ABSTRACT
The ʿAyn al-Quḍāt of his “letters” was the last instance in which we hear him talk and see him write so freely, presiding over a language of his own making. In this chapter I will read closely Shakwā al-Gharīb, the text ʿAyn al-Quḍāt wrote in a Baghdad prison in 525/1130 to defend himself against the accusations of blasphemy and infidelity that his political and religious enemies brought against him. The term “Shakwā al-Gharīb” is a profoundly charged phrase. It literally means “Complaint of an Exile.” “Shakwā” means “complaint as in expressing discontent, even resentment, but with an intention to seek sympathy. There is no element of fussing, whining, grumbling, or nagging in “Shakwā,” but it certainly holds a strong sense of grievance, anger, with a certain twist of self-righteousness. “Al-Gharīb” means the lonely stranger in a far away land, where he knows nobody, feels homesick, and wants to go back home. There is an element of being a stranger, an alien, an outlander in “al-Gharīb” ʿAyn al-Quḍāt feels terribly lonely, and homesick in the Baghdad prison. He wants to be set free to go back to Hamadhān, his hometown. The opening paragraph of Shakwā al-Gharīb is, in fact, full of nostalgic remembrances of Hamadhān, its mountains, pastures, rivers, inhabitants, ʿAyn al-Quḍāt’s friends and family. There is also perhaps a pun on “al-Gharīb; namely someone who is not from this world altogether. Someone from a different world, a world of imagination, sensibilities, ideas. There are all these and perhaps even more implications in the phrase “Shakwā al-Gharīb.” But I am going to translate it, for reasons more than convenience, as “Apologia.” There is an element of defense in the content of ʿAyn al-Quḍāt’s narrative. After all, he is defending himself against charges brought up by his opponents – political and religious. I will not attend to the specific circumstances of his arrest and execution until the next chapter. Here, I wish to lay out the rhetorical content of Shakwā al-Gharīb. The Socratic voice of an apologia, of a defense, a justification, of pleading one’s cause, is profoundly present in 452 ʿAyn al-Quḍāt’s Shakwā al-Gharīb. These are some thoughts that come to mind when I hear the title of ʿAyn al-Quḍāt’s text, Shakwā al-Gharīb. Let me now start reading it.
