Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya, unlike his great rival, came of Arab stock. He was bred in Kúfa, and gained his livelihood as a young Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya (748-828 a.d.). man by selling earthenware. His poetical talent, however, promised so well that he set out to present himself before the Caliph Mahdí, who richly rewarded him; and Hárún al-Rashíd afterwards bestowed on him a yearly pension of 50,000 dirhems (about £2,000), in addition to numerous extraordinary gifts. At Baghdád he fell in love with ‘Utba, a slave-girl belonging to Mahdí, but she did not return his passion or take any notice of the poems in which he celebrated her charms and bewailed the sufferings that she made him endure. Despair of winning her affection caused him, it is said, to assume the woollen garb of Muḥammadan ascetics,534 and henceforth, instead of writing vain and amatorious verses, he devoted his powers exclusively to those joyless meditations on mortality which have struck a deep chord in the hearts of his countrymen. Like Abu ’l-‘Alá al-Ma‘arrí and others who neglected the positive precepts of Islam in favour of a moral philosophy based on experience and reflection, Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya was accused of being a freethinker ( zindíq).535 It was alleged that in his poems he often spoke of death but never of the Resurrection and the Judgment—a calumny which is refuted by many passages in his Díwán. According to the literary historian al-Ṣúlí (õ 946 a.d.), Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya believed in One God who formed the universe out of two opposite elements which He created from nothing; and held, further, that everything would be reduced to these same elements before the final destruction of all phenomena. Knowledge, he thought, was acquired naturally ( i.e., without Divine Revelation) by means of reflection, deduction, and research.536 He believed in the threatened retribution ( al-wa‘íd) and in the command to abstain from commerce with the world ( taḥrímu ’l-makásib).537 He professed the opinions of the Butrites,538 a subdivision of the Zaydites, as that sect of the Shí‘a was named which followed Zayd b. Alí b. Ḥusayn b. ‘Alí b. Abí Ṭálib. He spoke evil of none, and did not approve of revolt against the Government. He held the doctrine of predestination ( jabr).539

Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya may have secretly cherished the Manichæan views ascribed to him in this passage, but his poems contain little or nothing that could offend the most orthodox Moslem. The following verse, in which Goldziher finds an allusion to Buddha,540 is capable of a different interpretation. It rather seems to me to exalt the man of ascetic life, without particular reference to any individual, above all others:—

"If thou would'st see the noblest of mankind,Behold a monarch in a beggar's garb."541

But while the poet avoids positive heresy, it is none the less true that much of his Díwán is not strictly religious in the Muḥammadan sense and may fairly be called 'philosophical.' This was enough to convict him of infidelity and atheism in the eyes of devout theologians who looked askance on moral teaching, however pure, that was not cast in the dogmatic mould. The pretended cause of his imprisonment by Hárún al-Rashíd—namely, that he refused to make any more love-songs—is probably, as Goldziher has suggested, a popular version of the fact that he persisted in writing religious poems which were supposed to have a dangerous bias in the direction of free-thought.

His poetry breathes a spirit of profound melancholy and hopeless pessimism. Death and what comes after death, the frailty and misery of man, the vanity of worldly pleasures and the duty of renouncing them—these are the subjects on which he dwells with monotonous reiteration, exhorting his readers to live the ascetic life and fear God and lay up a store of good works against the Day of Reckoning. The simplicity, ease, and naturalness of his style are justly admired. Religious poetry, as he himself confesses, was not read at court or by scholars who demanded rare and obscure expressions, but only by pious folk, traditionists and divines, and especially by the vulgar, "who like best what they can understand."542 Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya wrote for 'the man in the street.' Discarding conventional themes tricked out with threadbare artifices, he appealed to common feelings and matters of universal experience. He showed for the first and perhaps for the last time in the history of classical Arabic literature that it was possible to use perfectly plain and ordinary language without ceasing to be a poet.

Although, as has been said, the bulk of Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya's poetry is philosophical in character, there remains much specifically Islamic doctrine, in particular as regards the Resurrection and the Future Life. This combination may be illustrated by the following ode, which is considered one of the best that have been written on the subject of religion, or, more accurately, of asceticism ( zuhd):—

"Get sons for death, build houses for decay!All, all, ye wend annihilation's way.For whom build we, who must ourselves returnInto our native element of clay?O Death, nor violence nor flattery thouDost use, but when thou com'st, escape none may.Methinks, thou art ready to surprise mine age,As age surprised and made my youth his prey.What ails me, World, that every place perforceI lodge thee in, it galleth me to stay?And, O Time, how do I behold thee runTo spoil me? Thine own gift thou tak'st away!O Time! inconstant, mutable art thou,And o'er the realm of ruin is thy sway. What ails me that no glad result it bringsWhene'er, O World, to milk thee I essay?And when I court thee, why dost thou raise upOn all sides only trouble and dismay?Men seek thee every wise, but thou art likeA dream; the shadow of a cloud; the dayWhich hath but now departed, nevermoreTo dawn again; a glittering vapour gay.This people thou hast paid in full: their feetAre on the stirrup—let them not delay!But those that do good works and labour wellHereafter shall receive the promised pay.As if no punishment I had to fear,A load of sin upon my neck I lay;And while the world I love, from Truth, alas,Still my besotted senses go astray.I shall be asked of all my business here:What can I plead then? What can I gainsay?What argument allege, when I am calledTo render an account on Reckoning-Day?Dooms twain in that dread hour shall be revealed,When I the scroll of these mine acts survey:Either to dwell in everlasting bliss,Or suffer torments of the damned for aye!"543

I will now add a few verses culled from the Díwán which bring the poet's pessimistic view of life into clearer outline, and also some examples of those moral precepts and sententious criticisms which crowd his pages and have contributed in no small degree to his popularity.

"The world is like a viper soft to touch that venom spits."544

"Men sit like revellers o'er their cups and drink,From the world's hand, the circling wine of death."545

"Call no man living blest for aught you seeBut that for which you blessed call the dead."546

FALSE FRIENDS. "'Tis not the Age that moves my scorn,But those who in the Age are born.I cannot count the friends that brokeTheir faith, tho' honied words they spoke;In whom no aid I found, and madeThe Devil welcome to their aid.May I—so best we shall agree—Ne'er look on them nor they on me!"547

"If men should see a prophet begging, they would turn and scout him.Thy friend is ever thine as long as thou canst do without him;But he will spew thee forth, if in thy need thou come about him."548

THE WICKED WORLD. "'Tis only on the culprit sin recoils,The ignorant fool against himself is armed.Humanity are sunk in wickedness;The best is he that leaveth us unharmed."549

"'Twas my despair of Man that gave me hopeGod's grace would find me soon, I know not how."550