A Poet Buried Under Muqattam

MS

‘Umar ibn al-Farid was a Sufi poet who lived from 1181-1235 AD. He is a master of complex philosophical poetry that takes up themes like wine and love, but points by means of them to the overpowering experience of God. The final lines of his great Wine Ode clearly point to spiritual truth:

For there is no life in this world
for one who lives here sober;
who does not die drunk on it,
prudence has passed him by.

So let him weep for himself,
one who wasted his life
never having won a share
or measure of this wine.

These lines are from the translation of his poetry by Th. Emil Homerin. This book also includes a short life of Ibn al-Farid.. which provides some vivid images of life in Ayyubid Cairo. The life gives a sense of the sacred geography of medieval Cairo. The compiler happens to be ibn al-Farid’s grandson, and he cites his father’s memory of the account of ibn al-Farid on his own life:

When I first began my spiritual retreat, I would ask my father’s permission, and then go up to the Oasis of the Wretches on the second mountain of Cairo’s Muqattam range where I stayed, wandering around night and day. [304]

This wandering in the Muqattam range appears to have been habitual for ibn al-Farid, and when his life ended he was buried here at the foot of the Muqattam range. His tomb was refurbished not too many years ago, and it can be visited.

MS

Here’s the tomb, looking in from the entrance. There is an area for ablutions and then a modest courtyard. Finally one arrives at the small mosque, which has a small dome and under that dome is the shrine for ibn al-Farid. As with many such shrines, the tomb is gated off and the shrine itself covered with silk.

This tomb is surrounded by other tombs.. and it’s a cemetery although many people live in here. To get to the tomb I had to walk among many burials:

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In that photo you can see the individual tombs and then the small funerary enclosures that line this lane that dead ends in the dry Muqattam range.

From the tomb of ibn al-Farid the visitor looks up at the Muqattam range:

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These are the mountains that attracted ibn al-Farid. It’s where he searched for spiritual fulfillment. Egypt, of course, has a long tradition of desert spirituality, and in ibn al-Farid we see some of this transferred to Sufi practice. Currently this whole area is so clogged with tombs and enclosures that it would be impossible to wander this range. That spiritual landscape is gone.

One question I had on visiting the tomb of ibn al-Farid is the extent to which people here actively know about him.. and possibly can even recite his poetry. I arrived just before noon prayer, and so I waited outside as lots of local men entered. This is a poor area, and I could see that the building functioned more as a local mosque than as a historic monument for a great poet.

MS

Off to the right you can see the gated area that houses the shrine of ibn al-Farid. The remainder of the building is rather standard as a mosque. There was a bookcase filled with Qurans and images on the wall listing the 99 names of God. All standard stuff. Near the tomb itself there was a prayer to be said by visitors and a framed series of verses by ibn al-Farid:

MS

But no one at the mosque appeared to know much of anything about ibn al-Farid. The imam was basically blind and could only give generalities about the life and poetry of this guy buried in his mosque. I often find it depressing how much of classical Islamic thought is lost among contemporary Muslims.

One oddity in the mosque was a beautiful series of black and white photos of the hajj. The photos were all framed by gold borders of a large wall hanging:

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With a closer look I saw that many of these images captured the desert surrounding Mecca:

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Out of everything in this mosque, here was one thing ibn al-Farid would certainly have appreciated. He about 15 years in Mecca, and his life makes it sound like he saw Mecca as a more extensive version of the Muqattam range:

Then I began to wander in the valleys and mountains of Mecca, and I used to be on friendly terms with wild animals night and day. [306]

The note about being on friendly terms with wild animals is a common one in lives of saints. Love for the desert and wandering in wastelands appears to have been a marked characteristic of ibn al-Farid. I’m not sure ibn al-Farid would know what to make of modern Cairo or modern Mecca and its streamlined hajj.