ABU 'L-'ALA AL-MA'ARRI. Born to Muslim parents in al-Ma'arrah or Ma'arrah an-Nu'man (Syria) in 973, and died in 1058. He is renowned as a poet and thinker; he lost his sight at the age of four.
Among his works, the best known are a collection of youthful poems (*Saqt az-Zand*) and another of poems from his mature years (*Luzūmiyyāt*), famous for their pessimism; but the one that interests us most is the *Risālat al-Ghufrān*, or Epistle of Forgiveness, which in modern times has been cited among the sources of the *Divine Comedy*. Asín Palacios observes that the manner in which the earthly traveler begins his conversation with the souls in paradise, the fact that he finds them divided into groups, and the criterion by which God admits them there, are identical in both works. Moreover, Dante’s encounters with Pia, Piccarda, Cunizza, Virgil, Adam, and Matilda have parallels and correspondences in the aforementioned epistle. It should be noted, however, that unlike Dante, A. is an unbeliever, and the epistle is a parody of Muslim eschatology. He is also believed to have parodied the Qur’an; on this point see A. Fischer, *Der «Koran» des Abū 'L-'Ala al-Ma'arri*, Leipzig 1942.