al-Ma'arri

'''Abu al-Ala al-Ma'arri (; December 973May 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. Al-Ma'arri rejected organized religions, religious rituals and 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.