Not blind to everything

"Aye, when the torch is low and we prepare
Beyond the notes of revelry to pass—
Old Silence will keep watch upon the grass,
The solemn shadows will assemble there."

XXII, The Diwan of Abu'l-Ala, Abu Al-Ala Al-Ma'arri (973-1058).


Wikipedia says of him that he was a "blind Arab philosopher, poet and writer. He was a controversial rationalist of his time, attacking the dogmas of religion and rejecting the claim that Islam possessed any monopoly on truth. [...] He lost his eyesight at the age of four due to smallpox. [...] Al-Ma'arri was skeptic in his beliefs and denounced superstition and dogmatism in religion. Thus, he has been described as a pessimistic freethinker, some argue that he might have been a deist. One of the recurring themes of his philosophy was the rights of reason against the claims of custom, tradition and authority.

"Do not suppose the statements of the prophets to be true; they are all fabrications. Men lived comfortably till they came and spoiled life. The sacred books are only such a set of idle tales as any age could have and indeed did actually produce."

He rejected claims of any divine revelation. His creed was that of a philosopher and ascetic, for whom reason provides a moral guide, and virtue is its own reward.

Al-Maarri's fundamental pessimism is expressed in his recommendation that no children should be begotten, so as to spare them the pains of life. In an elegy composed by him over the loss of a relative, he combines his grief with observations on the ephemerality of this life:

"Soften your tread. Methinks the earth’s surface is but bodies of the dead,

Walk slowly in the air, so you do not trample on the remains of God’s servants.""

Abridged by me. Source: Wikipedia