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You are my body, in your final hour, the angel of faith is turned to me.

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Welcome to The Vegan Report.

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My name is Ryan and what you are listening to right now is a chorus interpretation of

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a poem written by the first vegan who walked the earth, Abu Al-Ala Al-Ma'ari.

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The poem written during the medieval era goes like this.

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Don't take mother's milk, this whole yon comes, not within a measure.

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The thing in my body's got no use.

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The beast didn't make it just to give us no pain.

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In today's episode, I invite you to discover the extraordinary life of a genius who was

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thinking of animal ethics long before we were born, a legend who I want to commemorate and

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from whom I want to draw insight and inspiration in our current fight for animal rights.

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To discuss this topic, I have with me Dr. Kevin Blackinship, the scholar on the life

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of Al-Ma'ari.

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He is a professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at Brigham Young University and is currently

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writing Still No More from Nature, Al-Ma'ari and Animal Ethics in Classical Arabic Literature,

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a book I am looking forward to reading.

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Thank you so much, Kevin, for being here and for having accepted my invitation.

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Thanks for having me on.

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My first question for you is about the historical and cultural context in which Al-Ma'ari lived.

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I want to know what is exactly the Islamic Golden Age and why did Al-Ma'ari live during

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the Islamic Golden Age, but we think of it as the Dark Ages from a Western perspective.

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And most importantly, I want to know how animals were perceived and treated back in the days.

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Thanks for this.

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It's a good question.

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A lot of people would say that we need to put the Islamic Golden Age in scare quotes

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because there were a lot of things that came out of it that stayed on in future epochs

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as cultural standards, which became widespread throughout the Islamic world.

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However, there's been more recent scholarly pushback against the idea that this period

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that we're talking about, the Abbasid period specifically, which ranges more or less between

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the mid-eighth century to the mid-thirteenth century, and people might debate that periodization.

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But the reason it's called the Golden Age is because so much of the literature, the

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thought and cultural and governmental practices that were established at this time, that were

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produced during this time, spread throughout the Islamic world in later centuries and became

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the standard even as the political power of the Abbasid dynasty waned, especially after

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the tenth century.

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And this was the context in which Al-Mahri was born.

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He was born into a Muslim polity that was more fractured than it had ever been.

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There were three rival caliphates, people within the Islamic civilization.

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The caliphate is supposed to be one ruler and one government for the entire Muslim community,

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the entire Muslim world.

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And at this point, there were three claimants to that power.

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There were the Abbasids at Baghdad, which is sort of the Golden Age dynasty and era

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that we typically think of at this time.

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There were the Umayyads in southern Spain at Cordoba, and then the Fultimids in North

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Africa, who established their capital at Cairo in 973.

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And then between these three centers of gravity, these three caliphates, there were a number

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of smaller states that represented spheres of influence.

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So for example, there were the Ghaznavids in parts of modern-day Iran and Afghanistan,

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the Taifa kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula.

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And Al-Mahri was born into one of these in-between states, the Hamdanids, a dynasty that flourished

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in Aleppo, which was back then Aleppo and is still today Aleppo in northern Syria.

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And all of these different dynasties, all of these different polities had patrons of

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literature, of the arts, of thought and other things.

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And so Al-Mahri benefited from that.

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At the same time, he was, he held himself apart from any one of these dynasties.

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He didn't take a job as a court poet.

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In fact, he was offered one such job by the Fultimids at Cairo, and he turned it down

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for different reasons.

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So again, there was a flourishing of art and literature and thought and other things during

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this time period, which is why we call it the Golden Age.

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And in terms of literature, which Al-Mahri is a part of that tradition, the models that

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were produced in this Islamic Golden Age became, or the literature that was produced in this

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Golden Age, so on, quote unquote, Golden Age, became models thereafter for subsequent poets,

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thinkers, essayists, and others.

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So this is why we think of it as a Golden Age.

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You also talked about how animals were treated.

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Basically, the mainstream practice of animal husbandry, of animal slaughter preparation

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was designed within Islam to be humane to animals.

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At the same time, starting with the Quran, which according to the traditional Muslim

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narrative and scholarship bears out this early provenance for the Quran, began in the mid-7th

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century or thereabouts, or early 7th century, establishes the idea that animals were created

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by God for human use.

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And so this has been the mainstream and at the time also was the mainstream.

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And anything that strayed from that would have been considered more extreme.

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So anyone who thought that...

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People avoided harm to animals as much as possible, but not if it bumped up against human interests.

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Maslaha is the word in Arabic.

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And so insofar as you had to weigh in any given situation between human rights versus

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animal rights, animal rights to use of animal products kind of won out with the same idea

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though that at the same time, the idea that animals should be treated fairly and with

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respect as much as possible.

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I want to go back to the question of the context.

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You gave us like a wide context of that time and the different caliphate, empires, and

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the spheres of influence.

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But from the perspective of Al-Mahri, from his level, from his micro level, in what kind

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of family was he born?

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Elites, cultural elites specifically, notables and judges and poets.

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His grandfather Sulaiman ibn Ahmad was the chief judge of Ma'arat al-Nu'man, which is

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the city where Al-Mahri grew up.

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And for those who don't know Arabic, you can tell, you can even hear the word Al-Mahri,

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his name, comes from where he grew up, Ma'arat al-Nu'man.

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So this is 70 kilometers southeast of what is today Aleppo.

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I'm sorry, southwest of Aleppo in northern Syria.

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So and his Ma'ari's first teacher was his father.

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And we know this from one of two very moving elegies that Al-Mahri wrote for his father

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after his father passed away at the beginning of the 11th century.

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So this means that Al-Mahri had sort of elite cultural training.

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He would have studied, you know, a typical medieval Muslim curriculum, if you want to

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think of it that way, Quran, Arabic language, including grammar, Islamic law, some philosophy

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and other things.

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And in fact, in his writings, Al-Mahri likes to play on these things.

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He seems specifically comfortable with law, which there were several lawyers and jurists

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in his family.

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So it makes sense that he would have drawn on that.

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And in terms of his daily life, you know, again, it would have been steeped in reading

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and study.

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He showed a very early capacity for language and early talent for poetry.

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And so, you know, one story that's told about that is that Al-Mahri once sat with a transmitter

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of the poetry of sort of the greatest poet to come out of this era and who many Arabs

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would say is the greatest poet ever in Arabic, Al-Mutanabbi, the would-be prophet, a provocative

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name in and of itself.

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But this transmitter of Al-Mutanabbi's poetry.

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Al-Mutanabbi had a great influence on Al-Mahri.

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So this transmitter was named Muhammad ibn Abdullah ibn Sa'd.

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And one day Al-Mahri was sitting with this Muhammad and reading Al-Mutanabbi's poetry

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under Muhammad's supervision.

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And Mahri at one point corrected his teacher's reading.

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And then they compared the passage in question and it turns out that Al-Mahri's reading

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was justified, was the correct one.

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And if we take this to be true, then it means that first of all, again, Al-Mutanabbi had

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a major, his poetry had a major impact on Al-Mahri.

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Another proof of that is Al-Mahri wrote not one, but two commentaries on Al-Mutanabbi's

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poetry later in Al-Mahri's career.

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And then also that this shows Al-Mahri's early talent for language and poetry.

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So this is, you know, gives sort of a flavor of what his life would have been like.

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And it continued like this until, you know, his early 20s or mid 20s even.

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I want to ask about how he became blind and the health problems he went through.

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But first, I really want to highlight the importance of literary culture for the Arabs

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of that time.

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Because you know, nowadays, if someone says, you know, I'm going to become a poet, it's

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not really something you would celebrate if your son or daughter wanted to become a poet.

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Lamentably, some might argue, lamentably.

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But at the time, being a poet was something very important, incredibly so.

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And first of all, was it only accessible to elite families?

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And also, can you talk more about, you know, why it was that important?

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Yeah, absolutely.

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So I should say that poetry, you're absolutely right, Rayyan, was, but also continues to

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be sort of the prestige art form of the Arabs in particular.

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And then all those languages and cultures that the Arabs influenced, including Persian,

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Turkish, Urdu, and other languages like this.

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So the idea is that, you know, language itself, and this idea comes up with the Quran as well,

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that the Quran, you know, Muslims would not say and pretty much anyone wouldn't say that

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the Quran is not poetry, it's not the same thing.

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However, it does indicate the primacy of language for Arabic speakers.

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And I'm also aware that this is how Chinese people feel about Chinese, that they take

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great pride in the beauty and difficulty of their language and how long it takes to master.

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And they reverence people who have mastered it.

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So and the same is true of Arabic and of Arabs.

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So and poetry, you know, in pre-Islamic times was seen as a way to, it was seen as kind

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of like propaganda.

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And that's kind of a cheap term, you know, propaganda is not really a high art form,

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as we think of it today, but it certainly was at the time.

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Propaganda in the sense of championing your own tribe, of insulting your enemies, and

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even of starting wars.

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So there are many, you know, like the War of Basus, for example, supposedly started

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because of, you know, an exchange of insult poetry.

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And there are many other examples like this.

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So words had consequences and still do even.

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And you're right that, you know, being a poet, it's funny because there are many texts where

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poets complain about their poverty.

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And that's certainly true, you know, in the history of Arab Islamic civilization that

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like poetry doesn't really pay well.

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However, for those few people who made it through to the plum positions at court, they

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could be real rock stars.

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And I would compare it to being like a rock star.

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So very few or a Hollywood movie star, very few people actually make it through to that

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point.

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But for those who do, the riches of the world are at their feet.

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So and this is the same way you might think about this with poetry in medieval Islamic

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civilization.

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So for someone like Ma'ari, and this has to do with sort of his ambitions and part of

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his life, he took a trip to Baghdad when early in his career.

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And most likely he did this because he had ambitions to be a famous poet.

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And I can talk more about that if you want in a second.

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But in terms of the overall importance of literature and culture, at this time, as I

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mentioned, politically, but also economically, things were decentralizing.

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And what this meant is that markets were opening up for poets, but also essayists.

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So like the great essayist of the Abbasid era is Al-Jahid.

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Google eyes is what his name means because supposedly he had big brown eyes.

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And so for someone like him, you asked also if literature poetry was only available to

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elite families.

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Supposedly Al-Jahid was poor and learned his craft of writing, of essay writing, just by

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hanging around in mosques and listening to learned people talk.

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Poets of means would send their children who had aspirations to be poets into the desert

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to study with Bedouin tribes.

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And supposedly this is the case because they thought that the Bedouin, because they weren't

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mixing linguistically with other people, especially urban people, that their Arabic was the purest

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form of Arabic.

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And so they would send their would be poets to study with them.

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In fact, today, I was just talking with a friend who lives in Jordan, is married to,

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he's not Jordanian, but his wife is Jordanian and comes from one of the tribes.

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And she herself illustrates this.

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She doesn't have much education.

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She has like a ninth grade level education.

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And yet she knows all these obscure words and these ways to describe things that average

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urban Jordanians don't, according to this friend of mine.

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So there may be something to this practice that medieval Arabs did of sending their poets

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to study with the Bedouin.

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Anyway, the stakes were high for, again, for those who could make it through and get a

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position at court.

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But those positions were fickle, partly because rulers themselves can be fickle and partly

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also because the winds of political change blow this way and that.

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And after a time, a dynasty might fall, a patron might lose favor.

