By Emil Homerin
Via a close exam of a popular Arab mystical poet, Th. Emil Homerin offers one of many first case experiences to demonstrate an imprecise point of well known Islamic faith--the sanctification of saints and the production of shrines in medieval occasions. even though Muslims have honored saints for greater than 1000 years, Islam hasn't ever built a proper technique of canonization, and the method of sanctification is still a big yet mostly ignored measurement of Islamic scholarship. In "From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint", Homerin explores this uncharted territory by means of following the fortunes of a unmarried Sufi saint over seven and a part centuries. considered as a saint inside a new release of his loss of life, 'Umar Ibn al-Farid (1181-1235) continues to be commemorated at his shrine in Cairo. modern spiritual singers and writers, together with Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, proceed to quote the poet's verse. utilizing biographies, hagiographies, polemics, criminal rulings, histories, and novels, Homerin strains the process Ibn al-Farid's saintly popularity. He relates the increase and fall of Ibn al-Farid's reputation to Egypt's altering spiritual, cultural, and political atmosphere.
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Additional info for From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint: Ibn Al-Farid, His Verse, and His Shrine
Sample text
In this dispute Ibn Bint al-Acazz (d. 695/1296), the vizier of the Mamluk sultan Qala'un and chief Shaficl judge, publicly disgraced Shams al-Din al-Aykl for encouraging the study of the alTd^tyah al-kubrd, which the vizier believed propagated incarnationism. 52 It is, however, more likely, that al-Tilimsanl was consciously refuting a Sufi rival, al-Qutb Ibn al-Qastallanl (d. 686/1287), who had denounced alTilimsani along with Ibn al-Farid and others for being incarnationists. 53 As part of his defense, al-Tilimsanl related an account in which the prophet Muhammad allegedly appeared to Ibn al-Farid in a dream and asked him what he had named his long ode.
Results from its whole. Even allowing for the hyperbole that classical Arabic commentators traditionally employed when first mentioning the author of their subject work, al-Farghanl perceived Ibn al-Farid to be a Sufi poet who had scaled mystical heights. Al-Farghanl left no doubt concerning the spiritual sources from which, he believed, Ibn al-Farid had drawn his great poems. 42 Following al-Fargham's interpretation of Ibn al-Farid as an impassioned Sufi were two later commentators, c lzz al-Dln al-Kashanl (d.
Ibn Taymlyah misinterpreted Ibn al-cArabI's abstract and sophisticated doctrines as the grossest pantheism, and on these grounds he took exception to specific verses in Ibn al-Farid's al-Td^tyah al-kubrd. Not to be beaten by al-Tilimsanl, Ibn Taymlyah related his own story, which alleged that, when Ibn al-Farid was at the point of death, he realized the vanity of his belief that he was God and so repented, saying:57 If my resting place in love near you is what I've seen, then I wasted my life. A desire seized my soul for a time, but now it seems just a jumbled dream.