Neither belief nor unbelief : intentional ambivalence in al-Ma°arråi's luzum

The book re-examines the religious thought and receptions of the Syrian poet Abu l-'Ala' al-Ma'arri (d.1057) and one of his best known works - Luzum ma la yalzam (The Self-Imposed Unnecessity), a collection of poems, which, although widely studied, needs a thorough re-evaluation regarding matters of (un)belief.

Given the contradictory nature of al-Ma'arri's oeuvre and Luzum in particular, there have been two major trends in assessing al-Ma'arri's religious thought in modern scholarship.

One presented al-Ma'arri as an unbeliever and a freethinker arguing that through contradictions, he practiced taqiya, i.e., dissimulation in order to avoid persecution.

The other, often apologetically, presented al-Ma'arri as a sincere Muslim.

This study proposes that the notion of ambivalence is a more appropriate analytical tool to apply to the reading of Luzum, specifically in matters of belief.

This ambivalence is directly conditioned by the historical and intellectual circumstances al-Ma'arri lived in and he intentionally left it unsolved and intense as a robust stance against claims of certainty.

Going beyond reductive interpretations, the notion of ambivalence allows for an integrative paradigm in dealing with contradictions and dissonance.