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And so for this reason, they could be in stable and volatile positions again, just like Hollywood

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or rock stars today.

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So Al-Mahdi was like famous even during his time.

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He was.

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And we know this partly because for one reason that, so pardon me, his Al-Mahdi's works

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include two collections of poetry.

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In Arabic, a collection of poetry is called a diwan.

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So I'll use that term throughout this just for the sake of those who might not be familiar

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with these terms.

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So Al-Mahdi had two diwans, two collections of poetry.

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And his first diwan was called Saqt Az-Zend, which means the first tinder spark and consists

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mainly of praise poetry to patrons, which indicates his early ambitions to be a court

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poet, someone who sold his poetry for money, an idea that he later rejects.

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And this is part of his renunciationism, something in Arabic called zuhd, which goes along with

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his ideas about animals and veganism.

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But anyway, his early praise poetry, there's also an interesting collection at the end

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of several poems describing armor and even personifying armor, making it talk and have

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dialogues and things like that.

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Anyway, this early collection of poetry by Al-Mahdi was used as a teaching text, like

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for other people who wanted to be poets and as a model for aspiring poets.

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There are dozens and dozens of manuscripts of this work throughout the Arab world, which

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I personally have seen.

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And then those that I haven't seen other people have written about.

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So it was widely copied.

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And again, it was widely used to give people sort of a poetry education for those who wanted

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to write poetry.

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And again, this started even within his lifetime.

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He's widely cited.

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His works are widely copied.

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And very quickly, he became sort of a canonized author and he continues to be that way today.

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School children still study Al-Mahdi in the Middle East.

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And in that sense, he kind of has, for someone like me who is writing a book about this person,

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it's kind of like for native speakers of Arabic or for Muslims from the Islamic world, writing

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about Al-Mahdi would kind of be like writing about, in a United States context, Charles

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Dickens or Robert Frost, someone who you read their poetry in middle school or high school

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growing up and then adults don't bother with them anymore.

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It's kind of like, yeah, I'm done with that.

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I read what I needed to of Dickens and Frost to sort of get my education.

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But it's still within the DNA of education within the Middle East, which is interesting

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in part because of Al-Mahdi's reputation for being an alleged heretic against Islam.

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And at the very least, a free thinker and someone who had heterodox opinions about religion.

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Actually, I mentioned to my parents who were schooled in North Africa that I was going

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to record a podcast on Al-Mahdi.

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And they said, Al-Mahdi, we know Al-Mahdi.

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We learned about him in school when we were kids.

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And then they said, why are you doing a podcast about him?

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Your podcast is about veganism.

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And I said, he's the first vegan, the first vegan who ever lived.

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And they were shocked.

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They were surprised.

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And when I showed them some of his poetry and words about Islam and society and his

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heretical views, they were also surprised and shocked.

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So why is it the case that he's taught in school, even though his views that took so

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much importance in his life are not understood, taught?

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There's no knowledge of him being vegan or a heretic or anything like that.

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How do you square the fact that he was that famous and still is, but at the same time,

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he's that controversial, but nobody knows about the controversial part is kind of mind

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boggling.

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Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

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Especially because his fame rests on so and Mahdi's fame rests on two works, one particularly

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that's well known in the West and one that's well known and well studied in the Middle

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East and the Islamic world.

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The one that's best known in the West is called the Epistle of Forgiveness, Risalat

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al-Ghufron.

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And this is, as one scholar put it, a work of eschatological tourism, meaning a journey

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through heaven and hell in which the main protagonist, an old codger, grammarian, who

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El Madri is actually making fun of by writing this work, meets various poets and they have

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discussions about heresy, but also language, grammar, prosody, meter and poetry and things

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like that, philosophy and many other things.

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There's literary criticism, et cetera.

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So it's a wide ranging work and it doesn't just have to do with this protagonist, this

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grammarian, he meets Satan, he meets other figures.

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But for a time it was thought that this work had influenced Dante's Divine Comedy.

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So there's no hard and fast evidence of that.

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For a time scholarship tried to find the smoking gun and they didn't find it.

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There's no direct link, even that Dante had a copy of Risalat al-Ghufron on his shelves.

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And most likely the connection is that there are other sort of like eschatological, you

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know, up and down the scale travel narratives like this through the afterlife in Greek and

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Hebrew.

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And so from one of those, Dante probably would have taken maybe a Neo-Platonic work like

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this and El Mari also could have also been influenced by.

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There's a work also called the, there's works having to do with a journey supposedly taken

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by the Prophet Muhammad called the Miraj where the Prophet ascends from Jeruel.

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First he's spirited from Mecca to Jerusalem, leads all the other biblical prophets in prayer

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at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and then in the Miraj is he ascends to heaven and there he talks

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with Allah, talks with God on various topics including how many prayers Muslims should

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be required to say each day.

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So anyway, there are many other sources and possible ideas, possible avenues for ideas

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that Dante could have drawn from including Western ones.

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So not necessarily a connection there with El Mari.

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But that's the work by El Mari best known in the West.

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His best known work in the Islamic world is called Luzum Ma La Yalzam which means self-imposed

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necessity and it's a technical term from Arabic poetics referring to something called double

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end rhyme.

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So instead of having just one rhyming consonant at the end of lines of poetry in Arabic, there

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are two.

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And El Mari wrote an entire collection of poetry constraining himself with this linguistic

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principle, a very difficult thing to do and he succeeds.

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Some people might argue it's not the best poetry.

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I don't think that.

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There are people who think it's very bookish, it's very ornate.

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Some poems anyway, some of them are very clear.

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Some of them say openly things that it's not difficult to read.

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So anyway, that's his best known work in part because it's full of Zuhd which again is renunciation

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and asceticism, a disdain for the things of this world, encouraging people to think about

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death, so also memento mori, including descriptions of graves and bodies and things which this

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is also tracks with a European tradition in art and music even.

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So there's a famous song for violin called the dance macabre, the dance of death and

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things like that.

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And then also rationalist critiques of religion, especially religious authority.

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And that's where Almari gets his controversial legacy from.

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So this poetry again, in both the early work of saqt al-zand, which to remind listeners

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is a work of praise poetry to patrons, and then this later work, luzumma la yazm, in

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which Almari critiques religion and religious authority.

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They were considered models of good language and good poetry, which is why school children

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still study them, even though he has this fraught reputation.

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Another example of someone who is like this would be the great wine poet of Islam, Abu

321
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:13,100
Nawaz, whom again, school children in the Middle East, in the Islamic world still study

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and memorize his poetry, even though they say, before they read it, they say, I myself

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would not condone or do anything that he's talking about.

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He's talking about sleeping with men and women.

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He's talking about wine and debauchery and all kinds of things.

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But the language is beautiful and it's part of the culture is what even believing Muslims

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have told me before in terms of how they square this in their minds.

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Why can we read this and be okay with it somehow?

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Well, another question about that very topic is why did the society of Almari was more,

330
00:27:56,400 --> 00:27:59,640
I guess, open to such ideas?

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In fact, it's the kind of society that produced that kind of culture and ideas and characters

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like Almari.

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And now that the descendants of that great legacy are more conservative and more closed

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to, I guess, more marginal or daring ideas.

335
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How do you explain that the ancestors were more open minded than their descendants?

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This is a great question.

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And it's actually one that's been on my mind recently that I myself don't have a concrete

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answer to.

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The answers that I'm working through and weighing the relative quality of them and whether they're

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convincing.

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But I do have one or two talking points I can offer at least without having any conclusive

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answers.

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So there's one book that I'd recommend called it's by Thomas Bauer called The Culture of

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Ambiguity was recently translated into English and published.

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And among other things, Thomas Bauer blames the modern West for sort of clamping down

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on these things.

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I think it's a bit simplistic to say that.

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One might think of someone like Rabelais who was a priest and then also wrote Gargantua

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and Pantegruel, which are some of the raunchiest, most scatological works that you can read

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in Western literature.

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So I don't necessarily think it was just a medieval Islamic world thing.

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There's another book that's great by Zoltan Sombathi.

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And I don't remember the full title, but it's on Mujun spelled M-U-J-U-N in literature and

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society in the medieval Islamic world.

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One thing he brings up is that Islam is not it's a diverse set of discourses of ways of

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talking about things and that sometimes we think it's all one thing and that we need

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to remember that there's many ways of talking and thinking about all the stuff that Islam

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and Islamic culture incorporates.

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00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:12,960
I was talking with someone recently in person at a conference about a figure, a beloved

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figure, an imam, so a religious figure and a judge named Jalal ad-Din al-Siyyuti.

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This is a 15th century judge who wrote in the Mamluk era and al-Siyyuti wrote works

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of religious law, wrote works of religious theology and other things like that.

363
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He also has works on sex and in these works he's very explicit.

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He has whole sections in one of his works on Arabic names for female genitalia and tells

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stories that they would just seem like out of keeping with in a modern era you wouldn't

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00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:07,040
introduce someone as here is the priest and also pornographer, a Siyyuti.

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00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:11,440
They don't seem to go together today, which goes back to your question.

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What was it about this era that encouraged, produced, tolerated things like this in a

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way that the modern era doesn't?

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I think part of it has to do and I hate to sound like a cliche here, but it might partly

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have to do with social media.

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Things just travel faster today and everything is out there in a way that things certainly

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traveled quickly at the time.

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Again, within Ahmadiyyat's lifetime, his own poetic works had become teaching tools and

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00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:43,860
were very famous throughout the region, but it wasn't instantaneous and it wasn't every

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single thing.

377
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You couldn't record someone visually 24 hours a day like you can today.

378
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There was no GPS tracker in everyone's pocket like we have today with smartphones.

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In part, ideas travel faster and speech travels faster including repressive speech.

380
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To the extent that the shoutier, more repressive voices in any form they take travel faster

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and intimidate people, those have a greater effect.

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00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:27,760
There's also very few, if you're a very online person, there are very few venues in which

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you can have private conversations with people where you can find an audience.

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This is what group chats are great for.

385
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You don't have to tweet every single thing to all your thousands of followers.

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You can have 30 people whose opinions you care about and just have this one thing that

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00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:49,400
might have been more like how things traveled for a lot of poets in the past, that they

388
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:53,520
spoke to different audiences, that they weren't instantaneously broadcasted everywhere at

389
00:32:53,520 --> 00:32:54,520
once.

390
00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:56,840
These all might have to do with it.

391
00:32:56,840 --> 00:33:02,080
I could also be out over my skis and there might be something I'm missing.

392
00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:05,920
It's truly fascinating.

393
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:13,000
Let's summarize this and talk about the health problems that Al-Mahri encountered because

394
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:20,520
I think those were consequential in his life and his work.

395
00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:32,200
Here is a genius, precocious child with an inclination towards the literary world, born

396
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:39,280
in an era of great change and shifting powers.

397
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:40,720
He's ambitious.

398
00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:45,640
He decides to travel to Baghdad.

399
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:52,600
By the way, nowadays people think of Baghdad as a war zone, but this was the capital of

400
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:55,160
the Abbasid Empire.

401
00:33:55,160 --> 00:34:03,520
What was Baghdad like when Al-Mahri entered that city and why was he attracted to that

402
00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:05,880
city at all?

403
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:07,500
Let me back up one step.

404
00:34:07,500 --> 00:34:08,880
You asked about his health problems.

