Neither Belief nor Unbelief
Intentional Ambivalence in al-Ma’arr”s Luz’mThe book re-examines the religious thought and receptions of the Syrian poet Ab’ l-‘Al” al-Ma’arr’ (d.1057) and one of his best known works – Luz’m m’ l’ 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’arr”s oeuvre and Luz’m in particular, there have been two major trends in assessing al-Ma’arr”s religious thought in modern scholarship. One presented al-Ma’arr’ as an unbeliever and a freethinker arguing that through contradictions, he practiced taq’ya, i.e., dissimulation in order to avoid persecution. The other, often apologetically, presented al-Ma’arr’ as a sincere Muslim. This study proposes that the notion of ambivalence is a more appropriate analytical tool to apply to the reading of Luz’m, specifically in matters of belief. This ambivalence is directly conditioned by the historical and intellectual circumstances al-Ma’arr’ 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. ISBN: 9783110772531, 3110772531
