A masculine education cannot spare from professional study and the necessary acquisition of languages, the time and attention which I have bestowed on the compositions of my countrymen.
Bio: Abul ʿAla Al-Maʿarri was a blind Arab philosopher, poet, and writer. Born in modern day Maarrat al-Nuʿman, Syria, he studied at Aleppo, Tripoli and Antioch. Producing popular poems in Baghdad, he nevertheless refused to sell his texts.