405
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:13,640
One thing that we know more or less with certainty, as certain as you can know something like

406
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:19,240
this is that Al-Mahri was blind or that he was severely seeing impaired.

407
00:34:19,240 --> 00:34:23,880
He has a line of poetry in which he describes this condition.

408
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:26,400
Actually, it's not a line of poetry.

409
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:31,360
It's from an exchange of letters actually about veganism and animals that we can get

410
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:33,880
to a bit later in the conversation.

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00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:41,040
He says, describing his health problems, that he contracted smallpox, Al-Judari in Arabic,

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00:34:41,040 --> 00:34:47,000
when he was young and by age four, he says, there was a decree of fate about me so that

413
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:55,240
I could not discern a full grown camel from a tender young camel calf just born.

414
00:34:55,240 --> 00:34:59,200
Whether he had some capacity of sight, it was bad enough that he couldn't function in

415
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:01,120
a day-to-day basis.

416
00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:06,760
Also in the same exchange of letters, he's writing it in his mid-80s.

417
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:11,840
This could have been something that happened to him later on, but there's other indications

418
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:18,360
that he had infirmities from a younger age in his 20s or maybe 30s.

419
00:35:18,360 --> 00:35:23,320
He describes himself as being bent-backed, which again happens to some people in their

420
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:27,560
80s, but it could also have been a factor when he was younger.

421
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:30,920
There seems to be some indication of that.

422
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:39,480
These are important to keep in mind because in his youth, around age 30 thereabouts, he

423
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:40,480
took a trip to Baghdad.

424
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:44,760
So you ask what Baghdad was like at the time.

425
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:50,600
Baghdad was in many ways for this region, for this part of the world, but also compared

426
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:59,640
to Europe, a cultural, religious, scientific hub.

427
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:03,480
Tens of thousands of volumes of manuscripts.

428
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:08,960
There was something called the Dār al-Hekmah, the House of Wisdom, literally, which was

429
00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:17,840
established as a translation center in which particularly Christian Arabs who knew Syriac

430
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:23,960
would translate works from Greek, especially in fields like science, medicine, mathematics,

431
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:30,640
philosophy into Arabic through intermediaries of Syriac.

432
00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:34,840
So there was this great intellectual ferment going on.

433
00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:42,000
This also took the form of intellectual salons, people sitting around discussing learned topics,

434
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:47,120
literature, poetry, philosophy, religion, other things like that.

435
00:36:47,120 --> 00:36:53,000
So what I like to do when I talk about Baghdad and why Al-Mahdi went there is to make a simplistic

436
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:57,720
comparison, but it's a useful one nonetheless, is to compare medieval Baghdad at that time

437
00:36:57,720 --> 00:37:03,360
in the early 11th century to Hollywood today.

438
00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:09,960
If you're an aspiring actor, actress, and you want to make it in the movies, you move

439
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:13,800
to LA, you move to Hollywood, and you start putting yourself out there.

440
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:20,240
In Al-Mahdi's time, that was what Baghdad was like for intellectuals and poets like Al-Mahdi.

441
00:37:20,240 --> 00:37:24,840
If you wanted to make a name for yourself, you moved out of the provinces, you moved

442
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:29,000
out of the burbs like where Al-Mahdi grew up, and you went to Baghdad.

443
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:32,640
That's what he did, and he was there for 18 months.

444
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:33,720
And after that, he left.

445
00:37:33,720 --> 00:37:37,800
He returned to his hometown of Ma'arat al-Nurman in northern Syria and lived there for the

446
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:43,260
rest of his life, almost 50 years, and died in his own house.

447
00:37:43,260 --> 00:37:46,640
People speculate about why he left.

448
00:37:46,640 --> 00:37:51,920
There's one famous story in which Al-Mahdi...

449
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:59,840
One of the people Al-Mahdi knew at Baghdad is a Shiite polymath named Al-Sharif al-Murtaba,

450
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:07,280
who is also known as the brother of the Alid poet, proto-Shiite poet, Al-Sharif al-Radi.

451
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:13,320
And there's a widely cited anecdote that explains Al-Mahdi's departure from Baghdad in the context

452
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:21,880
of Al-Mahdi being a regular attendee of literary salons that a Sharif al-Murtaba would hold.

453
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:29,560
So I mentioned before that Al-Mahdi was deeply impacted by the poetry of this previous poet,

454
00:38:29,560 --> 00:38:32,680
Anmutan Nabi, who actually died not too long before Al-Mahdi was born.

455
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:37,160
So not quite contemporaries, but within a generation, Al-Mahdi was being impacted by

456
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:39,400
this master's poetry.

457
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:44,360
So anyway, at one point, at one of these literary salons held by Al-Sharif al-Murtaba,

458
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:50,280
Al-Sharif al-Murtaba mocks the poetry of Anmutan Nabi, whom Al-Mahdi greatly admired, as I said.

459
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:53,800
And in response, Al-Mahdi quipped and said,

460
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:56,600
If Anmutan Nabi had written no verse other than the line,

461
00:38:56,600 --> 00:39:01,320
You ruined stations, have stations in our hearts, he should still be considered the best poet.

462
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:04,520
This refers to a very famous poem by Al-Mutan Nabi.

463
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:09,960
And supposedly, according to accounts, the reference here that Al-Mahdi was making to a line

464
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:13,240
later in that same poem by Anmutan Nabi, which says,

465
00:39:13,240 --> 00:39:19,320
And if disparagement of me reaches you from some deficient fool,

466
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:22,840
Then it is proof to me that I myself am faultless.

467
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:29,800
Supposedly, according to interpreters, the deficient fool implied by Al-Mahdi is

468
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:34,120
the person who held these salons, Al-Murtaba, Sharif al-Murtaba,

469
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:37,800
and that the faultless person in the line is Anmutan Nabi.

470
00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:41,320
And for this grave insult, supposedly,

471
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:46,760
a Sharif al-Murtaba had Al-Mahdi dragged out of the salon by his heels.

472
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:50,040
And that alone would have been reason enough to leave town.

473
00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:53,400
Again, this could be a true story.

474
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:58,280
It could also be just an explanation for why Al-Mahdi left Baghdad and decided to return home,

475
00:39:58,280 --> 00:39:59,560
humiliating at the very least.

476
00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:03,960
Supposedly, also, Al-Mahdi's mother died during this time,

477
00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:06,440
which would have been a major blow to him, obviously.

478
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:08,680
And supposedly, also, he ran out of money.

479
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:13,320
So there are several reasons that commentators offer to explain why Al-Mahdi gave up his

480
00:40:15,240 --> 00:40:16,520
venture in Baghdad.

481
00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:20,440
So then he goes back to his hometown.

482
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:31,960
And I guess that's around the same time he starts thinking about animals and the ethics of it

483
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:33,960
and veganism.

484
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:37,480
So what triggered that reflection?

485
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:46,280
This is a question that stokes controversy among scholars and observers.

486
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:52,040
In terms of where Al-Mahdi got his ideas, it's again, it's a controversial topic among scholars

487
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:54,040
and thinkers.

488
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:56,520
Al-Mahdi has been accused of being everything.

489
00:40:56,520 --> 00:41:04,520
He's accused of being a zindiq, which in pre-Islamic, sorry, pre-Islamic, pre-modern

490
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:10,840
Islamic civilization can translate to a heretic, but it specifically refers to a Manichaean,

491
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:14,840
someone who believed in the duality of good and evil, that there's a kind of a

492
00:41:14,840 --> 00:41:20,600
good and evil, that there's a good god and that there's an evil spirit who creates evil.

493
00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:30,120
A mulhead, so an atheist, and a kafir, an unbeliever, someone whose beliefs fall outside

494
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:31,000
the pale of Islam.

495
00:41:31,720 --> 00:41:35,800
And as you mentioned, as I mentioned, there's a debate about where Al-Mahdi got his ideas.

496
00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:43,880
There's one report that on a trip to Tripoli, Al-Mahdi supposedly visited a Christian

497
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:49,240
monastery near modern-day Latakia, where he listened to debates about Greek philosophy,

498
00:41:49,240 --> 00:41:51,800
which might have implanted seeds of skepticism in him.

499
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:57,080
Other sources say he could have picked up his ideas further east, so when he was in

500
00:41:57,080 --> 00:42:01,640
Baghdad, he might have heard, he might have been exposed to the ideas of Brahmanism,

501
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:09,000
al-Badhamiyya in Arabic, or perhaps Manichaeanism, as I already mentioned, or other influence

502
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:11,000
coming from Indic religion.

503
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:16,200
The truth is that we don't know exactly where he got his ideas, and in fact, he specifically

504
00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:23,320
comes out against Indic religious practices, and most specifically, subti, you know, so

505
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:27,960
called widow burning, and he makes fun of this.

506
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:32,440
He criticizes it in more than one place, including in the Epistle of Forgiveness, which I mentioned

507
00:42:32,440 --> 00:42:32,940
before.

508
00:42:34,200 --> 00:42:39,160
One thing that's possible is that Al-Mahdi came into this world as a doubter and a skeptic,

509
00:42:39,160 --> 00:42:44,440
and that rather than him starting to think about these things because he went and talked

510
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:48,120
to these people or had these influences in his life, he might have been drawn to these

511
00:42:48,120 --> 00:42:51,880
people and these influences because he was already by disposition someone who thought

512
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:52,760
this way.

513
00:42:52,760 --> 00:42:57,560
It could be that as well, but again, these are some possibilities, but there's nothing

514
00:42:57,560 --> 00:42:58,760
conclusive one way or the other.

515
00:42:58,760 --> 00:43:03,000
LARSON That's astonishing that, you know, someone

516
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:12,200
took such positions and such original positions in the middle of the dark ages, basically.

517
00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:22,280
You mentioned a few names, you know, like Kefir, and that were labeled on him.

518
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:31,880
Even, you know, the whiff of that kind of reputation in the modern day Arabic world

519
00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:33,720
would get you in so much trouble.

520
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:45,320
So in what kind of trouble did Al-Mahdi run when expressing his ideas, his very controversial

521
00:43:45,320 --> 00:43:52,920
ideas about religion and, you know, society, animal ethics and things like that?

522
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:55,560
LARSON Yeah, good question.

523
00:43:56,600 --> 00:44:01,320
I'll give an example and it relates specifically to animals and veganism, and this will be a

524
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:07,400
chance for me to introduce one of the clearest texts about veganism that we have by Al-Mahdi.

525
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:13,480
It's the closest thing we have to a Ma'arrian treatise about animals and veganism, partly

526
00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:18,200
because he writes it in language that is astonishingly clear for someone who typically

527
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:26,200
wrote in very difficult, rhetorically stylized language for a lot of his writings.

528
00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:29,480
And this is an exchange of letters that Al-Mahdi had with...

529
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:31,000
Yeah, go ahead.

530
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:31,640
M. Yes.

531
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:39,240
Do you think that he adopted such language as, you know, because he was speaking to,

532
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:44,360
you know, the wild world, you know, he was not in Baghdad anymore.

533
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:50,440
He was not interested, I guess, to appealing to the elite, to the other, you know, poets.

534
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:57,640
And at the same time, he thought that maybe his ideas on animals and his belief in his convictions

535
00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:01,320
needed to be shared to the wider public.

536
00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:11,160
Do you think that he wanted to address those ideas to us, to the people of his era and to future generations?

