al-Ma'arri

Abu al-Ala al-Ma'arri (Arabic: أبو العلاء المعري; December 973 – May 1057), also known by his Latin name Abulola Moarrensis, was an Arab philosopher, poet, and writer from Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, Emirate of Aleppo (in present day Syria). Because of his antireligious worldview, he is known as one of the "foremost atheists" of his time", although his worldview was closer to deism. However, in his defensive treatise Zajr al-Nabeh (The Repelling of the Barker)—a manuscript edited and published in 1965—al-Ma'arri explicitly identified himself as a faithful Muslim and systematically refuted the accusations of heresy leveled against him by his contemporaries. In the text, he seeks refuge in God from claims that his poetry is a proof of atheism. Furthermore, he clarifies his verses to strictly affirm his orthodox belief in the Day of Judgment and the afterlife. Rather than rejecting the religion itself, al-Ma'arri directed his criticism toward the religious scholars of his time, mocking their theological ignorance and turning the accusation around by labeling his critics as the actual deviants and atheists.

Born in the city of al-Ma'arra (present-day Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, Syria) during the later Abbasid era, he became blind at a young age from smallpox but nonetheless studied in nearby Aleppo, then in Tripoli and Antioch. Producing popular poems in Baghdad, he refused to sell his texts. In 1010, he returned to Syria after his mother began declining in health, and continued writing, which gained him local respect.

Described as a "pessimistic freethinker", al-Ma'arri was a controversial rationalist of his time, rejecting superstition and dogmatism. His written works exhibit a fixation on the study of language and its historical development, known as philology. He was pessimistic about life, describing himself as "a double prisoner" of blindness and isolation. He attacked religious dogmas and practices, was equally critical and sarcastic about Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism, and became a deist. In response to contemporary accusations of heresy stemming from these poetic critiques, al-Ma'arri authored Zajr al-Nabeh. In this text, he explicitly denied holding atheistic or anti-Islamic beliefs, clarifying that his verses targeted the corruption, hypocrisy, and ignorance of religious figures rather than the core tenets of the faith itself. He advocated social justice and lived a secluded, ascetic lifestyle. He was a vegan, known in his time as a moral vegetarian, entreating: "Do not desire as food the flesh of slaughtered animals / Or the white milk of mothers who intended its pure draught for their young." Al-Ma'arri held an antinatalist outlook, in line with his general pessimism, suggesting that children should not be born to spare them of the pains and suffering of life. Saqt az-Zand, Luzumiyat, and Risalat al-Ghufran are among his main works. Consistent with his pervasive pessimism, al-Ma'arri harbored a deep skepticism regarding gender relations and advocated for the strict seclusion of women. As analyzed by the Egyptian scholar Taha Hussein, al-Ma'arri advised against teaching women to read or write to shelter them from societal corruption, and controversially argued that the Hajj pilgrimage should not be obligatory for them.