Arabic Poetry: Trajectories of Modernity and Tradition

The Sufi text regained

In order to identify with al->allmj (858–922 CE), the Abbasid Sufi who was
decapitated and burned,^121 al-Baymtlhas to transcend the physical. It is not
the early life of the Sufi martyr that he seeks, but rather his transfiguration
in an intertext of great exilic potentiality. The Sufi martyr survives torture
and remains alive in a poetic homeland that harbors Alberti and the rest:

Al-Hallmj was my companion on all voyages,

We shared bread and wrote poetry about visions

Of the hungry, abandoned poor, in the kingdom

Of the great mason, about the secret of the

Rebellion of this man burning with desire for

the right, his head bowed before the tyrant.^122

Joining the exiles and martyrs is a rebirth. However, the development of this
poetic strategy is not smooth, for this mask appeared in separation from the rest
of al-Baymtl’s poetic texts. It was then one strategy among many others to meet
the needs and feelings of the speaker. The persona in Sifr al-faqr wa-al-thawrah
(The Book of Poverty and Revolution 1965) is freed from limitations of space
and time through a textual fusion with a number of Sufi masks, especially
al->allmj in al-Baymtl’s “cAdhmb al->allmj” (The Passion of >allmj), written in
1964: “I am here with no rags and tatters / Free as this fire and wind. / I am free
forever.”^123 Al->allmj’s suffering gives life to ancientlegends of the phoenix,
crucifixion, and sacrifice. The wood of ashes, with its early Eliotic overtones,
disappears only to be replaced with a regenerative process that subsumes
death as variable. The wound is not wanted to heal: “The wound will never
heal / and the seed will never die” (2: 25), he says in part six of the poem.
In “Mi.nat Ablal-cAlm’” (The Ordeal of Abnal-cAlm’), he collapses masks
and images. The poem, which appeared in Sifr al-faqr wa-al-thawrah(The
Book of Poverty and Revolution), is made of ten parts, and its main drive is
to emphasize the predicament of dissent. The Arab cynic and poet of seclu-
sion is deliberately confused with Lorca, for both address their poetic mission
to transcendence beyond the limits of the physical and the earthly.
Nevertheless, as already argued, earlier texts betray a great deal of political
engagement that grows through controversy and rejection through exposure
and allusions to counterfeiters, traitors, and enemies of the poet. Indeed, these
are bound to end up with al-Macarrl’s agonized musings, as in part seven for
example. The poem that follows, addressed to his daughter Asmm’, takes ear-
lier musings further, for his own face and that of his neighbor are the same.
They exchange roles and persist in tracking him, hunting and pursuing him
wherever he goes. Although the poem, which gives the title to the collection,
insists on rhetorical representations of dire times and poverty that stick to
him like unwanted neighbors, the persona’s sorrowful tone never aims to

ENVISIONING EXILE