537
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:13,560
M. Yeah, it's certainly possible.

538
00:45:15,560 --> 00:45:20,360
Yeah, the clarity of his language in this exchange of letters that he has, which is

539
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:25,160
with a thinker and poet in his own right, someone named Al-Mu'ayyid Fidin Ashirazi,

540
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:31,080
who was a Falta Mid Missionary who'd come on, who'd go on to become the chief Falta Mid Missionary at Cairo.

541
00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:38,360
And Al-Mu'ayyid Fidin reached out to Al-Mahdi, as we might say in modern parlance,

542
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:40,840
specifically to discredit him.

543
00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:50,360
And there's an account in a long series of works of majalis, so sessions or salons that Al-Mu'ayyid has.

544
00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:54,760
And in one of them, there's recorded a conversation with him and his devotees, his followers.

545
00:45:54,760 --> 00:46:00,280
Al-Mu'ayyids, that is, in which they're talking about Al-Mahdi and his beliefs about animals,

546
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:05,160
which are beyond the pale of Islam, which, I'll remind listeners, permits the use of animals for

547
00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:11,400
humans even in the bedrock text of Islam, the Quran.

548
00:46:12,680 --> 00:46:19,640
And from there, Islamic law and other discourses, the mainstream of those discourses,

549
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:23,080
permits use of animal products by humans.

550
00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:28,120
And so for someone like Al-Mahdi to come along and say definitively you shouldn't use any animal

551
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:33,160
products, there's a poem that he and this other poet Al-Mu'ayyid debate in which Al-Mahdi says,

552
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:39,640
don't eat meat, but also don't eat fish, but also don't use honey, also don't drink milk.

553
00:46:39,640 --> 00:46:44,840
So as far as we can tell, Al-Mahdi is what we would call today a vegan.

554
00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:51,800
So there's this exchange between Al-Mu'ayyid and Al-Mahdi prompted by a conversation between

555
00:46:51,800 --> 00:46:58,440
Al-Mu'ayyid and his own disciples in which his disciples supposedly want to kill Al-Mahdi.

556
00:46:58,440 --> 00:47:02,360
It had reached to that point. And again, Al-Mahdi is an old man at this point. He's 85.

557
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:07,160
He's living in his house in Aleppo, and there are these people agitating for his blood.

558
00:47:07,160 --> 00:47:13,960
Al-Mu'ayyid says, no, no. What that would do is it would turn him into a martyr for these ideas.

559
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:18,120
It would make him even more famous and more beloved. What we should do is discredit him

560
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:27,560
intellectually in full view. And so he says, for that reason, we need to have this exchange

561
00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:37,080
in writing, which he does. So there are sort of minority reports that Al-Mu'ayyid was poisoned

562
00:47:37,080 --> 00:47:42,680
in his old age because of this agitation among Al-Mu'ayyid's followers. That seems not to have

563
00:47:42,680 --> 00:47:46,920
been the case. Al-Mu'ayyid died, an old man, peacefully in his bed of natural causes,

564
00:47:46,920 --> 00:47:52,440
not having been poisoned. But these are the stakes of someone like Al-Mahdi

565
00:47:53,160 --> 00:47:55,160
living the way that he did and writing the way that he did.

566
00:47:55,160 --> 00:48:07,640
Okay. Let's get into the text. And by the way, there is a link between veganism and having this

567
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:20,280
position towards religion, this contrarian heretical position towards religion. First of all,

568
00:48:20,280 --> 00:48:30,120
you mentioned in the Quran, there's this belief that animals are for human use. And so that

569
00:48:30,120 --> 00:48:37,480
contradicts the veganism part. But there's also the fact that it still holds true to

570
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:45,720
this day, that in order to become vegan, you need to be able to tolerate a certain level of

571
00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:52,760
going against the grain because most society consumes animal products.

572
00:48:54,680 --> 00:49:05,160
Okay. So can you tell us about the text that he wrote regarding animals and veganism?

573
00:49:05,160 --> 00:49:11,720
When did he write those texts? What were the texts about all of that?

574
00:49:12,680 --> 00:49:19,080
Yeah, absolutely. Before I mention the texts and a little bit about them, I want to absolutely,

575
00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:25,800
100% affirm the point that you made, which is that veganism, voluntary veganism, as distinguished

576
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:30,760
from people who because of poverty can't afford meat or animal products, they're forced into

577
00:49:30,760 --> 00:49:37,960
only eating plant-based or vegetable products, whatever. But those who choose, despite having

578
00:49:37,960 --> 00:49:44,520
the means to afford meat, not to partake of animal products, is certain people in the minority and

579
00:49:44,520 --> 00:49:50,120
in the minority that, as you said, requires a certain fortitude, a certain stomach for

580
00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:54,920
controversy. So there's a book that I would recommend to listeners. It's by Colin Spencer.

581
00:49:54,920 --> 00:50:01,720
It's called The Heretics Feast, a History of Vegetarianism. And early in the book,

582
00:50:02,600 --> 00:50:10,280
the author makes this statement, except for a few rare spirits, meat eating has been the cornerstone

583
00:50:10,280 --> 00:50:17,000
of society. For anyone to abstain from it was unusual. And he says that for this reason,

584
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:24,920
histories, vegans tend to be cantankerous. They tend to be the kind of people who butt heads with

585
00:50:24,920 --> 00:50:32,200
society and its norms. So one of the earliest vegans or supposed vegans that we know of is

586
00:50:32,200 --> 00:50:38,360
Pythagoras, who had certainly a reputation for this kind of personality. Others we might mention

587
00:50:38,360 --> 00:50:45,000
are Voltaire, certainly a person who was comfortable with controversy. And El Mari himself was

588
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:52,920
no stranger to debate and controversy. Great. So in terms of the works that El Mari wrote,

589
00:50:52,920 --> 00:50:57,720
first of all, the works that I've already mentioned, including the Lusum Malayalism,

590
00:50:57,720 --> 00:51:02,120
it's also sometimes called Lusumiyat, which I've translated as self-imposed necessity,

591
00:51:02,120 --> 00:51:09,080
this work of double end rhyme poetry, rationalist critiques of religion, reminding people about

592
00:51:09,080 --> 00:51:17,000
death and other things like that. A lot of these poems have statements about animals, especially

593
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:27,000
as moral exemplars. So one of these Lusum poems is in fact the poem that El Mari and El Muayyid

594
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:33,960
debate in this exchange of letters that I mentioned previously. And it's again, certainly a

595
00:51:33,960 --> 00:51:41,080
declaration, if not a call to what we would call veganism today. And so the lines in question

596
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:47,080
come at the beginning in which El Mari says, don't feed on what is seized from the water by force or

597
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:54,200
seek fair in the newly slain. Don't seize mother's fresh milk. It's for their calves, not for high

598
00:51:54,200 --> 00:52:01,960
born maids. Don't terrify carefree birds, heedless of what is done. Fruity is the worst evil. Shun

599
00:52:01,960 --> 00:52:07,000
thick white honey struck in the morning from fragrant blooms. The bees didn't make it just to

600
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:13,640
give it away. So a bit of humor. And El Mari links this to his overall idea of Zuhd, renunciation,

601
00:52:13,640 --> 00:52:18,760
asceticism, turning away from the pleasures of this world and thinking about death as a way of

602
00:52:19,480 --> 00:52:23,320
reminding you what's coming after this life and how you should prepare for it. And basically,

603
00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:29,880
you know, for me, El Mari links the two, you know, with the same degree of care that you think about

604
00:52:29,880 --> 00:52:37,720
your own life and your own station, your own status, maybe morally and spiritually, you should

605
00:52:37,720 --> 00:52:42,120
also think about the lives of animals. That seems to be the message in this poem. So that's one

606
00:52:42,120 --> 00:52:46,840
example just from this poetry that I mentioned. And again, we have this exchange of letters,

607
00:52:47,560 --> 00:52:52,200
which I can get into more detail about if you want. But in that, a lot of the debate circles

608
00:52:52,200 --> 00:52:58,200
around the problem of evil. And El Mari invokes that to say basically, you know,

609
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:03,400
we don't know where evil comes from. He brings up all these sort of conundrums that are impossible

610
00:53:03,400 --> 00:53:09,240
to solve. And El Mari doesn't really solve them. But El Mari says, you know, can you tell where

611
00:53:09,240 --> 00:53:12,920
evil comes from in this scenario or in that scenario or in that scenario? And he names several

612
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:17,480
different ones. And then the implication seems to be that because we don't know where evil comes

613
00:53:17,480 --> 00:53:25,560
from or how we participate in it, religious people everywhere err on the side of doing less harm.

614
00:53:25,560 --> 00:53:31,560
And from that basis, we should also treat animals the same way. We should err on the side of we

615
00:53:31,560 --> 00:53:34,280
don't know what kind of harm that we do. We don't know what kind of evil we do. We don't know where

616
00:53:34,280 --> 00:53:41,000
evil comes from, including the evil or harm that happens to animals. And he says, you can't

617
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:46,040
create animal products for humans without causing harm to animals. So on that basis,

618
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:51,400
he says, we should treat animals humanely and avoid using animal products.

619
00:53:51,400 --> 00:53:57,640
We should treat animals humanely and avoid using animal products. A third text that I'll mention,

620
00:53:57,640 --> 00:54:02,920
this was written early. So again, that exchange of letters and the Luzum. The Luzum, we're probably

621
00:54:02,920 --> 00:54:10,040
written throughout El Mari's life, but he it was later in his career, maybe in his 50s. But in early

622
00:54:10,040 --> 00:54:18,920
work, earlier work anyway, written around 1021, common era is called the epistle of the horse and

623
00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:27,080
the mule. This is a less known work by El Mari. One day I hope to translate it in full. It is

624
00:54:27,080 --> 00:54:34,200
fascinating in part because it strays like an animal from sort of the path that it's on to talk

625
00:54:34,200 --> 00:54:40,680
about all manner of topics. Notionally, you know, the framing of the tale is there are

626
00:54:40,680 --> 00:54:47,720
six main animal characters, the titular mule and horse of the title, and then a dove, a camel,

627
00:54:47,720 --> 00:54:53,400
a hyena and a fox. And what they're trying to do is they're trying to get a message from the mule

628
00:54:53,400 --> 00:55:05,800
to the actual governor at that time of Aleppo, Aziz Adawla. And so these animals debate who's

629
00:55:05,800 --> 00:55:11,640
the best animal to carry this message? What form should we put the message in? Should we put it in

630
00:55:11,640 --> 00:55:15,960
poetry? Is it better to have it in prose? That kind of thing. But again, they stray off into all

631
00:55:15,960 --> 00:55:22,280
kinds of topics. Part of what's interesting is also they talk about the panic, Jafla, in this area

632
00:55:22,280 --> 00:55:29,720
of Syria as it bordered the Byzantine, the Christian Byzantine Empire. And this is just a

633
00:55:29,720 --> 00:55:36,840
few decades before the first crusade was announced. So it's a fascinating work, not least because

634
00:55:36,840 --> 00:55:44,520
El-Mahdadi peppers it with popular sayings about animals, popular folklore about animals, obscure

635
00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:51,640
words and other things like that. And of course, it's populated by talking animals. So it's just a

636
00:55:51,640 --> 00:55:55,800
treasure trove of all these things. And there are parts, and I can explain them in a second,

637
00:55:55,800 --> 00:56:00,840
because I know I've been going on for a bit. There are parts in which El-Mahdadi more or less

638
00:56:00,840 --> 00:56:05,640
makes his stance clear about how people should think about animals.

