Sunday, August 28, 2022

2022: Mu'tadid - Mutanabbi

  

Mu‘tadid bi-‘llah, al-
Mu‘tadid bi-‘llah, al- (b. c. 860).  ‘Abbasid caliph (r. 892-902).  His strength was the close relations with the army.  While forced to acknowledge that Khurasan, Syria and Egypt were lost to the ‘Abbasids, at least for the time being, he strove to re-establish control over the core territories, Iraq, al-Jazira, and western Persia.  His reign saw the final return of the ‘Abbasid capital from Samarra to Baghdad.


Mu‘tadid bi-‘llah, al-
Mu‘tadid bi-‘llah, al- ('Abbad al-Mutadid) (Abu Amri al-Mutadid). Most important and most powerful sovereign of the ‘Abbadid dynasty in Seville (r.1042-1069).  He very considerably increased his territory by making himself the champion of the Spanish Arabs against the Berbers in Spain.  


'Abbad al-Mutadid see Mu‘tadid bi-‘llah, al-
Abu Amri al-Mutadid see Mu‘tadid bi-‘llah, al-


Mutahhari, Murtaza
Mutahhari, Murtaza (Murtaza Mutahhari) (Murtada Mutahhari) (1920-1979).  Iranian religious scholar and writer, one of the closest associates of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.  Born in a village in northeastern Iran to a scholar who was also his first teacher, Mutahhari began his formal schooling at the age of twelve in the great shrine city of Mashhad, where he discovered the great love for philosophy, mysticism, and theology that was to remain constant throughout his life.  The core of the religious curriculum, however, consisted of fiqh (jurisprudence).  To study this subject under the principal authorities of the day, Mutahhari moved to Qom in 1937.  In Qom, he made the acquaintance of Khomeini, renowned at the time mainly for his mystically tinged lectures on ethics.  Significant, too, were the links Mutahhari developed with ‘Allamah Muhammad Husayn Tabataba’i (d. 1981), the well-known exegete and philosopher.  In 1952, Mutahhari left Qom for Tehran, where he began teaching at the Madrasah-yi Marvi and, two years later, at the Faculty of Theology at Tehran University.  The scope of his actitivity expanded still further when he began collaborating with Islamic organizations founded by religiously inclined laymen, the most important of these being the Husayniyah-yi Irshad, founded in 1965.  Many of the lectures he gave under the auspices of these organizations were later published in book form.

Mutahhari was imprisoned for forty-three days in the aftermath of the uprising led by Khomeini in June 1963.  After his release, he participated actively in organizations that sought to maintain the momentum the uprising had created, most significantly the Jami‘ah-yi Ruhaniyat-i Mubariz (Society of Militant Clergy).  He remained in touch with Khomeini during the ayatollah’s fourteen year exile, visiting him repeatedly in Najaf and, during the revolution of 1978-1979, at Neauphle-le-Chateau near Paris.  A sign of the trust in which Khomeini held Mutahhari was his appointment to the Shura-yi Inqilab-i Islami (Council of the Islamic Revolution), which functioned as interim legislature after the victory of the revolution in February 1979.  A few months later, on May 1, 1979, Mutahhari was assassinated in Tehran by adherents of Furqan, a group preaching a radically modernistic and anti-clerical re-interpretation of Shi‘a doctrine, which regarded Mutahhari as its most formidable intellectual opponent.  Mutahhari was eulogized as “a part of my flesh” by an atypically weeping Khomeini and buried in Qom.

Although the Iranian Revolution gave Mutahhari visibility as a political figure, it was his writings, vigorously promoted by the revolutionary authorities, that constitute his chief legacy.  The most substantial of his works is, perhaps, his philosophical critique of materialism, Usul-i falsafah va ravish-i ri’alism (The Principles of Philosophy of the Method of Realism), based largely on discussions held in the circle of ‘Allamah Tabataba’i.  A more polemical approach to the same subject, paying particular attention to the cultural disorientation of Iranian society, was ‘Ilal-i gir-ayis ba maddigari (Reasons for the Turn toward Materialism).  Other works were also conceived in a spirit of addressing urgent contemporary concerns, most notably Nizam-i huquq-i zan dar Islam (The System of Women’s Rights in Islam).  Taken as a whole, the works of Mutahhari demonstrate how leading figures among the Iranian ‘ulama’ concerned themselves, against a background of traditional learning, with the problems of the modern age, and thereby contributed to creating the intellectual climate of the Iranian Revolution of 1979.




Murtaza Mutahhari see Mutahhari, Murtaza
Murtada Mutahhari see Mutahhari, Murtaza
Mutahhari, Murtaza see Mutahhari, Murtaza


Mu‘tamid ibn ‘Abbad, al-
Mu‘tamid ibn ‘Abbad, al- ('Abbad al-Mutamid) (Muhammad al-Mutamid) (Muhammad Ibn Abbad al-Mutamid) (1040-1095).  Third and last ruler of the ‘Abbadid dynasty in Seville (r.1069-1091).  By the middle of the eleventh century, many Muslim dynasties of Spain were forced to seek, by payment of heavy tribute, the temporary neutrality of their Christian neighbors.  Al-Mu‘tamid was defeated by the Almoravid Yusuf ibn Tashfin (Yunus ibn Tashufin).  He was an accomplished poet.

