Problem: Abu al-'Ala` al-Ma'arri (Arabic 'bw l`l lm`ry Abu al-'Ala` al-Ma'arri, full name 'bw l`l 'Hmd bn `bd llh bn slymn ltnwkhy lm`ry Abu al-'Ala` Ahmad ibn 'Abd Allah ibn Sulaiman al-Tanuhi al-Ma'arri; December 973 - May 1057) was a blind Arab philosopher, poet, and writer. Al-Ma'arri held and expressed an irreligious world view which was met with controversy, but in spite of it, he is regarded as one of the greatest classical Arabic poets.

Abu al-'Ala` was born in Ma'arra, modern Maarrat al-Nu'man, Syria, near the city of Aleppo, in December 973. At his time, the city was part of the Abbasid Caliphate, the third Islamic caliphate, and was during the Golden Age of Islam. He was a member of the Banu Sulayman, a notable family of Ma'arra, belonging to the larger Tanukh tribe. One of his ancestors was probably the first qadi of Ma'arra. The Tanukh tribe had formed part of the aristocracy in Syria for hundreds of years and some members of the Banu Sulayman had also been noted as good poets.  He lost his eyesight at the age of four due to smallpox. His later pessimism may be explained by his virtual blindness. Later in his life, he regarded himself as "a double prisoner" which referred to both this blindness and the general isolation that he felt during his life.  He started his career as a poet at an early age, at about 11 or 12 years old. He was educated at first in Ma'arra and Aleppo, later also in Antioch and other Syrian cities. Among his teachers in Aleppo were companions from the circle of Ibn Khalawayh. This grammarian and Islamic scholar had died in 980 CE when al-Ma'arri was still a child. Al-Ma'arri nevertheless laments the loss of Ibn Khalawayh in strong terms in a poem of his Risalat al-ghufran. Al-Qifti reports that when on his way to Tripoli, al-Ma'arri visited a Christian monastery near Latakia where he listened to debates about Hellenistic philosophy, which planted in him the seeds of his later scepticism and irreligiosity; but other historians such as Ibn al-Adim deny that he had been exposed to any theology other than Islamic doctrine.  In 1004-5 al-Ma'arri learned that his father had died and, in reaction, wrote an elegy where he praised his father. Years later he would travel to Baghdad where he became well received in the literary salons of the time, though he was a controversial figure. After the eighteen months in Baghdad, al-Ma'arri returned home for unknown reasons. He may have returned because his mother was ill, or he may have run out of money in Baghdad, as he refused to sell his works. He returned to his native town of Ma'arra in about 1010 and learned that his mother had died before his arrival.  He remained in Ma'arra for the rest of his life, where he opted for an ascetic lifestyle, refusing to sell his poems, living in seclusion and observing a strict vegetarian diet. His personal confinement to his house was only broken one time when violence had struck his town. Though he was confined, he lived out his later years continuing his work and collaborating with others. He enjoyed great respect and attracted many students locally, as well as actively holding correspondence with scholars abroad. Despite his intentions of living a secluded lifestyle, in his seventies, he became rich and was the most revered person in his area. Al-Ma'arri never married and died in May 1057 in his home town.

What else is interesting?

Answer with quotes: He lost his eyesight at the age of four due to smallpox.


Problem: Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and actor. With 38 songs in the Top 10 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts, Diamond has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. Neil Diamond has been touring around the world consecutively for 50 years. Neil Diamond 50 - 50th Anniversary Collection Diamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.

Diamond was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish family descended from Russian and Polish immigrants. His parents were Rose (nee Rapaport) and Akeeba "Kieve" Diamond, a dry-goods merchant. He grew up in several homes in Brooklyn, having also spent four years in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where his father was stationed in the army. In Brooklyn he attended Erasmus Hall High School and was a member of the Freshman Chorus and Choral Club, along with classmate Barbra Streisand. They were not close friends at the time, Diamond recalls: "We were two poor kids in Brooklyn. We hung out in the front of Erasmus High and smoked cigarettes." After his family moved he then attended Abraham Lincoln High School, and was a member of the fencing team. Also on the team was his best friend, future Olympic fencer Herb Cohen.  For his 16th birthday, he received his first guitar. When he was 16, and still in high school, Diamond spent a number of weeks at Surprise Lake Camp, a camp for Jewish children in upstate New York, when folk singer Pete Seeger performed a small concert. Seeing the widely recognized singer perform, and watching other children singing songs for Seeger that they wrote themselves, had an immediate effect on Diamond, who then became aware of the possibility of writing his own songs. "And the next thing, I got a guitar when we got back to Brooklyn, started to take lessons and almost immediately began to write songs," he said. He adds that his attraction to songwriting was the "first real interest" he had growing up, besides helping him release his youthful "frustrations".  Diamond also used his newly developing skill to write poetry. By writing poems for girls he was attracted to in school, he soon learned it often won their hearts. His male classmates took note and began asking him to write poems for them which they would sing and use with equal success. He spent the summer following his graduation as a waiter in the Catskills resort area. There he first met Jaye Posner, who would years later become his wife.  Diamond next attended New York University as a pre-med major on a fencing scholarship, again on the fencing team with Herb Cohen. He was a member of the 1960 NCAA men's championship fencing team. Often bored in class, he found writing song lyrics more to his liking. He began cutting classes and taking the train up to Tin Pan Alley, where he tried to get some of his songs heard by local music publishers. In his senior year, when he was just 10 units short of graduation, Sunbeam Music Publishing offered him a 16-week job writing songs for $50 a week (equivalent to about US$405 per week, in 2017 dollars), and he dropped out of college to accept it.

Where did he attend school?

Answer with quotes:
In Brooklyn he attended Erasmus Hall High School