639
00:56:05,640 --> 00:56:14,040
First of all, why is most of that work? Why is it not available in English, French or any? Why has

640
00:56:14,040 --> 00:56:21,320
it not been translated to a Western language? Why is it only in Arabic? And I bet, I bet not many

641
00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:28,680
Arabic speakers are reading that kind of work right now. Yeah, yeah, you'd be right. Two reasons,

642
00:56:28,680 --> 00:56:33,160
the form and the content. First, the form, the language is extremely difficult. And for that

643
00:56:33,160 --> 00:56:38,840
reason, it doesn't translate well, it doesn't travel well. Typically, and I don't fault anyone

644
00:56:38,840 --> 00:56:43,720
for not knowing much about classical Arabic literature, because it does need translation,

645
00:56:43,720 --> 00:56:48,600
but also kind of an introduction to the wider Western cultural sphere. Because they're just

646
00:56:48,600 --> 00:56:53,080
forms of writing that are unfamiliar in the West. It would be like if no one had ever heard of a

647
00:56:53,080 --> 00:56:57,320
haiku, and you had to go through a lot of work to be like, hey, there's this form in Japanese

648
00:56:57,320 --> 00:57:01,000
called the haiku, we should start writing it in English. Anyway, it takes a long time to kind of

649
00:57:01,000 --> 00:57:07,880
domesticate a form like that and make it popular in the West. So, you know, when I ask people,

650
00:57:07,880 --> 00:57:13,960
what works of classical Arabic literature do you know? Typically, they're familiar with the Quran,

651
00:57:13,960 --> 00:57:18,360
which is a controversial statement anyway, because it's a very, very, very, very, very,

652
00:57:18,360 --> 00:57:23,560
very popular language in the West. We're not familiar with this very much in any way, because

653
00:57:23,560 --> 00:57:28,040
is it literature or not in the same way that like a play or a poem is literature. So they're

654
00:57:28,040 --> 00:57:34,200
typically familiar with that. And then the Thousand and One Nights. That's it. And relatively speaking,

655
00:57:34,200 --> 00:57:41,480
the Thousand and One Nights is very simple language. And also, ironically, not a big part

656
00:57:41,480 --> 00:57:45,000
of sort of the mainstream classical Arabic literary tradition. It wasn't taken as a model

657
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:47,480
that of all things has become so popular in the West.

658
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:50,040
And it's because they're like fairy tales

659
00:57:50,040 --> 00:57:52,560
that track with other fairy tales

660
00:57:52,560 --> 00:57:54,600
from other cultural traditions.

661
00:57:54,600 --> 00:57:56,240
And they also translate very easily.

662
00:57:56,240 --> 00:57:59,000
So, and Mari writes in a very stylistically

663
00:57:59,000 --> 00:58:01,960
difficult language with lots of obscure words

664
00:58:01,960 --> 00:58:05,360
and difficult syntax and rhyming prose

665
00:58:05,360 --> 00:58:07,120
and lots of poetry and things like that.

666
00:58:07,120 --> 00:58:09,700
So it just doesn't translate very well.

667
00:58:11,240 --> 00:58:13,200
The other thing is the content.

668
00:58:13,200 --> 00:58:17,200
And Mari particularly, but this is a con,

669
00:58:17,200 --> 00:58:21,440
this is an element of a style of writing more generally

670
00:58:21,440 --> 00:58:22,720
called adab.

671
00:58:22,720 --> 00:58:26,200
Adab in modern Arabic means literature specifically.

672
00:58:27,540 --> 00:58:30,320
But adab can mean all kinds of things,

673
00:58:30,320 --> 00:58:34,180
including refinement, education,

674
00:58:34,180 --> 00:58:36,760
the kinds of things you would discuss over a meal.

675
00:58:37,840 --> 00:58:40,560
So like if someone brings up a topic,

676
00:58:40,560 --> 00:58:42,160
there were works that were written

677
00:58:42,160 --> 00:58:46,320
so that like specifically you would have some anecdote

678
00:58:46,320 --> 00:58:48,680
or some tidbit of information,

679
00:58:48,680 --> 00:58:50,360
some factoid to bring up over dinner

680
00:58:50,360 --> 00:58:53,480
if someone mentioned like, you know, government.

681
00:58:53,480 --> 00:58:57,000
Oh, I heard this story about Sultan such and such

682
00:58:57,000 --> 00:59:00,720
and how he did this thing that's amusing.

683
00:59:00,720 --> 00:59:02,380
There's a work by Ibn Qutayba called

684
00:59:02,380 --> 00:59:05,200
Ar-Yun al-Akhbar for exactly that purpose.

685
00:59:05,200 --> 00:59:06,960
It's an anthology of these things.

686
00:59:06,960 --> 00:59:08,360
Anyway, so this is adab writing.

687
00:59:08,360 --> 00:59:10,520
It's eclectic, it's encyclopedic,

688
00:59:10,520 --> 00:59:13,720
and it strays from thing to thing

689
00:59:13,720 --> 00:59:16,400
and a moddy sort of fits that bill perfectly.

690
00:59:16,400 --> 00:59:19,040
So this work that I was describing,

691
00:59:19,040 --> 00:59:21,160
the Epistle of the Horse and the Mule falls into that.

692
00:59:21,160 --> 00:59:24,000
For that reason also, it's kind of hard reading.

693
00:59:24,880 --> 00:59:27,080
You know, it would be like picking up an encyclopedia

694
00:59:27,080 --> 00:59:29,240
of funny factoids and anecdotes,

695
00:59:29,240 --> 00:59:31,040
which is it's amusing to read,

696
00:59:31,040 --> 00:59:32,360
but it's typically not the kind of thing

697
00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:34,300
that Westerners might think of when they think,

698
00:59:34,300 --> 00:59:36,580
oh, this is, you know, I'm gonna read a novel today,

699
00:59:36,580 --> 00:59:37,640
what am I gonna read?

700
00:59:37,640 --> 00:59:42,640
But there is an audience out there for that kind of work.

701
00:59:42,960 --> 00:59:45,960
You mentioned, you know, you wanted to translate

702
00:59:45,960 --> 00:59:47,480
the epistle.

703
00:59:47,480 --> 00:59:49,680
I wish you did.

704
00:59:49,680 --> 00:59:52,520
I mean, you sent me a version in Arabic,

705
00:59:52,520 --> 00:59:56,640
and I, you know, started trying with my rusty Arabic

706
00:59:56,640 --> 01:00:00,360
to read it, and I don't know, I can't, I can't.

707
01:00:00,360 --> 01:00:02,740
This is a nightmare text, you know,

708
01:00:02,740 --> 01:00:07,280
for pros that study this, like experts.

709
01:00:07,280 --> 01:00:09,340
I can't, you know, make sense of it,

710
01:00:10,520 --> 01:00:12,640
but I wish there was a translation,

711
01:00:12,640 --> 01:00:16,140
and I bet many vegans, including, you know, listeners

712
01:00:16,140 --> 01:00:20,400
right now would want to put their hands on the writings

713
01:00:20,400 --> 01:00:24,760
of the very first vegan, what he was thinking,

714
01:00:24,760 --> 01:00:27,960
and how was he thinking about animals

715
01:00:27,960 --> 01:00:32,340
and his stance and his veganism?

716
01:00:33,600 --> 01:00:36,360
I mean, that would be profoundly interesting.

717
01:00:36,360 --> 01:00:41,260
Before I forget, you mentioned Pythagoras and Voltaire

718
01:00:41,260 --> 01:00:46,260
as being vegans, but were they not vegetarians only?

719
01:00:46,560 --> 01:00:47,720
Mm, yeah.

720
01:00:47,720 --> 01:00:50,760
Yeah, and that's a good distinction.

721
01:00:50,760 --> 01:00:53,500
We also don't know exactly, especially with Pythagoras,

722
01:00:53,500 --> 01:00:55,120
you know, whether or not he practiced this.

723
01:00:55,120 --> 01:00:57,640
You know, there are reports by his students

724
01:00:57,640 --> 01:01:01,860
that, you know, he encouraged people to shun animal products,

725
01:01:01,860 --> 01:01:05,280
supposedly because he believed in reincarnation

726
01:01:05,280 --> 01:01:08,360
or metempsychosis, the transmigration of souls.

727
01:01:08,360 --> 01:01:09,400
That's something, by the way,

728
01:01:09,400 --> 01:01:11,520
that Amari doesn't seem to believe in.

729
01:01:11,520 --> 01:01:13,800
In fact, he rejects it explicitly.

730
01:01:13,800 --> 01:01:15,480
He has a line of poetry where he makes fun

731
01:01:15,480 --> 01:01:17,360
of someone named Musa ibn Ishaq.

732
01:01:17,360 --> 01:01:20,040
So for readers or listeners who don't know Arabic,

733
01:01:20,040 --> 01:01:23,940
Musa is just Moses in Arabic, and Ishaq is Isaac.

734
01:01:23,940 --> 01:01:27,580
So two names from the Bible, and what he says is,

735
01:01:27,580 --> 01:01:31,220
if what you, supposedly this Musa ibn Ishaq,

736
01:01:31,220 --> 01:01:35,640
what you supposedly believe about reincarnation were true,

737
01:01:35,640 --> 01:01:38,720
then you would be Moses, like the biblical Moses,

738
01:01:38,720 --> 01:01:40,600
the son of Isaac the slain,

739
01:01:40,600 --> 01:01:43,080
meaning Isaac, the son of Abraham,

740
01:01:44,520 --> 01:01:46,400
making fun of this person who obviously lived

741
01:01:46,400 --> 01:01:49,320
after biblical times, but took his name from the Bible,

742
01:01:49,320 --> 01:01:50,680
and he's making fun of the fact that,

743
01:01:50,680 --> 01:01:53,760
like he supposedly believed in reincarnation.

744
01:01:53,760 --> 01:01:57,400
So Amari rejects this doctrine specifically.

745
01:01:57,400 --> 01:02:01,440
This is why I like to say that Amari

746
01:02:01,440 --> 01:02:03,160
was certainly a gadfly.

747
01:02:03,160 --> 01:02:05,800
He was a free thinker.

748
01:02:05,800 --> 01:02:07,800
He questioned orthodoxy.

749
01:02:07,800 --> 01:02:09,580
He questioned received authority,

750
01:02:10,640 --> 01:02:15,640
but he was less heterodox in his doctrines, in his thought,

751
01:02:16,100 --> 01:02:17,600
than he could have been.

752
01:02:17,600 --> 01:02:21,400
So there were doctrines like reincarnation, metempsychosis,

753
01:02:21,400 --> 01:02:23,000
that were available to him at the time

754
01:02:23,000 --> 01:02:24,960
that he explicitly rejects.

755
01:02:24,960 --> 01:02:27,880
So for this reason, it's less appropriate,

756
01:02:27,880 --> 01:02:29,240
even from an academic perspective,

757
01:02:29,240 --> 01:02:34,080
even setting aside debates among people,

758
01:02:34,080 --> 01:02:36,400
whether or not he was a heretic,

759
01:02:36,400 --> 01:02:38,000
whether you buy into that or not.

