Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Man That Was Used Up” was first published in 1839. The plot line of the story is as follows.
Continue readingThe Artificial Man, And The Man Of Substance
Ibn Khallikan
The Fittest Sharers Of Your Joys
Wise sayings can soothe life’s hardships by reminding us that past travelers on the road have met with similar trials. Adages are distillations of lived wisdom, condensed for mental retention and seasoned, in many cases, with pathos and humor. We will first consider a saying by Ibrahim Ibn Al Abbas Al Suli, a poet who “belonged to a highly respected Turkish family,” according to our trusted biographer Ibn Khallikan, whose earnest pages have brightened many a gloomy day.
Continue readingFortune May Stumble In Her Gait, But Arrives At Her Destination
Al Fadl Ibn Al Rabi (الفضل بن الربيع), who lived from around A.D. 757 to 823, was a powerful minister of the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad. He served the caliphs Harun Al Rashid and Al Amin, the sixth Abbasid ruler. It was during his tenure in office that the caliphate descended into civil war.
Continue readingThe Tolerant Wisdom Of Ibn Al Jawzi
We turn now to the wisdom of those who are able to extricate themselves from the ensnaring brambles of theological thickets. The scholar and theologian Abd Al Rahman Ibn Al Jawzi, or more commonly Ibn Al Jawzi (ابن الجوزي), was born in Baghdad around 1115, and died there in 1201.
Continue readingThe Mystic Conviction Of Ibn Musaed
The mystic Yunus Ibn Yusuf Ibn Musaed was born around 1132 into the Mukharik family, of the tribe of Shaiban (بنو شيبان). The subdivisions of this tribe occupied an area called the Jazira, a region covering what is now eastern Syria and upper Mesopotamia. He would later found an order of dervishes that came to be called, according to his biographer Ibn Khallikan, the Yunusiya.
Sorrow Is Not The Right Response To Time’s Rapid Passage
In his short biography of the poet Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson makes the following comment:
Remedies, Detriments, And Moral Factors
The jurist, poet, and scholar Baha Al-Din Ibn Shaddad (بهاء الدين ابن شداد) was born in the city of Mosul, Iraq in 1145. He was a close friend of the famed commander and statesman Saladin, and wrote a highly valued biography of that eminent conqueror. He served for a time as the qadi (judge) of Aleppo, and in this capacity had much opportunity to acquaint himself to the realities of human behavior; it seems that, no matter the country or culture, career lawyers and judges make remarkably astute observers. Ibn Shaddad’s biographer Ibn Khallikan says that the judge often liked to quote this line of verse from the poet Ibn Al-Fadl (known as Surr-Durr):
The Wisdom Of Ibn Abd Al-Barr Of Spain
The Iberian peninsula’s uniqueness derives from the fact that its shores have been washed by successive cultural waves: Roman, Gothic, Arab, and then indigenous Christian. No other region of Europe has acted as a similar crossroad, or has stimulated a comparable fermentation. Each of these civilizational tides altered the terrain as it flowed in, and then receded. We now turn, once again, to the world of medieval Arabic scholarship, and attempt to pry open its chests of mysterious treasures.
The Wisdom Of Ibn Al-Muzarra
The writer and scholar Yamut Ibn Al-Muzarra’ (يموت ابن المزرع) was a native of Basra, Iraq. In the words of his biographer Ibn Khallikan, he was known as “an accomplished literary scholar, and well-versed in history.” His name (Yamut) was a source of some consternation for him as a young man, for it is the third-person active form of the Arabic verb “to die” (مات). He apparently never fulfilled his obligation of visiting the sick in hospitals, for fear that his name would bring misfortune upon patients confined to bed. “The name,” he said, “which l received from my father has been a great annoyance to me. So when I go to visit the sick and am asked my name, I answer, ‘The son of Al-Muzarra,’ and suppress my real name.”
The Humor And Wisdom Of Ibn Sabir Al-Manjaniki
Ibn Sabir Al-Manjaniki’s full name was Abu Yusuf Ibn Sabir Ibn Hauthara Al-Manjaniki; we note it here for completeness, and will not repeat it again. He was also known in some circles by the surname Najm Al-Din, which means “star of religion.” He was born in Baghdad in January 1159, and spent his early life there. He is nearly unique in having achieved enduring fame in two completely separate disciplines: military engineering and poetry.
Quintus Curtius 
You must be logged in to post a comment.