Background: The Mothers of Invention were an American rock band from California that served as the backing musicians for Frank Zappa. Formed in 1964, their work is marked by the use of sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Originally an R&B band called the Soul Giants, the band's first lineup included Ray Collins, David Coronado, Ray Hunt, Roy Estrada and Jimmy Carl Black. Zappa was asked to take over as the guitarist following a fight between Collins and Coronado, the band's original saxophonist/leader.
Context: The Soul Giants were formed in 1964. In 1964, Frank Zappa was approached by Ray Collins who asked him to take over as the guitarist following a fight between Collins and the group's original guitarist. Zappa accepted, and convinced the other members that they should play his music to increase the chances of getting a record contract. Original leader David Coronado did not think that the band would be employable if they played original material, and left the band. Zappa soon assumed leadership and the role as co-lead singer, even though he never considered himself a singer. The band was renamed the Mothers, coincidentally on Mother's Day. The group increased their bookings after beginning an association with manager Herb Cohen, while they gradually gained attention on the burgeoning Los Angeles underground music scene. In early 1966, they were spotted by leading record producer Tom Wilson when playing Zappa's "Trouble Every Day," a song about the Watts Riots. Wilson had earned acclaim as the producer for singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and the folk-rock act Simon & Garfunkel, and was notable as one of the few African Americans working as a major label pop music producer at this time. Wilson signed the Mothers to the Verve Records division of MGM Records, which had built up a strong reputation in the music industry for its releases of modern jazz recordings in the 1940s and 1950s, but was attempting to diversify into pop and rock audiences. Verve insisted that the band officially rename themselves because "Mother" in slang terminology was short for "motherfucker"--a term that apart from its profanity, in a jazz context connotes a very skilled musical instrumentalist. The label suggested the name "The Mothers Auxiliary", which prompted Zappa to come up with the name "The Mothers of Invention".
Question: Was their anyone else in the band when it started?
Answer: manager Herb Cohen,

Problem: Background: 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.
Context: An early collection of his poems appeared as The Tinder Spark (Saqt al-zand; sqT lznd). The collection of poems included praise of notable people of Aleppo and the Hamdanid ruler Sa'd al-Dawla. It gained great popularity and established his reputation as a poet. A few poems in the collection were about armour. A second, more original collection appeared under the title Unnecessary Necessity (Luzum ma lam yalzam lzwm m l ylzm 'w llzwmyt), also simply Luzumiyat or Necessities. The title refers to how al-Ma'arri saw the business of living and alludes to the unnecessary complexity of the rhyme scheme used. His third famous work is a work of prose known as The Epistle of Forgiveness (Resalat Al-Ghufran rsl@ lGfrn). The work was written as a direct response to the Arabic poet Ibn al-Qarih, whom al-Ma'arri mocks for his religious views. In this work, the poet visits paradise and meets the Arab poets of the pagan period, contrary to Muslim doctrine which holds that only those who believe in God can find salvation. Because of the aspect of conversing with the deceased in paradise, the Resalat Al-Ghufran has been compared to the Divine Comedy of Dante which came hundreds of years after. The work has also been noted to be similar to Ibn Shuhayd's Risala al-tawabi' wa al-zawabi, though there is no evidence that al-Ma'arri was inspired by Ibn Shahayd nor is there any evidence that Dante was inspired by al-Ma'arri. Algeria reportedly banned The Epistle of Forgiveness from the International Book Fair held in Algiers in 2007. Paragraphs and Periods (Al-Fusul wa al-ghayat) is a collection of homilies. The work has also been called a parody of the Quran.
Question: What other work he did
Answer:
A second, more original collection appeared under the title Unnecessary Necessity