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facts about al ma arri.html

19 Facts About Al-Ma'arri

facts about al ma arri.html1.

Al-Ma'arri's written works exhibit a fixation on the study of language and its historical development, known as philology.

2.

Al-Ma'arri was pessimistic about life, describing himself as "a double prisoner" of blindness and isolation.

3.

Al-Ma'arri attacked religious dogmas and practices, was equally critical and sarcastic about Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism, and became a deist.

4.

Al-Ma'arri advocated social justice and lived a secluded, ascetic lifestyle.

5.

Al-Ma'arri was a member of the Banu Sulayman, a notable family of Ma'arra, belonging to the larger Tanukh tribe.

6.

Al-Ma'arri lost his eyesight at the age of four due to smallpox.

7.

Al-Ma'arri started his career as a poet at an early age, at about 11 or 12 years old.

8.

Al-Ma'arri was educated at first in Ma'arra and Aleppo, then in Antioch and other Syrian cities.

9.

Al-Ma'arri returned to his native town of Ma'arra in about 1010 and learned that his mother had died before his arrival.

10.

Al-Ma'arri remained in Ma'arra for the rest of his life, where he opted for an ascetic lifestyle, refusing to sell his poems, living in seclusion and observing a strict moral vegetarian diet.

11.

Al-Ma'arri enjoyed great respect and attracted many students locally, as well as actively holding correspondence with scholars abroad.

12.

Al-Ma'arri was a skeptic who denounced superstition and dogmatism in religion.

13.

Al-Ma'arri taught that religion was a "fable invented by the ancients", worthless except for those who exploit the credulous masses.

14.

Al-Ma'arri criticized many of the dogmas of Islam, such as the Hajj, which he called "a pagan's journey".

15.

Al-Ma'arri rejected claims of any divine revelation and his creed was that of a philosopher and ascetic, for whom reason provides a moral guide, and virtue is its own reward.

16.

Al-Ma'arri remarked that monks in their cloisters or devotees in their mosques were blindly following the beliefs of their locality: if they were born among Magians or Sabians they would have become Magians or Sabians.

17.

Al-Ma'arri was an ascetic, renouncing worldly desires and living secluded from others while producing his works.

18.

Al-Ma'arri is controversial even today as he was skeptical of Islam, the dominant religion of the Arab world.

19.

Al-Ma'arri's third work is a work of prose known as The Epistle of Forgiveness.