2. The unpleasant Abu-l-Atahia (748–828), in his effeminate poetry, is nearly always talking about unhappy [[66]]love and a longing for death. He gives expression to his wisdom in the following couplet:
“The mind guide thou with cautious hesitation:
’Gainst sin use the best shield, Renunciation”.
Whoever possesses any faculty for appreciating life and the poetry of Nature will find little to enjoy in his world-renouncing songs; and just as little satisfaction will be afforded him in the verses of Mutanabbi (905–965), frightfully tedious in their contents, although epigrammatic in their form. And yet Mutanabbi has been praised as the greatest Arabic poet.
In like manner people have unduly extolled Abu-l-Ala al-Maarri (973–1058) as a philosophic poet. His occasionally quite respectable sentiments and sensible views are not philosophy, nor does the affected though often hackneyed expression of these amount to poetry. Under more favourable conditions,—for he was blind and not surpassingly rich,—this man might perhaps have rendered some service in the subordinate walks of criticism as a philologist or a historical writer. But, in place of an enthusiastic acceptance of life’s duties, he is led to preach the joyless abandonment of them, and to grumble generally at political conditions, the opinions of the orthodox multitude, and the scientific assertions of the learned, without being able himself to advance anything positive. He is almost entirely wanting in the gift of combination. He can analyse, but he does not hit upon any synthesis, and his learning bears no fruit. The tree of his knowledge has its roots in the air, as he himself confesses in one of his letters, though in a different sense. He leads a life of strict celibacy and vegetarianism, [[67]]as becomes a pessimist. As he puts it in his poems “all is but an idle toy: Fate is blind; and Time spares neither the king who partakes of the joys of life, nor the devout man who spends his nights in watching and prayer. Nor does irrational belief solve for us the enigma of existence. Whatever is behind those moving heavens remains hidden from us for ever: Religions, which open up a prospect there, have been fabricated from motives of self-interest. Sects and factions of all kinds are utilized by the powerful to make their dominion secure, though the truth about these matters can only be whispered. The wisest thing then is to keep aloof from the world, and to do good disinterestedly, and because it is virtuous and noble to do so, without any outlook for reward”.
Other literary men had a more practical philosophy, and could make their weight more felt in the world. They subscribed to the wise doctrine of the Theatre-Manager in Goethe’s Faust: “He who brings much, will something bring to many”. The most perfect type of this species is Hariri (1054–1122), whose hero, the beggar and stroller, Abu Zaid of Serug, teaches as the highest wisdom:
“Hunt, instead of being hunted;
All the world’s a wood for hunting.
If the falcon should escape you,
Take, content, the humble bunting: