Al Aaraaf was written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1829.

"Al Aaraaf", the major poem of the book "Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems", was inspired by Tycho Brahe's discovery of a supernova back in 1572 which was visible for about sixteen months. This nova was merged with Al Aaraaf which is the place between paradise and hell where people who have not been either markedly good nor markedly bad had to stay until forgiven by God and let in to Paradise, as depicted in the Koran. In part one God commands the angel Nesace, "ruler" of Al Aaraaf, to convey a message to "other worlds". In part two Nesace rouses the angel Ligeia, and bids her to awaken the other thousand seraphs to perform God's embassy. Two souls however, fail to respond: the "maiden-angel" Ianthe and her "seraph-lover" Angelo (Michelangelo), who describes his death on earth and the flight of his spirit to Al Aaraaf.

The poem is a heavy mix of historical facts, pure imagination and religious mythology. Poe was perhaps too ambitious to get it all in there since it made a complex mixture that was hard to grasp. The poem is also syntactically complex and it can be hard to find a rhythm when reading it. Considering all this it was not surprising that Poe left it unfinished. To summarize it can be said that it is mainly about the afterlife, Ideal Love, and Ideal Beauty to passion.

A Baltimore reviewer wrote: all our brain-cudgelling could not compel us to understand it. This book however, unlike Tamerlane, brought Edgar some small public attention, it was reviewed in at least four different publications and some of the criticism was good, and the work was even described as highly creditable to the Country. The biographer J. H. Ingram praised the "happy and melodious passages in which... it abounds," and A. H. Quinn described "Al Aaraaf" as an experiment "in the translation of feeling into harmony...neither words nor feeling alone, but a blending of both."