Abu Murshid al-Maari
- Died
- 493 AH
- Born in
- -
Abu Murshid al-Maari (d. after 493 AH / 1100 CE) was a Syrian judge, poet, and literary scholar from Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, known for his letters, constrained poetry, and commentary on obscure verses of al-Mutanabbi .
Lineage and Early Life
Abu Murshid was Sulayman ibn Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Sulayman al-Maari . He belonged to Banu Sulayman, an influential lineage in Ma'arrat al-Nu'man whose members frequently served as judges and scholars . His grandfather Muhammad was the elder brother of the poet and philosopher Abu al-Ala al-Ma'arri, and Abu Murshid was a paternal cousin of the Ma'arra judge Abu al-Majd Muhammad ibn Abd Allah .
Career and Migration
Abu Murshid served as a judge (qadi) in Ma'arrat al-Nu'man . Following the Frankish Crusader conquest of Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, he relocated to the fortress city of Shayzar, where he resided until his death .
Literary Standing
Abu Murshid was regarded as an accomplished poet and prose stylist, authoring epistles (rasa'il) and intricate verse . In Shayzar's scholarly circles, he was counted among the few masters capable of composing the most refined Arabic poetry . His poetic skill included challenging stylistic constraints; in one preserved poem transmitted by his relative Abu al-Yusr, he adhered to a lipogrammatic requirement where every single word of the poem contained the Arabic letter nun :
نَزِّهْ لسانَك عن نفاقِ مُنافقِ ... وانصحْ فإنّ الدين نصْحُ المؤمنِ
Purge your tongue of the hypocrisy of a hypocrite, and give counsel, for religion is the counsel of the believer.
In literary scholarship, he composed Tafsir Abyat al-Maani min Shir Abi al-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi ("Interpretation of the Complex Verses from the Poetry of Abu al-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi"), an alphabetically arranged commentary on difficult, grammatically contested, and rhetorically dense lines from al-Mutanabbi's diwan.
Answer updated
List of Works
Tafsir Abyat al-Maani min Shir Abi al-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi is a concise commentary on selected obscure and rhetorically complex verses from the diwan of the poet Abu al-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi. Arranged alphabetically by rhyme letter, the work isolates verses with challenging metaphors, intricate semantics, or disputed grammatical constructions, providing an abridged summary of interpretations by earlier commentators.