Abu 'I-Alaa Al-Ma'arri (973-1057), a poet born near Aleppo, Syria
We laugh, but inept is our laughter;
We should weep and weep sore,
Who are shattered like glass, and thereafter
Re-molded no more.
---
Religion is a "fable invented by the ancients".
So, too, the creeds of man: the one prevails
Until the other comes; and this one fails
When that one triumphs; ay, the lonesome world
Will always want the latest fairy-tales.
---
Among the crumbling ruins of the creeds
The Scout upon his camel played his reeds
And called out to his people —"Let us hence!
The pasture here is full of noxious weeds.
---
Hanifs are stumbling, Christians all astray
Jews wildered, Magians far on error's way.
We mortals are composed of two great schools
Enlightened knaves or else religious fools.
---
What is religion? A maid kept close that no eye view her;
The price of her wedding-gifts and dowry baffles the wooer.
Of all the goodly doctrine that I from the pulpit heard
My heart has never accepted so much as a single word.
---
Mohammed or Messiah! Hear thou me,
The truth entire nor here nor there can be;
How should our God who made the sun and the moon
Give all his light to One, I cannot see.
---
They recite their sacred books, although the fact informs me
that these a fiction from first to last.
O Reason, thou (alone) speakest the truth.
Then perish the fools who forged the religious traditions or interpreted them!
---
By fearing whom I trust I find my way
To truth; but trusting wholly I betray
The trust of wisdom; better far is doubt
Which brings the false into the light of day.
---
O fouls, awake! The rites ye sacred hold
Are but a cheat contrived by men of old
Who lusted after wealth and gained their lust
And died in baseness—and their law is dust.
---
Tis strange that Kurash and his people wash
Their faces in the staling of the kine;
And that the Christians say, Almighty God
Was tortured, mocked, and crucified in fine:
And that the Jews should picture Him as one
Who loves the odor of a roasting chine;
And strange still that Muslims travel far
To kiss a black stone said to be divine:
Almighty God! Will all human race
Stray blindly from the Truth's most sacred shrine?
Source: R. A. Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Poetry, Cambridge, 1921
We laugh, but inept is our laughter;
We should weep and weep sore,
Who are shattered like glass, and thereafter
Re-molded no more.
---
Religion is a "fable invented by the ancients".
So, too, the creeds of man: the one prevails
Until the other comes; and this one fails
When that one triumphs; ay, the lonesome world
Will always want the latest fairy-tales.
---
Among the crumbling ruins of the creeds
The Scout upon his camel played his reeds
And called out to his people —"Let us hence!
The pasture here is full of noxious weeds.
---
Hanifs are stumbling, Christians all astray
Jews wildered, Magians far on error's way.
We mortals are composed of two great schools
Enlightened knaves or else religious fools.
---
What is religion? A maid kept close that no eye view her;
The price of her wedding-gifts and dowry baffles the wooer.
Of all the goodly doctrine that I from the pulpit heard
My heart has never accepted so much as a single word.
---
Mohammed or Messiah! Hear thou me,
The truth entire nor here nor there can be;
How should our God who made the sun and the moon
Give all his light to One, I cannot see.
---
They recite their sacred books, although the fact informs me
that these a fiction from first to last.
O Reason, thou (alone) speakest the truth.
Then perish the fools who forged the religious traditions or interpreted them!
---
By fearing whom I trust I find my way
To truth; but trusting wholly I betray
The trust of wisdom; better far is doubt
Which brings the false into the light of day.
---
O fouls, awake! The rites ye sacred hold
Are but a cheat contrived by men of old
Who lusted after wealth and gained their lust
And died in baseness—and their law is dust.
---
Tis strange that Kurash and his people wash
Their faces in the staling of the kine;
And that the Christians say, Almighty God
Was tortured, mocked, and crucified in fine:
And that the Jews should picture Him as one
Who loves the odor of a roasting chine;
And strange still that Muslims travel far
To kiss a black stone said to be divine:
Almighty God! Will all human race
Stray blindly from the Truth's most sacred shrine?
Source: R. A. Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Poetry, Cambridge, 1921
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