Grigoryan Neither Belief nor Unbelief

Intentional Ambivalence in al-Ma?arri’s Luzum
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-3-11-077364-4
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, Band 45, 215 Seiten

Reihe: Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle EastISSN

The book re-examines the religious thought and receptions of the Syrian poet Abu l-?Ala? al-Ma?arri (d.1057) and one of his best known works - Luzum ma la yalzam (The Self-Imposed Unnecessity), a collection of poems, which, although widely studied, needs a thorough re-evaluation regarding matters of (un)belief. Given the contradictory nature of al-Ma?arri’s oeuvre and Luzum in particular, there have been two major trends in assessing al-Ma?arri’s religious thought in modern scholarship. One presented al-Ma?arri as an unbeliever and a freethinker arguing that through contradictions, he practiced taqiya, i.e., dissimulation in order to avoid persecution. The other, often apologetically, presented al-Ma?arri as a sincere Muslim. This study proposes that the notion of ambivalence is a more appropriate analytical tool to apply to the reading of Luzum, specifically in matters of belief. This ambivalence is directly conditioned by the historical and intellectual circumstances al-Ma?arri lived in and he intentionally left it unsolved and intense as a robust stance against claims of certainty. Going beyond reductive interpretations, the notion of ambivalence allows for an integrative paradigm in dealing with contradictions and dissonance.

Zielgruppe

Scholars of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Arabic Literature, Abbasi

Autoren/Hrsg.

Grigoryan, Sona

Über Autor(innen)

Sona Grigoryan, Central European University, Budapest, Ungarn/Wien, Österreich.

Sona Grigoryan, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary/Wien, Austria.