أخبار أبي العلاء المعري

ABOUT THE BOOK

The work records material relating to al-Ma'arri's life, personality, poetry and intellectual legacy. A particularly significant feature is al-Silafi's use of isnad (chains of transmission) when relating reports and poetry, reflecting the author's background as a distinguished scholar of Hadith.

For centuries the work was regarded as lost. Researcher Umar Majid al-Sanawi undertook the task of reconstructing it by locating and documenting material preserved in more than twenty manuscript and printed sources. The reconstructed text contains over forty pieces of material attributed to the original work.

The edition also contains a study entitled مرايا أبي العلاء المعري (Maraya Abi al-Ala al-Ma'arri), examining earlier writings devoted to al-Ma'arri and aspects of his biography and intellectual personality.

A valuable Arabic resource for students and researchers of Arabic literature, biography, Islamic intellectual history and classical Arabic scholarship.