[11] Adh-Dhahabi gives the titles of forty-eight of his works, to which Safadi adds fourteen. A literary baggage of considerable bulk, had not most of it perished when the Crusaders took Ma'arrah in 1098. Now, the Luzumiyat, the Letters, Suct uz-Zand and the Epistle of Forgiveness can be obtained in printed form. [12] "What he says of Al-Maghribi in the First Letter became literally true of himself: 'As Sinai derives its fame from Moses and the Stone from Abraham, so Ma'arrah is from this time (after his return from Baghdad) known by him.'"--D. S. Margoliouth. [13] Even before he visited Baghdad he had a pension of thirty dinars (about $100), half of which he paid to his servant, and the other half was sufficient to secure for him the necessaries of life. "He lived on lentils and figs," says Adh-Dhahabi; "he slept on a felt mattress; he wore nothing but cotton garments; and his dwelling was furnished with a straw matting." [14] We have the following from Adh-Dhahabi: "One of these critics came one day to Abu'l-Ala and relating the conversation himself said, 'What is it that is quoted and said about you?' I asked. 'It is false; they are jealous of me,' he replied. 'And what have you to incite their jealousy? You have left for them both this world and the other.' 'And the other?' murmured the poet, questioning, ruminating. 'And the other, too?'" [15] "His poems, generally known as the Luzumiyat, arrest attention by their boldness and originality as well as by the sombre and earnest tone which pervades them."--Raynold A. Nicholson: A Literary History of the Arabs. [16] The Governor of Halab, Salih ibn Mirdas, passed once by Ma'arrah, when thirty of its distinguished citizens were imprisoned on account of a riot in the town the previous year. Abu'l-Ala being asked to intercede for them, was led to Salih, who received him most politely and asked him what he desired. The poet, in eloquent but unflattering speech, asked Salih 'to take and give forgiveness.' And the Governor, not displeased, replied: 'I grant it you.' Whereupon the prisoners were released. [17] "His poems leave no aspect of the age (in which he lived) untouched, and present a vivid picture of degeneracy and corruption, in which tyrannous rulers, venal judges, hypocritical and unscrupulous theologians, swindling astrologers, roving swarms of dervishes and godless Carmathians, occupy a prominent place."--Raynold A. Nicholson: A Literary History of the Arabs. [18] "The Mohammedan critics who thought he let his opinions be guided by his pen probably came near the truth. And any man who writes in such fetters as the meter (he means the rhyme-ending; for Abu'l-Ala made use of every known meter of Arabic prosody) of the Luzumiyat imposes, can exercise but slight control over his thoughts."--D. S. Margoliouth: Letters of Abu'l-Ala.