{"collection":"Islam","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/mhm/mhm48.htm","path":"isl/mhm/mhm48.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/isl/mhm/mhm48.htm","text":"The Maq\u00e1m\u00e1t of Bad\u00ed\u2018 al-Zam\u00e1n al-Hamadh\u00e1n\u00ed, tr. W.J. Prendergast [1915]\n\u2018\u00cdS\u00c1 IBN HISH\u00c1M related to us and said: I was crossing one of those parts where exile had thrown me, when behold I met a man who was asking another, 'By what means hast thou acquired knowledge?' And the latter, answering him, said: 'I sought it and found it to be difficult of access. 2 It is not shot with a shaft, nor allotted by the divining arrows. 3 It is not seen in the dream nor controlled with the bridle. 4 It is neither inherited from paternal uncles, nor borrowed from the generous. Therefore I adopted, as a means of attainment thereto, the making of clods a bed, the taking of a stone for a pillow, repelling weariness, braving danger, prolonging vigils, making a companion of travel, much reading and meditation. And I found it to be a thing suitable only for planting, and it is not planted save in the mind. A quarry that is ensnared but rarely and is not caught, save in the breast. A bird that is deluded only by the snaring of the word, and nought catches it but the net of memory. Therefore I laid it upon my soul and confined it within my eye. I spent\nmy means, but stored my mind. I wrote elegantly by virtue of much reading, and passed on from reading to investigation, and from investigation to composition, and I relied therein on divine guidance.'\nNow I heard language such as penetrated the ear, reached the heart, and quickly entered the breast, so I asked: 'O young man! Whence the orient of this sun?' Then he began to say:--\n152:2 \u2026 Difficult of access: This and the succeeding five sentences will be found in No. 41, p. 165 of the Letters where almost the entire maq\u00e1ma is reproduced verbatim.\n152:3 \u2026 By the divining arrows: By means of which the Arabs in the time of the Ignorance. (Barbarism), sought to know what was allotted to them. This practice is forbidden in Qur\u2019\u00e1n, v, 4.\n152:4 \u2026 With a bridle: Literally, with a bit, i.e. the appurtenances of a bridle, by an extension of meaning, applied to this with its straps; arabicized from the Persian \u2026 Lag\u00e1m.\n153:1 Alexandria is my home: Metre, mujtath.\nCf. the fifteenth maq\u00e1ma, p. 74. A very interesting disquisition on knowledge and the course to be followed in the acquisition thereof. We have doubtless in this maq\u00e1ma a statement of the author's own methods of study. An amplification of the idea will be found on pp. 165-8 of the Letters. For a synopsis of both, see end of the Cambridge MS, 1066 (Bad\u00ed\u2018 al- Zam\u00e1n).","title":"The Maqamat of al-Hamadhani: The Maq\u00e1m\u00e1t: XL. The Maq\u00e1ma of Knowledge","type":"page"}