Al-Mutanabbi’s Poetic Presence or Experience-near

Hardly could any poet, like Al-Mutanabbi, draw to himself the constant attention of scholars, literary man and poets. In this article, we try to find the secret of the admiration that Al-Mutanabbi’s poetry has won and see why he is one of the most preferred poets and considered the prophet of Arab poets. Scholars have studied this issue from various perspectives. In this article, however, I will examine this issue taking a number of points into account: first, two terms of “presence” and “absence” in Sufism, wherein like poetry the emphasis is on intuition; second, concepts such as “experience-near” and “experience-distant” and, finally by relying on this verse of Al-Mutanabbi: “the horse and night and dessert are known to me / also sword, paper and pen”. Al-Mutanabbi by his constant presence in his poetic experience has been able to see so openly what has been hidden from many scholars that this spiritual perception turns into an objective reality to him. We can seek the secret of Al-Mutanabbi’s immortality in the constant presence or, in other words, in his “experience-near” and in his deep wisdom which made his poetry to be considered “the true reference of life”.