The wearer

From the papers of Abu Tayeb al-Mutanabbi

Author's name: Abdullah Al-Ghadami

Al-Mutanabbi says
Every courage in a person is sufficient, but none is like the courage in a wise man.
A dangerous verse that reveals the state of Al-Mutanabbi himself, between the state of the brave wise, or the unwise brave, that is, the state of Al-Mutanabbi between the one who wears wisdom or the one who wears the system. Al-Mutanabbi remained wise and his wisdom spread on tongues and filled the memory of culture. He is wise, no doubt, just as he is a great poet as well, but he remains a systemic one controlled by unwise forces. He died an unwise death, even if it was a brave one, because his wisdom was absent at the moment he faced death, so courage did not protect him. Let us review the state of this verse and the state of the fate of Al-Mutanabbi, the owner of the saying.
Courage can be a virtue or a vice. According to Socrates' saying that virtue is a middle ground between two vices, courage, in order to be a virtue, must fall somewhere in the middle between cowardice and recklessness. Courage can fall into a kind of cowardice or a kind of recklessness. In the case of cowardice or recklessness, it will be foolishness, which is what Al-Mutanabbi meant when he said (Cowards think that weakness is wisdom / And that is the deception of vile nature)! Cowardice disguised as reason is a deception of vile nature, and this is the upside down face of courage. The same applies to recklessness, which is clear foolishness and results in foolish behavior in its actions and reactions. If courage is afflicted with the defect of recklessness, it is equivalent to foolishness because it controls its possessor and is a dominating force over him. Courage combined with wisdom and insight becomes a soft power, including moral and intellectual courage, courage of opinion and planning, and here it becomes a virtue. That's why Al-Mutanabbi compared a cheap death to a precious death (The taste of death in a small matter / Is like the taste of death in a great matter). Death is cheap or precious in value, but its taste will remain the same in both cases. Al-Mutanabbi elevated the status of opinion when he said (Opinion before the bravery of the brave / It comes first, and she comes second).
Like the position of opinion comes the position of wisdom. Both precede courage and are conditioned by it so that courage can be a virtue and transcend the traits of foolishness and vice. Al-Mutanabbi made wisdom a condition for courage, but did not make courage a condition for wisdom. This means that wisdom is rich in itself and is not conditioned by anything else. Courage, on the other hand, is conditioned by opinion and wisdom, or rather, it is conditioned by wise opinion. Wise opinion is an intellectual law, and it is also a political, economic, and social law, as well as a law in the system of public relations. Courage, with the aid of wise opinion, will be a value that creates human advancement from a state of reaction to a state of action, and the coexistence of words and deeds under the concept of wise opinion. This is a recipe from Al-Mutanabbi's pharmacy, a pharmacy that contains poisons at times and wisdom at other times. One of Al-Mutanabbi’s characteristics is that whenever he was subjective, he turned into a systematic one, and whenever he was freed from his subjectivity, he became a philosopher. He remained thus in all his fluctuations, and if he had been faithful to his wise state, he might have become a philosopher-poet, but poeticism overwhelmed him and made him fluctuate between wisdom and systematicity, even if he was creative in both states. But what happened was that he fell victim to systematicity, so he died a cheap death and did not achieve the death he had wished for himself and his beloved friend, Sayf al-Dawla. His end was treacherous at the hands of a thief who lay in wait for him and sought his help against him. He forced him to submit to his excessive selfishness, and when Al-Mutanabbi was about to flee from a small battle that was not befitting of him, he returned to the battle because the thief Fatak Al-Asadi provoked his sense of consistency by taunting him with his famous verse (The horses, the night, and the desert know me...etc.), which made him return to the duel field and receive a stab that ended his life. Here, his verse about courage in the wise was scattered, as he lost his wisdom and was distinguished by courage without wisdom to fortify it, so he died by his fatal mistake. This is Al-Mutanabbi, clothed in wisdom and clothed in consistency.
Saudi writer and thinker
Professor of Criticism and Theory / King Saud University - Riyadh