The Spark of the Flint – al-Ma’arri

Al-Ma’arri’s first qasida collection, where youthful poetic craft meets an early critique of praise

A First Collection of Qasidas

Saqt az-Zand, also transliterated as Sikt al-Zand and rendered into English as The Spark of the Fire Stick or The Falling Spark of Tinder, is the first poetry collection by the Arab philosopher, poet, and writer al-Ma’arri. It consists of seventy-four qasidas and more than three thousand lines, composed in his youth and early adulthood before the year 1020. The qasida was a common form in Arabic poetry, often used to praise a patron or another notable man. Al-Ma’arri’s early qasidas follow that general tone and style, and they are also marked by an undertone of Shia values. The title itself has posed problems for translators: saqt can mean spark, but its more usual sense is falling, while zand was a fire drill. The commentator al-Khwarazimi read the title as an allusion to the effort required to grasp the verses, comparable to the effort of producing fire by friction between two pieces of wood.

Praise, Patronage, and the Poet’s Reservation

The collection carries a preface, the Khutbat Saqt al-Zand, in which al-Ma’arri addresses the purpose of his poetry and the conventions of praise. He states that he did not compose poetry to obtain reward and expresses reservations about the qasida’s traditional praise function. Because the form demanded a madih, or praise section, he says that he included such passages as technical exercises and tests of his talent. His position is that abundant praise is rightly due to God rather than to any man. The collection nevertheless contains praise and public comment: it includes an elegy on his late father, praise for Sa’d al-Dawla, praise for various notables of Aleppo and librarians of Baghdad, and reactions to political events in contemporary Syria. Al-Ma’arri praised important individuals on all sides of the conflicts that beset his homeland, including the Fatimid general Bandjutakin. The work also shows the influence of al-Mutanabbi.

Maxims on Life, Death, and Human Nature

The most important elements of Saqt az-Zand are al-Ma’arri’s maxims and his reflections on life and death, on human nature and aspirations, and on his own life and its contradictions. These concerns give the collection its distinctive interior weight. It does not display the intense philosophy and erudition of his later Luzumiyyat; instead, this early poetry is more sensitive and personal, full of vigour and virtuosity, with elements of riddle and wordplay. Its verse is learned and dense, but its energy comes from vigour and virtuosity rather than systematic philosophy. The collection therefore combines public poems with maxims and self-scrutiny, and its youthful craft is as important as its thought.

The Farewell Ode and the Return Home

The final poem in the collection is al-Ma’arri’s Farewell Ode. In it he takes leave of his admirers in Baghdad and expresses regret that he did not establish himself there as he had hoped, before returning to his hometown of Ma’arrat al-Nu’man. The poem closes the collection on a personal note, linking the public world of patronage and reputation with the poet’s own sense of disappointment and homecoming.

Commentaries, Canon, and European Readers

Saqt az-Zand achieved great popularity when it circulated in Baghdad, and it occupies a central place in the canon of Arabic literature. Yet it remains relatively unknown to readers who do not speak Arabic, perhaps because its dense, erudite verse is extraordinarily difficult to translate.

The first scholarly study of the collection was undertaken by al-Ma’arri himself. He produced a critical commentary known as Dhou as-Saqt, or The Light of the Spark, which he dictated to his amanuensis Abu Zakariya at-Tabrizi but which was never put into circulation. At-Tabrizi later made a new and much larger commentary of his own, published under the title Sharh at-Tanwir ‘ala Saqt az-Zand. Other historic commentaries followed, including works by al-Batalyawsi, al-Khwarazimi, al-Khuwwi al-Nahwi, and Ibn al-Azm. The collection was held in high regard across the Arab world: it was discussed in Ibn Khayr al-Ishbili’s Fihrist, and the poet and historian Ibn Bassam al-Shantarini cited it extensively in his Al-Dhakhira fi Mahasin Ahl al-Jazira.

European attention came through manuscript collecting and selective publication. Jacobus Golius purchased a copy of Dhou as-Saqt, now held at the University of Leiden, and short extracts appeared in European Arabic studies. Johann Fabricius’s Specimen Arabicum was the first European scholarly work to publish selections from Saqt az-Zand, and Silvestre de Sacy’s Chrestomathie Arabe later presented Arabic extracts together with translation and notes, bringing the collection to a wider European audience.

Modern scholarly interest is dated from Taha Hussein’s doctoral thesis on the work. Hussein later headed a five-volume edition that included the seventy-four poems of the collection, additional poems in appendices, and the thirty-one-poem Al-Dariyyat that is commonly published with Saqt az-Zand; the edition also gathered extensive commentary from al-Tabrizi, Ibn al-Sid al-Batalyawsi, and al-Khwarazimi. An English translation exists by Arthur Wormhoudt, and a selection of the poems has been translated into Spanish.

Abu al-Ala al-Ma’arri lived from December 973 to May 1057 and was also known by the Latin name Abulola Moarrensis. He came from Ma’arrat al-Nu’man, Emirate of Aleppo (present-day Syria). His religious beliefs and philosophical worldview have been the subject of extensive historical and modern academic debate: while detractors and early Western scholars characterized him as a deist, freethinker, or one of the “foremost atheists” of his time, other scholars dispute this categorization, and it is complicated by al-Ma’arri’s own subsequent writings.

The Monument at Ma’arrat al-Nu’man

In Ma’arrat al-Nu’man there is a marble monument to al-Ma’arri on which is carved a verse from Saqt az-Zand: “Let the rain refrain from watering me and my land, if its clouds do not cover the whole country.” This line is preceded by another in the same vein: “If immortality had been offered to me exclusively, I would not have accepted to be the sole beneficiary.”

Further Commentary Details

Al-Ma’arri worked on his critical commentary after his return to Ma’arra and his self-isolation. At-Tabrizi is described as young and drawn to al-Ma’arri by his desire to learn from the author of Saqt az-Zand; the published version of his commentary appeared in Boulaq in AH 1286 (1869–70 CE). Known historic commentaries also include al-Batalyawsi (d. 527/1227); Diram as-Saqt (“Igniting the Spark”) by Sadr al-Afdal Qasim ibn Husain al-Khwarazimi (d. 617/1220); At-Tanwir ‘ala Saqt az-Zand by al-Khuwwi al-Nahwi (c. 532/1137); a commentary on the armour-poems in Saqt az-Zand by al-Qadisi (1075/1665); and Sharh al-Qasida al-lamiya (“Explanation of the Shining Qasida”) by Ibn al-Azm (1285/1868).

Further European and Modern Details

The Dutch Arabist Erpenius and his pupil Jacobus Golius collected manuscripts, and Golius published a few short extracts of al-Ma’arri’s work in his 1656 edition of Erpenius’ work on Arabic grammar. Johann Fabricius’s Specimen Arabicum was a 1638 anthology of Arabic literature published in Gdańsk. Silvestre de Sacy’s Chrestomathie Arabe dates to 1827. Taha Hussein defended his PhD thesis on the work in 1914. The 1945 National Library of Egypt five-volume edition, with Hussein as editor in chief, included eight other poems in appendices and more than two thousand pages of commentary from Al-Tabrizi, Ibn al-Sid al-Batalyawsi, and Al-Khwarazimi. Arthur Wormhoudt’s English translation is dated 1972, and a selection of poems was translated into Spanish for the first time and published in 2016.