Evaluating the Meaning of Life through Reflection on Its Images in Abu al-ʿAlaʾ al-Maʿarri’s Works

Abu al-ʿAlaʾ al-Maʿarri (973-1057), a prominent blind and pessimistic poet and thinker in the Arab world, uses various images about life, through which the meaning of life can be analyzed. These images include suffering, disease, prison, poisonous snake, carcass, dark and raging sea, cruel and incompetent judge, uninvited guest, and illusory mirage. Accordingly, life is an unpleasant imposition having no meaning in its three senses -purpose, value, and function. This research shows that his deep thought has never been disengaged from the ultimate concerns of human beings. According to him, some of the factors that made the life difficult are: the instability of time, the loss of youth, the onset of senility, the onset of death, boredom and fatigue from repeated daily routines, emptiness, loneliness, homelessness in a world that lacks any emotion for human pain, lack of freedom, inability to cope with the destiny of the times, and, above all, the imposition of a throughout suffering life. Lack of pleasure, love, and finally cosmic optimism are the characteristics of his view of life. His opinion can be considered cosmic or existential absurdity and not moral.