Its not often that a atheist leaning Arab has ever survived to die of old age, particularly a well respected and well read poet, but such is the case with Abu al-Alaa al-Maarri, a man who lived in what is now Syria around 1,000 AD.
 |
| Abu al-Alaa al-Maarri A Free Thinking Poet |
Blind and rather penniless (he once joked that he became a vegetarian
not through moral choice but because "my income is a little over 20
dinars a year and when my servant takes out of that as much as he wants,
no magnificent sum is left so I restrict myself to beans and lentils,
and such food as I would rather not mention"), he was also a deliberate celibate in a society, that even now expects men to have a wife and children.