Muhammad Ibn Abbad al-Mutamid was the third and last ruler (r. 1069–1091) of the taifa of Seville in Al-Andalus. He was a member of the Abbadid dynasty.

After the death of his father Abbad II al-Mu'tadid in 1069, he inherited Seville. In 1071, he attempted to seize neighboring Córdoba. He lost Córdoba in 1075 but regained it in 1078.

Al-Mu'tamid supported the Almoravid ruler Yusuf ibn Tashfin against king Alfonso VI of Castile in the Battle of Sagrajas in 1086. In 1091, however, his kingdom was overthrown by the Almoravids and he was deposed.

Al-Mu'tamid was bisexual. He was lover and patron to the Andalusi Arabic poet Ibn Ammar. His father disapproved of relations with a commoner and exiled the poet in order to separate them. On his succession, however, al-Mu'tamid granted Ibn Ammar political and military power. Their relationship was reportedly stormy, and came to an end when Al-Mu'tamid killed the poet with his own hands, only to bury him with great honors. He is also considered, in his own right, one of the greatest of the Andalusi poets. Also the Sicilian Arabic poet Ibn Hamdis was a guest and friend of his.

Al-Mu'tamid was the father-in-law, through his son, Fath al-Mamun (d. 1091), of Zaida, mistress, and possibly wife, of Alfonso VI of Castile.

'Abbad al-Mutamid see Mu‘tamid ibn ‘Abbad, al-
Muhammad al-Mutamid see Mu‘tamid ibn ‘Abbad, al-
Muhammad Ibn Abbad al-Mutamid see Mu‘tamid ibn ‘Abbad, al-


Mutammim ibn Nuwayra
Mutammim ibn Nuwayra (d. after 644).  Poet who was a contemporary of the Prophet.  He owes his fame to the elegies in which he lamented the tragic death of his brother Malik ibn Nuwayra.


Mutanabbi, al-
Mutanabbi, al- (Abu’l-Tayyib Ahmad al-Ju‘fi) (Ahmad ibn al-Husain al-Mutanabbi) (Abou-t-Tayyib Ahmad ibn al-Husayn al-Mutanabbi) (915–September 23, 965).  One of the greatest Arab poets.  Born in Kufa, in 928, he went to Syria and studied at Damascus.  His ambition was to be a professional poet, and since the necessary patrons proved slow in coming forward, he set himself up as a prophet and led an unsuccessful political-religious revolt.  Without adhering to Carmathian doctrines, he exploited its principles when in 933 he led a revolt in the Samawa, the region between the Kufa and Palmyrene. On this occasion, he received the surname al-Mutanabbi “he who professes to be a prophet.”  After having led a wandering life, he stayed nine years with the Hamdanid Sayf al-Dawla ‘Ali I in Aleppo, but fled to Damascus in 957.  In Egypt, he obtained the patronage of the Ikhshidid regent Kafur but, deprived of moral and material independence, he was forced to sing the praises of a patron for whom in his heart he felt only contempt.  In 962, he fled to Kufa and then settled in Baghdad.  In 965, he went via Ahvaz to Arrajan in Susiana and from there to Shiraz.  On his way back to Baghdad, he was killed by marauding Bedouins.  The enormous bibliography of al-Mutanabbi’s life and work is a striking proof of the eminent place which he occupies in Arabic literature from the tenth century until the present day.

The Arabs regard al-Mutanabbi as one of their greatest poets.  He is the principal figure of the “Modern” school which began to break away from the traditional themes and ways of expression of the Pre-Islamic poets, long regarded as the only ones suitable for poetry.  The “Moderns” made considerable use of Badi’ (Innovation) -- their new, and, to conservative poets and critics, shocking images, figures of speech and plays on words.  The old type of poetry, in which poets who had scarcely ever seen the desert wept over the deserted camping sites of their loved ones, and described in painstaking detail the points of their camels, continued to be written, side by side with the “Modern” type.  Al-Mutanabbi did not abandon the qasida (ode), but transformed it, and made it into an organic whole, with theme leading naturally to theme, instead of a series of almost unconnected lines.

Al-Mutanabbi was educated in Damascus, as well as choosing to live among bedouins in the desert, with the tribe Banu Qalb.  It was during his youth that he got his name, which means “the one who wants to become Prophet,” when he participated in revolutionary movements.

During imprisonment he started to compose his poetry.  From 948 to 957, al-Mutanabbi worked close to the Syrian prince Sayfu ad-Dawla in Aleppo, and wrote a number of panegyrics for him.  But as al-Mutanabbi was still politically active, he was eventually forced to flee to Egypt, but as he wrote satires taht presented the court in a negative way, he had to move again, now back to Iraq,.to Baghdad.  

Later on he worked as a court poet in Shiraz.  While being without a patron, al-Mutanabbi was in 965 slain by brigands during a trip, near Baghdad.

With a flowery style, use of the ode, and changing way from the traditional Arabic qasida, al-Mutanabbi stands out as the most important representative for the panegyrical poetic style.



Abu’l-Tayyib Ahmad al-Ju‘fi see Mutanabbi, al-
Ahmad ibn al-Husain al-Mutanabbi see Mutanabbi, al-
Mutanabbi, Ahmad ibn al-Husain al- see Mutanabbi, al-
Ju'fi, Abu'l-Tayyib Ahmad al- see Mutanabbi, al-
Abou-t-Tayyib Ahmad ibn al-Husayn al-Mutanabbi see Mutanabbi, al-


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