Neither Belief nor Unbelief
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Sona Grigoryan
About this book
The book re-examines the religious thought and receptions of the Syrian poet Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī (d.1057) and one of his best known works - Luzūm mā lā 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-Maʿarrī’s oeuvre and Luzūm in particular, there have been two major trends in assessing al-Maʿarrī’s religious thought in modern scholarship. One presented al-Maʿarrī as an unbeliever and a freethinker arguing that through contradictions, he practiced taqīya, i.e., dissimulation in order to avoid persecution. The other, often apologetically, presented al-Maʿarrī as a sincere Muslim. This study proposes that the notion of ambivalence is a more appropriate analytical tool to apply to the reading of Luzūm, specifically in matters of belief. This ambivalence is directly conditioned by the historical and intellectual circumstances al-Maʿarrī 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.
Author / Editor information
Topics
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Frontmatter
I -
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Acknowledgments
VII -
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Contents
IX -
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List of Abbreviations
XI -
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Some Matters of Usage
XIII -
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Introduction
1 -
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Chapter 1 Milieu and Life: al-Maʿarrī in Context
15 -
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Chapter 2 Luzūmīyāt
44 -
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Chapter 3 Between Belief and Unbelief—Early Treatments and Responses
83 -
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Chapter 4 Between Belief and Unbelief—Modern Readings and Receptions
108 -
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Chapter 5 Neither Belief nor Unbelief— Intentional Ambivalence
117 -
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Chapter 6 Contradictions in Luzūmīyāt
134 -
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Conclusions
169 -
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Appendix: Verses of Luzūm in Arabic
173 -
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Bibliography
181 -
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Index
197
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