At a glance
- Roles
- Poet · Scholar · writer
- Era
- The Buyid, Fatimid and Seljuk Era
- Region
- Levant & Iraq
- Review
- Draft Completeness 2/5 · Help complete it
Life in time
Overview
Abu al-Ala Ahmad ibn Abd Allah ibn Sulayman al-Tanukhi al-Ma'arri, a blind poet and philologist from Ma'arra. 1
Life
He was born on Friday, 17 Rabi al-Awwal 363 AH, in Ma'arra; the Gregorian conversion is derived. 2 He caught smallpox at the age of three and lost his sight. 1
He entered Baghdad twice, then returned to Ma'arra and stayed at home, and students came to him from every region. He called himself "the captive of two prisons", for staying at home and for the loss of his sight. 1
He lived for forty-five years without eating meat, out of devotion to the view of the early philosophers that they did not allow the suffering of animals. 1
Works
His works include "Luzum ma la yalzam", in about five volumes, "Saqt al-Zand", "Diya' al-Saqt", "Risalat al-Ghufran", "Abath al-Walid", and commentaries on the diwans of Abu Tammam, al-Buhturi and al-Mutanabbi. 1
How the source describes him
The author of "Shadharat al-Dhahab" calls him a man of famous heterodoxy and philosophical asceticism. This is the description of that author, not the museum's judgement, and other views of him need an additional source. 1
His death
He died in 449 AH at the age of eighty-six. 1
Sources
- Shadharat al-Dhahab — Ibn al-Imad al-Hanbali , p. 288-289
- Shadharat al-Dhahab — Ibn al-Imad al-Hanbali , p. 288
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “Abu l-Ala al-Maarri”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/abu-l-ala-al-maarri/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-23.