Risālat al-Gufrān de al-Maʿarrī,” in Actas de las jornadas de cultura árabe e islámica, 1978, (Madrid, 1981), pp. 124–34; ʿAbd al-Salām al-Harrās, “Risālat al-Tawābiʿ wa-l-zawābiʿ wa-ʿalāqatuhā li-Risālat al-Ghufrān,” al-Manāhil, 9:25 (1982): 211–20. 42 Ibn Shuhayd, The Treatise of Familiar Spirits and Demons. 43 Risālat al-shayāṭīn, published in Kāmil Kaylānī’s edition of Risālat al-Ghufrān, pp. 475–506 (only the beginning of the epistle deals with the demons of poets). 44 Al-Maʿarrī, Risālat al-Malāʾikah, pp. 5–8. 45 Al-Maʿarrī, Risālat al-Malāʾikah, pp. 26–28, 36–38; for sundus and istabraq see Q Kahf 18:31 and Dukhān 44:53. 46 Al-Maʿarrī, Risālat al-Malāʾikah, p. 8. 47 Risālat al-Ghufrān, p. 382. 48 Qirāʾah jadīdah fī Risālat al-Ghufrān (A New Reading of The Epistle of Forgiveness), subtitled Naṣṣ masraḥī min al-qarn al-khāmis al-hijrī (“A Dramatic Text of the Fifth Century of the Hijra”), see pp. 65–186; cf. Moreh, Live Theatre and Dramatic Literature in the Medieval Arabic World, pp. 112–13. 49 There is no drama in the classical Arabic “high” literary tradition; the texts employed in popular slapstick acting were almost never written down. 50 See Wiebke Walther’s review of Schoeler’s translation of Risālat al-Ghufrān in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 157 (2007): 225–28, her article “Camīl Ṣidqī az-Zahāwī,” her entry “az-Zahāwī, Ǵamīl Sidqī” in Kindlers Neues Literatur Lexikon, Bd. 22 (Suppl.) 1998, p. 741, and the German translation by G. Widmer in Welt des Islams, 17 (1935): 1–79. 51

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