“I Am No Foundling”: Al-Makzūn al-Sinǧārī Responds to Ibn al-Fāriḍ’s Poem of the Way

Abstract

This article is a translation and analysis of a poem by the Nuṣayrī (ʿAlawī) poet al-Makzūn al-Sinǧārī (d. 638/1240) responding to a masterpiece of Arabic Sufi poetry, the Poem of the Way by his contemporary ʿUmar b. al-Fāriḍ (d. 632/1235). Al-Makzūn uses Ibn al-Fāriḍ’s own words to paint him as a false claimant outside the genealogy of true lovers. As against Ibn al-Fāriḍ’s mysticism of identification with an immanent beloved and his focus on the holy sites, al-Makzūn posits a transcendent beloved that reflects a human image without taking human form, and a Mecca built purely on semantic associations. The poem shows that Ibn al-Fāriḍ’s alleged belief in incarnation (ḥulūl) was being debated from an early stage, and that Nuṣayrīs in this period engaged more closely with Sunni Sufi literature than often assumed. Al-Makzūn emerges as a subtle thinker and accomplished poet whose work has long been neglected.