760
01:02:38,000 --> 01:02:40,640
Setting that aside just from an academic perspective,

761
01:02:41,720 --> 01:02:46,720
it's less precise to call him a heterodox thinker

762
01:02:47,040 --> 01:02:48,200
or someone outside the pale

763
01:02:48,200 --> 01:02:52,360
of mainstream Islamic orthodoxy just on this basis,

764
01:02:52,360 --> 01:02:53,920
again, because there were these doctrines like this

765
01:02:53,920 --> 01:02:56,600
available to him that other people held at the time

766
01:02:56,600 --> 01:02:57,800
that he seems to reject.

767
01:02:59,040 --> 01:03:04,040
And another thing about him that astonished me

768
01:03:05,280 --> 01:03:07,500
is how long he lived.

769
01:03:09,440 --> 01:03:11,320
Like you said, he was blind.

770
01:03:11,320 --> 01:03:14,900
He had this condition that bent his back.

771
01:03:16,560 --> 01:03:18,440
How come he lived that long?

772
01:03:18,440 --> 01:03:21,480
And also he was eating a vegan diet

773
01:03:21,480 --> 01:03:24,640
in a time when you had no supplements,

774
01:03:24,640 --> 01:03:28,720
no soy milk, like nothing.

775
01:03:30,080 --> 01:03:35,080
So how did he live that long in such a, I guess,

776
01:03:35,160 --> 01:03:40,160
relatively healthy life for his time?

777
01:03:40,360 --> 01:03:42,040
Yeah, that's a great question.

778
01:03:42,040 --> 01:03:43,280
I can only speculate.

779
01:03:44,200 --> 01:03:45,880
Perhaps his diet and his lifestyle

780
01:03:45,880 --> 01:03:48,120
did have something to do with it,

781
01:03:48,120 --> 01:03:50,480
which we don't know much about, by the way.

782
01:03:50,480 --> 01:03:54,960
There's a report that he supposedly ate just lentils

783
01:03:54,960 --> 01:03:58,000
and then dates for sweet.

784
01:03:59,640 --> 01:04:02,420
And then beyond that, there's also an account

785
01:04:02,420 --> 01:04:05,040
that he was eating a melon one time

786
01:04:05,040 --> 01:04:07,800
and was embarrassed because some of it fell onto his chest

787
01:04:07,800 --> 01:04:09,080
while he was eating.

788
01:04:09,080 --> 01:04:11,620
And he asked his, he had staff with him

789
01:04:11,620 --> 01:04:14,000
because he was blind and couldn't see

790
01:04:14,000 --> 01:04:16,000
and who would help him do daily things.

791
01:04:16,000 --> 01:04:18,200
And he asked one of these people,

792
01:04:18,200 --> 01:04:19,040
did anyone see this?

793
01:04:19,040 --> 01:04:20,200
And this person said, no.

794
01:04:20,200 --> 01:04:22,480
And so, get the sense that he would have been embarrassed

795
01:04:22,480 --> 01:04:24,720
if someone had seen that.

796
01:04:24,720 --> 01:04:25,880
It's a good question.

797
01:04:26,920 --> 01:04:31,520
Perhaps also he worked hard his entire life

798
01:04:31,520 --> 01:04:33,720
at language and literature and writing.

799
01:04:33,720 --> 01:04:36,160
He was extremely, extremely productive.

800
01:04:37,000 --> 01:04:39,260
13 works by him survive.

801
01:04:39,260 --> 01:04:40,760
And those are just the ones that survive.

802
01:04:40,760 --> 01:04:43,120
There are many others that are mentioned by authors

803
01:04:43,120 --> 01:04:47,240
that are, as far as we know, lost to literary history.

804
01:04:47,240 --> 01:04:49,240
So someone with that kind of energy,

805
01:04:49,240 --> 01:04:50,980
maybe it was inborn as well.

806
01:04:52,720 --> 01:04:55,120
Yeah, but it is remarkable that he was able

807
01:04:55,120 --> 01:04:59,600
to live for so long and to produce such fresh,

808
01:05:00,440 --> 01:05:04,720
insightful writing up until the moment of his death.

809
01:05:04,720 --> 01:05:06,360
Supposedly this exchange of letters

810
01:05:06,360 --> 01:05:08,060
that he had on veganism.

811
01:05:08,060 --> 01:05:12,240
There are five letters initiated by this Mu'ayyad Faddeen,

812
01:05:12,240 --> 01:05:16,680
this poet at Cairo and missionary at Cairo who wrote him.

813
01:05:16,680 --> 01:05:17,920
And then Amadri writes back.

814
01:05:17,920 --> 01:05:20,680
And Mu'ayyad writes a second letter and Amadri writes back.

815
01:05:20,680 --> 01:05:23,640
And then Amadri finishes the exchange

816
01:05:23,640 --> 01:05:24,880
with the fifth and final letter.

817
01:05:24,880 --> 01:05:28,040
Amadri supposedly died in the meantime.

818
01:05:28,040 --> 01:05:29,200
So right up until his death,

819
01:05:29,200 --> 01:05:32,040
he's producing these incredible works.

820
01:05:32,040 --> 01:05:34,680
Do we know where he was buried?

821
01:05:35,800 --> 01:05:40,000
Yeah, in fact, his tomb is at Ma'adat al-Nomen

822
01:05:40,000 --> 01:05:42,080
in his hometown in Northern Syria.

823
01:05:42,080 --> 01:05:46,880
And this is noteworthy because there was a municipal statue

824
01:05:46,880 --> 01:05:50,580
over top of his tomb.

825
01:05:50,580 --> 01:05:54,160
In 2013, two years after the start

826
01:05:54,160 --> 01:05:56,700
of the Syrian civil war in 2011,

827
01:05:57,600 --> 01:06:00,840
that statue was decapitated.

828
01:06:00,840 --> 01:06:02,600
And most likely it was,

829
01:06:02,600 --> 01:06:06,440
that act was perpetrated by a branch of Al-Qaeda

830
01:06:06,440 --> 01:06:10,180
called Jabhat al-Nusra, the Nusra Front.

831
01:06:10,180 --> 01:06:13,840
And supposedly they did this

832
01:06:13,840 --> 01:06:17,160
because of Amadri's reputation for being

833
01:06:17,160 --> 01:06:18,920
a heretic against Islam.

834
01:06:18,920 --> 01:06:22,560
So firm is his reputation for being such a heretic.

835
01:06:22,560 --> 01:06:27,240
So, even though he lived so long ago

836
01:06:27,240 --> 01:06:29,320
and died in the mid 11th century,

837
01:06:29,320 --> 01:06:31,480
in the dark ages, as you put it, Rayyan,

838
01:06:31,480 --> 01:06:34,320
he continues to inspire controversy

839
01:06:34,320 --> 01:06:37,640
and even literal iconoclasm,

840
01:06:37,640 --> 01:06:41,440
the destruction of public statues and things like that.

841
01:06:41,440 --> 01:06:46,440
And it just speaks to his relevance today for us.

842
01:06:47,320 --> 01:06:48,920
Did he influence anyone?

843
01:06:48,920 --> 01:06:50,280
Did he have like a student

844
01:06:50,280 --> 01:06:52,880
who decided to also adopt veganism?

845
01:06:54,520 --> 01:06:56,080
Oh, that's a great question.

846
01:06:56,080 --> 01:06:57,400
He certainly influenced people

847
01:06:57,400 --> 01:07:00,220
in terms of literature and language.

848
01:07:00,220 --> 01:07:03,880
So one of his famous students is named Khatib al-Tabrizi

849
01:07:03,880 --> 01:07:06,280
who became famous less as a poet

850
01:07:06,280 --> 01:07:08,800
than as a commentator and a grammarian.

851
01:07:08,800 --> 01:07:13,800
In terms of his veganism, that's a good question.

852
01:07:14,360 --> 01:07:19,360
I am not aware of anyone who started sort of a school

853
01:07:21,000 --> 01:07:23,640
or something like that.

854
01:07:24,680 --> 01:07:27,960
Certainly Amadri has a reputation today

855
01:07:27,960 --> 01:07:31,340
and is taken as inspirational today for vegans.

856
01:07:31,340 --> 01:07:32,280
I'm aware of that.

857
01:07:33,680 --> 01:07:37,600
As to whether at the time it was a thing,

858
01:07:37,600 --> 01:07:38,800
I don't know if it was.

859
01:07:40,360 --> 01:07:42,240
I think he's taken as an inspiration

860
01:07:42,240 --> 01:07:45,480
because he did something incredible at the time

861
01:07:45,480 --> 01:07:49,200
when who would have even thought

862
01:07:49,200 --> 01:07:51,440
of doing something like that.

863
01:07:51,440 --> 01:07:55,680
But I think his flavor of veganism is less known,

864
01:07:55,680 --> 01:07:59,360
this renunciation you have been talking about.

865
01:07:59,360 --> 01:08:04,120
And I think for many, they will discover that

866
01:08:04,120 --> 01:08:07,680
through listening to this conversation.

867
01:08:07,680 --> 01:08:09,200
Did you want to add some words

868
01:08:09,200 --> 01:08:14,200
about that renunciation practice he held?

869
01:08:14,440 --> 01:08:17,400
In terms of Amadri's legacy

870
01:08:19,280 --> 01:08:24,280
and his practice of renunciation in general,

871
01:08:25,860 --> 01:08:27,000
this is something that I,

872
01:08:27,000 --> 01:08:30,440
it's a talking point that I try to emphasize about Amadri.

873
01:08:30,440 --> 01:08:34,160
Typically today, when people say veganism,

874
01:08:34,160 --> 01:08:37,180
they associate it with a secular outlook,

875
01:08:37,180 --> 01:08:41,180
which is interesting because there are many vegans

876
01:08:42,720 --> 01:08:44,580
in religious traditions,

877
01:08:44,580 --> 01:08:46,760
including Indic religions like Hinduism,

878
01:08:47,680 --> 01:08:52,280
including in branches of Christianity.

879
01:08:52,280 --> 01:08:56,000
So there's a lot of vegan or vegetarian dishes

880
01:08:56,000 --> 01:08:57,600
in Ethiopian food that I'm aware of

881
01:08:57,600 --> 01:08:58,880
because of fasting practices,

882
01:08:58,880 --> 01:09:01,040
abstaining from meat and other things like that.

883
01:09:01,040 --> 01:09:05,000
So abstaining from animal products is widely attested

884
01:09:05,000 --> 01:09:07,100
even today within religion.

885
01:09:07,100 --> 01:09:09,040
But for some reason, when we say vegan,

886
01:09:10,200 --> 01:09:12,840
people tend to associate it with a secular lifestyle.

887
01:09:12,840 --> 01:09:16,840
And what I want to say is that Amadri has impacted people

888
01:09:16,840 --> 01:09:19,920
and has inspired people in that context.

889
01:09:19,920 --> 01:09:23,920
Amadri himself was many things, but he was not secular.

890
01:09:25,920 --> 01:09:28,760
The fact that he was an ascetic,

891
01:09:28,760 --> 01:09:33,120
that he supposedly wore only coarse wool clothes,

892
01:09:33,120 --> 01:09:34,780
that he slept on his prayer mat.

893
01:09:36,760 --> 01:09:40,560
He has an entire work, it's called Al Fusul Wal-Ghayat,

894
01:09:40,560 --> 01:09:43,440
paragraphs and periods, sections and endings,

895
01:09:43,440 --> 01:09:44,400
something like that.

