Al-Afkar al-Zuhdiyyah fi Shi'r Mahmud al-Warraq

• Main Authors: Mohammad Azizie, Aziz, Majdan, P.R
• Format: Article
• Language: Arabic
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: CT Biography; P Philology. Linguistics; PA Classical philology
• Online Access: http://eprints.unisza.edu.my/4545/1/FH02-FBK-14-01982.pdf; http://eprints.unisza.edu.my/4545/
• Institution: Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin

In the first Abbasid era, there appeared quite a few poets who have taken the idea of asceticism in the themes of poetry. Interestingly, we also found this theme in stanza of poetry by poets who had been concerned with other themes. One of the famous asceticism poets in the first Abbasid era was Mahmoud al-Warraq. Mahmoud al-Warraq worked as a slave merchant. He sold the male and female slaves. Perhaps this profession may had supported him with some money at the beginning and brought him mindless but also consuming alcohol. But this life style did not last long. His attitude improved and so lived his life in the right path and he took the way of asceticism and piety. He was known for his kindness, nobility, piety and righteousness. His poetry after this change from a roisterous life to a peaceful life was reflected through his ideas of asceticism. His works were marked by a change in the increasing focus on the wisdom, moral lessons and also selective diction. Therefore, this research aims to extract these ideas of asceticism in his poetry. They can be specified into seven ideas: death, the characteristics of the world, the conditions of people in this world, gray hair, property, the issues of livelihood, supplications and heartfelt prayers.