allahu.cipher

The fragment was revealed in the heresiography of Sheikh Malak Ibn Abi Sahib, itself little more than a fragment whose original was lost in a fire at the Baghdad National Library in October 2004. The lines are attributed to a mysterious and possibly fictional figure known as al-Samara’i:

And thus the one is transmuted to zero /
Against the testimony of the prophets
How the many come from none /
They fall mute when attempting to describe
Their milk appears from the absence of the cow /
A nourishment that leaves you hungry forever
Even worse than the idol-worshippers of old /
Their idols are filled with nothing but air and darkness
Abu Sifr will fall headlong into the abyss /
Along with his ilk, the lovers of nothing.

The Abu Sifr (lit. the one with the zero) identified in the passage is unknown to history, although Warner suggests that it is this figure who Abdullah al-Azraq condemns in his polemic against “those who negate all the attributes from the divine essence, even its very existence.”