896
01:09:44,400 --> 01:09:47,040
It's one of several works by Amadri

897
01:09:47,040 --> 01:09:50,680
which the title refers to a formal principle

898
01:09:50,680 --> 01:09:54,400
that he wrote in which he structured the work.

899
01:09:54,400 --> 01:09:59,000
Anyway, this work is all about praise of God.

900
01:09:59,000 --> 01:10:00,340
And this is one of the works also

901
01:10:00,340 --> 01:10:02,980
where Amadri talks constantly about animals.

902
01:10:03,960 --> 01:10:07,580
So Amadri was a lot of things, as I said,

903
01:10:07,580 --> 01:10:10,040
but the fact that he was an ascetic,

904
01:10:10,040 --> 01:10:12,040
the fact that he had these convictions

905
01:10:12,040 --> 01:10:14,760
showed that he was deeply religious.

906
01:10:14,760 --> 01:10:16,980
The nature of that belief of his religion,

907
01:10:16,980 --> 01:10:19,040
the nature of his practice is debated

908
01:10:19,040 --> 01:10:20,480
because he does have a lot of poetry

909
01:10:20,480 --> 01:10:22,480
that criticizes religion

910
01:10:22,480 --> 01:10:25,240
and even what seems to be the foundation of religion,

911
01:10:25,240 --> 01:10:28,920
not just received authority or sort of unthinking belief.

912
01:10:28,920 --> 01:10:30,560
So it's hard to square that,

913
01:10:30,560 --> 01:10:34,600
but the point that I'm emphasizing is,

914
01:10:34,600 --> 01:10:36,640
Amadri's veganism comes from a place

915
01:10:36,640 --> 01:10:38,280
of belief and spirituality.

916
01:10:40,060 --> 01:10:43,000
And that his, it's different again,

917
01:10:43,000 --> 01:10:46,420
from people who thought that souls migrate,

918
01:10:46,420 --> 01:10:47,880
that souls reincarnate.

919
01:10:47,880 --> 01:10:52,600
It's also different from a work like

920
01:10:52,600 --> 01:10:57,000
by the famous jurist and Sufi author, Al-Ghazali,

921
01:10:58,040 --> 01:11:02,800
who among other things wrote an essay,

922
01:11:02,800 --> 01:11:04,120
a chapter or something like this called

923
01:11:04,120 --> 01:11:08,720
Qasr al-Shahwatin, breaking the two desires,

924
01:11:08,720 --> 01:11:12,200
meaning desires for meat and for sex.

925
01:11:12,200 --> 01:11:14,640
And what he says, Al-Ghazali says is that,

926
01:11:14,640 --> 01:11:17,000
it's good for humans to avoid eating meat

927
01:11:17,000 --> 01:11:20,480
because you are sort of tamping down these base desires.

928
01:11:20,480 --> 01:11:23,160
And Amadri doesn't write that way about veganism.

929
01:11:23,160 --> 01:11:25,800
What he says is, he focuses on is,

930
01:11:25,800 --> 01:11:27,040
we shouldn't do harm to animals

931
01:11:27,040 --> 01:11:28,040
because they're living beings.

932
01:11:28,040 --> 01:11:30,260
That's sort of the core of his veganism.

933
01:11:31,280 --> 01:11:34,540
So in terms of how he inspires people today,

934
01:11:34,540 --> 01:11:36,080
that's something I like to emphasize

935
01:11:36,080 --> 01:11:37,820
is that this comes from a place of belief.

936
01:11:37,820 --> 01:11:40,540
It comes from a place of religious conviction,

937
01:11:40,540 --> 01:11:42,720
whatever the nature of that religious conviction is.

938
01:11:42,720 --> 01:11:44,800
I say this partly because I'm pushing back

939
01:11:44,800 --> 01:11:48,320
against sort of the stereotype or the typical association

940
01:11:48,320 --> 01:11:50,760
we have with Amadri, which is that,

941
01:11:50,760 --> 01:11:52,240
he's a secular free thinker,

942
01:11:52,240 --> 01:11:56,200
and he's the medieval Islamic hero

943
01:11:56,200 --> 01:11:58,500
of atheists and free thinkers today.

944
01:11:58,500 --> 01:12:00,360
And people have certainly taken him that way,

945
01:12:00,360 --> 01:12:02,440
and they're absolutely welcome to,

946
01:12:02,440 --> 01:12:04,480
and you can read that into his writings.

947
01:12:04,480 --> 01:12:06,320
But there's also a lot about his works

948
01:12:06,320 --> 01:12:10,400
that shows us he was deeply religious in some way.

949
01:12:10,400 --> 01:12:15,400
I mean, how could he be anything less than religious?

950
01:12:17,640 --> 01:12:20,480
This is something intense,

951
01:12:20,480 --> 01:12:24,200
his practice of veganism is something intense and radical

952
01:12:24,200 --> 01:12:25,840
relative to our standards.

953
01:12:25,840 --> 01:12:30,840
So imagine relative to dark ages standards.

954
01:12:31,400 --> 01:12:35,520
So you need a level of faith,

955
01:12:35,520 --> 01:12:40,320
not just simple conviction to sustain

956
01:12:40,320 --> 01:12:41,520
that kind of practice.

957
01:12:41,520 --> 01:12:43,160
So it makes sense in my mind

958
01:12:43,160 --> 01:12:48,160
that he had a deep spiritual life, inner life.

959
01:12:50,680 --> 01:12:55,440
So I want to ask you as a parting question,

960
01:12:55,440 --> 01:12:58,760
how did you get interested in Al-Mahri?

961
01:12:58,760 --> 01:13:02,920
I'm so happy that you exist because there are so few people

962
01:13:02,920 --> 01:13:07,920
who are interested and have the skills to study a figure

963
01:13:07,920 --> 01:13:10,240
like Al-Mahri.

964
01:13:10,240 --> 01:13:13,160
Yeah, when I was looking up,

965
01:13:13,160 --> 01:13:17,040
when I discovered Al-Mahri, and then when I looked him up,

966
01:13:18,480 --> 01:13:22,440
of course there were lots of videos and publications

967
01:13:22,440 --> 01:13:27,280
by many of them vegans about him,

968
01:13:27,280 --> 01:13:32,280
but most of them had no deep expertise in who he was.

969
01:13:32,280 --> 01:13:35,920
They just, I guess, read his Wikipedia page.

970
01:13:35,920 --> 01:13:39,880
So how did you develop that interest

971
01:13:39,880 --> 01:13:43,240
and connection with Al-Mahri?

972
01:13:43,240 --> 01:13:45,120
Yeah, I like this question a lot.

973
01:13:45,120 --> 01:13:47,120
And here I'll, you know,

974
01:13:47,120 --> 01:13:51,120
before when we were talking in the green room, as it were,

975
01:13:51,120 --> 01:13:53,360
about this episode, you know, you said,

976
01:13:53,360 --> 01:13:56,320
you never ask your guests about their veganism

977
01:13:56,320 --> 01:13:58,000
and that's something I really appreciate.

978
01:13:58,000 --> 01:14:00,160
So I offer what I'm about to say freely,

979
01:14:00,160 --> 01:14:03,160
which is for full disclosure that I'm not a vegan

980
01:14:03,160 --> 01:14:08,160
and that it wasn't because of that connection

981
01:14:09,280 --> 01:14:11,600
that I first was drawn to Al-Mahri.

982
01:14:11,600 --> 01:14:14,760
I was first drawn to Al-Mahri because of his zuhd,

983
01:14:14,760 --> 01:14:18,800
his renunciationism and asceticism.

984
01:14:18,800 --> 01:14:22,560
His most famous line of poetry,

985
01:14:22,560 --> 01:14:26,560
which I read for the first time, gosh,

986
01:14:26,560 --> 01:14:27,720
it was in 2008,

987
01:14:27,720 --> 01:14:32,720
so, you know, and I was in a fourth year Arabic class

988
01:14:32,920 --> 01:14:36,240
and I didn't understand what it was saying at first,

989
01:14:36,240 --> 01:14:40,240
but as soon as I did, I thought, who is this person?

990
01:14:40,240 --> 01:14:41,760
Here's the line of poetry.

991
01:14:41,760 --> 01:14:43,240
In Arabic, it goes like this.

992
01:14:43,240 --> 01:14:47,640
Khafif al-wat'a ma adhunnu adeem al-ardi

993
01:14:47,640 --> 01:14:50,440
illa min hazeh al-absadi

994
01:14:50,440 --> 01:14:52,600
In English, that says,

995
01:14:52,600 --> 01:14:55,520
I am a poet, I am a poet,

996
01:14:55,520 --> 01:14:59,600
in English, that says, lighten your step.

997
01:15:00,520 --> 01:15:03,800
I think the surface of the earth is made of nothing,

998
01:15:03,800 --> 01:15:05,480
but all of these bodies.

999
01:15:06,520 --> 01:15:08,240
And what he's referring to is,

1000
01:15:08,240 --> 01:15:09,840
he's in the line previous to that,

1001
01:15:09,840 --> 01:15:13,600
he's saying there's these people who died in this era

1002
01:15:13,600 --> 01:15:16,120
and then even before that, there were more people who died

1003
01:15:16,120 --> 01:15:18,560
and there's all these bodies just piling up

1004
01:15:18,560 --> 01:15:21,200
one on top of the other all over the earth

1005
01:15:21,200 --> 01:15:25,680
and that's all the earth is made of, is dead bodies.

1006
01:15:25,680 --> 01:15:28,280
And this is obviously like a very stark expression

1007
01:15:28,280 --> 01:15:30,080
of memento mori, which as I mentioned,

1008
01:15:30,080 --> 01:15:32,240
is a long and rich cultural tradition,

1009
01:15:32,240 --> 01:15:36,600
not just in Islam, but also Christian Western Europe.

1010
01:15:36,600 --> 01:15:38,960
And I read this and when it finally clicked what it said,

1011
01:15:38,960 --> 01:15:42,080
I thought, oh my gosh, who is this person?

1012
01:15:42,080 --> 01:15:44,600
What is he about?

1013
01:15:44,600 --> 01:15:47,000
So that's kind of what first drew me in.

1014
01:15:47,000 --> 01:15:50,760
And as I discovered just the wide range of his attention

1015
01:15:50,760 --> 01:15:52,600
and his writings and stuff,

1016
01:15:52,600 --> 01:15:54,800
I saw animals popping up more and more,

1017
01:15:56,040 --> 01:15:57,720
not just in the context of veganism,

1018
01:15:57,720 --> 01:15:58,840
although certainly they're also,

1019
01:15:58,840 --> 01:16:02,520
but using them as literary symbols, as moral exemplars

1020
01:16:02,520 --> 01:16:03,880
and other things like that.

1021
01:16:03,880 --> 01:16:06,680
Plus his language is just, it's so challenging,

1022
01:16:06,680 --> 01:16:08,720
but for me, it's an attractive challenge.

1023
01:16:08,720 --> 01:16:09,760
It's something that drew me in

1024
01:16:09,760 --> 01:16:11,520
and kept me coming back to him.

1025
01:16:11,520 --> 01:16:14,600
So that was kind of the initial response that I got.

1026
01:16:14,600 --> 01:16:19,600
I really appreciate how much I've learned about veganism,

1027
01:16:21,720 --> 01:16:23,480
animals, other things like this.

1028
01:16:23,480 --> 01:16:26,480
And I've had the pleasure of interacting with vegans

1029
01:16:26,480 --> 01:16:28,800
over El Mari, including this exchange

1030
01:16:28,800 --> 01:16:30,880
that we're having right now,

1031
01:16:30,880 --> 01:16:34,240
as people look up to him as an early thinker and writer

1032
01:16:34,240 --> 01:16:39,080
and a voice for this practice and this lifestyle,

1033
01:16:39,080 --> 01:16:40,680
even though I myself don't practice it,

1034
01:16:40,680 --> 01:16:43,640
I very much appreciate and have learned a lot about this

1035
01:16:43,640 --> 01:16:45,160
from other people.

1036
01:16:45,160 --> 01:16:47,560
Not yet, maybe in the future.

1037
01:16:48,480 --> 01:16:49,320
That's right.

1038
01:16:50,640 --> 01:16:53,240
Do you think that El Mari could be used

1039
01:16:53,240 --> 01:16:56,720
to propagate veganism in the Arabic world?

1040
01:16:56,720 --> 01:16:59,480
Because that's one thing,

1041
01:16:59,480 --> 01:17:03,440
there's this thinking process

1042
01:17:03,440 --> 01:17:07,360
and you must have come across it.

1043
01:17:07,360 --> 01:17:10,320
When you talk with Arabic people

1044
01:17:10,320 --> 01:17:14,200
and tell them about ideas like veganism

1045
01:17:14,200 --> 01:17:17,440
or freedom of this or that,

1046
01:17:18,760 --> 01:17:21,280
they will often tell you,

1047
01:17:21,280 --> 01:17:23,840
but that is a Western idea.

1048
01:17:23,840 --> 01:17:25,200
That comes from the West.

1049
01:17:25,200 --> 01:17:27,280
And of course the West is bad.

1050
01:17:29,320 --> 01:17:30,680
Let's not get political,

1051
01:17:30,680 --> 01:17:34,240
but we understand where that feeling comes from.

1052
01:17:35,200 --> 01:17:39,600
But if we're talking about El Mari,

1053
01:17:39,600 --> 01:17:40,920
he was not a Westerner.

1054
01:17:41,760 --> 01:17:46,760
Yet he came up with the same conclusions

1055
01:17:46,800 --> 01:17:50,560
that many Westerners and others of other cultures

1056
01:17:52,480 --> 01:17:55,720
in regard to animal ethics and veganism.

1057
01:17:55,720 --> 01:17:59,720
And I wonder, can he be like a figure

1058
01:18:01,760 --> 01:18:06,760
that could mobilize Arabs around the cause of veganism?

1059
01:18:06,760 --> 01:18:11,760
Yeah, I think it certainly has that potential,

1060
01:18:11,760 --> 01:18:12,720
his writings do.

1061
01:18:15,480 --> 01:18:19,160
I think the broader problem is El Mari's legacy

1062
01:18:19,160 --> 01:18:21,680
as a supposed heretic

1063
01:18:21,680 --> 01:18:24,960
and as a supposed heterodox thinker.

1064
01:18:24,960 --> 01:18:29,960
Which I think if he were more

1065
01:18:30,520 --> 01:18:34,520
a mainstream figure in terms of Islamic law,

1066
01:18:34,520 --> 01:18:37,840
theology, other things that he had written on that score,

1067
01:18:37,840 --> 01:18:39,640
in people's minds anyway,

1068
01:18:39,640 --> 01:18:41,200
he might have more,

1069
01:18:41,200 --> 01:18:44,400
people might have more buy-in on this point.

1070
01:18:44,400 --> 01:18:48,400
But I think recuperating a little bit his legacy

1071
01:18:48,400 --> 01:18:51,240
and repurposing it in a way

1072
01:18:51,240 --> 01:18:53,640
that makes him more acceptable to people.

1073
01:18:53,640 --> 01:18:55,920
I think also you're talking about

1074
01:19:00,920 --> 01:19:02,720
a segment of the population in the Islamic world

1075
01:19:02,720 --> 01:19:04,840
and in the Middle East with a more,

1076
01:19:08,840 --> 01:19:12,040
liberalizing sort of progressive mindset.

1077
01:19:12,040 --> 01:19:17,040
And sometimes those elements of society,

1078
01:19:17,040 --> 01:19:18,080
those people who think that way

1079
01:19:18,080 --> 01:19:19,040
don't always feel comfortable,

1080
01:19:19,040 --> 01:19:20,920
especially in the Middle East and in the Islamic world,

1081
01:19:20,920 --> 01:19:22,440
expressing themselves fully,

1082
01:19:22,440 --> 01:19:25,520
giving full expression to their lifestyle and other things.

1083
01:19:25,520 --> 01:19:27,120
And just the fact of the matter is,

1084
01:19:27,120 --> 01:19:30,040
it's harder to live a vegan lifestyle in the Middle East,

1085
01:19:30,040 --> 01:19:32,240
in the Islamic world than it is in Western Europe.

1086
01:19:32,240 --> 01:19:34,440
And in North America,

1087
01:19:34,440 --> 01:19:37,960
just because there seems to be more awareness in the West,

1088
01:19:37,960 --> 01:19:41,640
the so-called West, of different lifestyles

1089
01:19:41,640 --> 01:19:44,240
and something as simple as having vegan options

1090
01:19:44,240 --> 01:19:46,840
at a restaurant or something like that.

1091
01:19:46,840 --> 01:19:49,000
So I think certainly El-Mahri

1092
01:19:49,000 --> 01:19:51,480
could be a starting point for that,

1093
01:19:51,480 --> 01:19:53,440
but it's gonna take a larger cultural shift

1094
01:19:53,440 --> 01:19:55,240
in order for people's mindsets to change

1095
01:19:55,240 --> 01:19:58,240
to where they could be open to someone like El-Mahri.

1096
01:19:58,240 --> 01:19:59,080
Amazing.

1097
01:19:59,080 --> 01:20:01,280
Amazing.

1098
01:20:01,280 --> 01:20:03,600
Did you have anything more to add, Kevin,

1099
01:20:03,600 --> 01:20:05,960
before we end this recording?

1100
01:20:05,960 --> 01:20:07,520
Just to say thank you for bringing me on.

1101
01:20:07,520 --> 01:20:09,040
I always like talking about this topic.

1102
01:20:09,040 --> 01:20:13,240
And I hope listeners are able to explore what's out there

1103
01:20:13,240 --> 01:20:16,920
in terms of El-Mahri's writings.

1104
01:20:16,920 --> 01:20:18,080
One that I can recommend,

1105
01:20:18,080 --> 01:20:20,080
it's published by a series called

1106
01:20:20,080 --> 01:20:21,640
The Library of Arabic Literature,

1107
01:20:21,640 --> 01:20:24,120
published by New York University Press.

1108
01:20:24,120 --> 01:20:26,600
And it's a two-volume translation,

1109
01:20:26,600 --> 01:20:28,960
and it's actually a facing bilingual translation

1110
01:20:28,960 --> 01:20:29,800
and edition.

1111
01:20:29,800 --> 01:20:31,440
So there's the Arabic on the right side

1112
01:20:31,440 --> 01:20:33,440
and then the English on the left

1113
01:20:33,440 --> 01:20:36,480
of the Epistle of Forgiveness,

1114
01:20:36,480 --> 01:20:40,400
in which El-Mahri's waspish,

1115
01:20:41,400 --> 01:20:43,400
grammarian protagonist takes a journey

1116
01:20:43,400 --> 01:20:46,120
through heaven and hell and talks to different people.

1117
01:20:46,120 --> 01:20:47,560
So that has been translated.

1118
01:20:47,560 --> 01:20:51,880
There's also been translations of parts of the Lusumiyat,

1119
01:20:51,880 --> 01:20:53,840
the Lusum al-ayyalzm,

1120
01:20:53,840 --> 01:20:56,680
in particular by someone named R.A. Nicholson.

1121
01:20:56,680 --> 01:20:57,720
And he's translated,

1122
01:20:57,720 --> 01:21:00,200
this is 100 years ago that he translated this,

1123
01:21:00,200 --> 01:21:02,600
so the language is a little bit starchy.

1124
01:21:02,600 --> 01:21:04,040
So if you can get through that,

1125
01:21:04,040 --> 01:21:06,680
it's an interesting portrayal of El-Mahri's thought

1126
01:21:06,680 --> 01:21:08,360
on many different topics.

1127
01:21:08,360 --> 01:21:10,680
And again, if you'll stay tuned,

1128
01:21:10,680 --> 01:21:12,240
I hope within the next couple of years

1129
01:21:12,240 --> 01:21:15,520
to have translated at least this very curious,

1130
01:21:16,520 --> 01:21:19,680
wide-ranging epistle of the horse and the mule,

1131
01:21:19,680 --> 01:21:21,920
and then eventually after that, the Lusum al-ayyalzm.

1132
01:21:21,920 --> 01:21:24,760
But these are pie in the sky projects

1133
01:21:24,760 --> 01:21:27,600
that I hope to get around to eventually.

1134
01:21:27,600 --> 01:21:31,440
Well, I hope that once you complete your work,

1135
01:21:31,440 --> 01:21:33,920
you'll come back on the podcast

1136
01:21:33,920 --> 01:21:37,640
and we'll talk about it in more details.

1137
01:21:37,640 --> 01:21:38,480
Thank you.

1138
01:21:38,480 --> 01:21:39,320
I love that.

1139
01:21:39,320 --> 01:21:44,120
I will add links to every book reference you gave.

1140
01:21:44,120 --> 01:21:47,600
I know you gave a lot, so I took some notes

1141
01:21:47,600 --> 01:21:50,480
and I'll try to find links

1142
01:21:50,480 --> 01:21:54,000
and add them to the description below for listeners.

1143
01:21:54,000 --> 01:21:55,480
Kevin, what a pleasure

1144
01:21:55,480 --> 01:21:57,880
and what an educative conversation.

1145
01:21:57,880 --> 01:21:59,960
Thank you so much for having taken the time

1146
01:21:59,960 --> 01:22:02,040
to answer my question.

1147
01:22:02,040 --> 01:22:02,880
My pleasure.

1148
01:22:02,880 --> 01:22:04,280
Thank you very much.

1149
01:22:04,280 --> 01:22:06,320
Thank you everyone for listening.

1150
01:22:06,320 --> 01:22:08,960
I kindly invite you to share this podcast

1151
01:22:08,960 --> 01:22:10,480
with the vegans you know.

1152
01:22:10,480 --> 01:22:14,240
Let's encourage more people to take action.

1153
01:22:14,240 --> 01:22:16,440
Again, thank you so much for caring

1154
01:22:16,440 --> 01:22:19,840
and I will see you next Tuesday for a new episode.

1155
01:22:19,840 --> 01:22:29,840
I love my people,

1156
01:22:29,840 --> 01:22:36,840
though to all the outside,

1157
01:22:36,840 --> 01:22:41,840
you suffer,

1158
01:22:41,840 --> 01:22:48,840
though to me you're fine.

1159
01:22:48,840 --> 01:22:54,840
Temptation, no one,

1160
01:22:54,840 --> 01:23:19,840
you are so fine.