Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
When I wrote about the poet Adeeb Rafiq Mahmoud (he died about a year ago), I did not connect him with the (Qatari Islamic) poet Marouf Sheikh Mahmoud, despite the presence of information about the family’s roots and ramifications.. I found that the Mahmoud family is attributed to the grandfather, the Al-Azhari sheikh, the poet Mahmoud Abdel Halim. He gave birth to a group of poets, the first of whom was the great Palestinian poet Abd al-Rahim Mahmoud, the sheikh poet, preacher, and teacher Rafiq Mahmoud, and his two grandchildren, the poet brothers Adeeb and Marouf Rafiq Mahmoud, and the grandson, the poet Tariq Abd al-Karim Mahmoud. They all belong to the family of jurists, famous for their religiosity and jurisprudence throughout history. It is therefore the family of jurists and poets in Palestine.
It is true that Marouf acquired Qatari citizenship, and was keen to return the title of “Sheikh” to his grandfather on his identity cardHowever, he did not stay away from Anabta and its alleys and remained in touch and connected in the educational and development environment in the region, especially since his field of specialization was educational and media.
Who is our poet?
He is the Palestinian national Islamic journalist and poet Marouf Rafiq Sheikh Mahmoud, who was born in the village of Anabta between Tulkarm and Nablus on November 20, 1935. He studied at the Al-Fadhiliyya School in Tulkarm, where he obtained high school in 1953. He worked as a teacher in his homeland in the school of his hometown of Anabta
. For one year, he continued in the field of education in Palestine and Jordan, then in Saudi Arabia in 1955, and there in the Taif region he was active in the student theater of the Al-Yamani School, where he refined his poetic talent through training and practice, and became closer to the aspirations and dreams of young people, and organized student activities with them. He wrote some songs that were released with the voices of some artists there.
Then he moved to the State of Qatar in 1961, following poetic letters with his brother Burhan, who was working in the field of education there, where he founded and headed the Educational Media Department in the Qatari Ministry of Education, and established a number of educational competitions and awards, and wrote poetry in the atmosphere of Qatar and the desert nature, until he was honored by it. Dr. Saif Al-Hajri, founder of the Friends of the Environment Center in Qatar, named his name for their annual spring poetry prize.
Our poet moved to the Public Relations Department at the Qatari Ministry of Interior. He was concerned with public safety and traffic regulation. He wrote awareness-raising poems and songs for adults and children on this matter, and wrote a book of prose on the subject. He founded a group of radio programs for security and safety, such as the program “The Police Are With You,” which he prepared and presented in the beginning, and from there he moved on to present a weekly program for Qatar TV entitled “The Open Meeting,” in which he hosted prominent Arab and international figures.
Before that, our poet worked on Qatari Radio since its founding in 1962. They called him the “Radio Poet,” and he prepared and presented a number of programs on it, such as “Al-Zawraq,” “The Cultural Magazine,” and Ramadan cultural competitions. Qatari Radio later honored him by printing a volume containing some of his radio works.
While he was in Qatar, he joined Beirut Arab University, and continued his university education there until he obtained a Bachelor of Laws in 1968.
In a case that recalls the status of the teacher, his position, and his influence in the Abbasid era, as teachers of the sons of the caliphs (science, education, religion, and culture), such as Al-Kisa’i, Al-Asma’i, and others... he devoted his time Our poet for this mission, he worked for Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani as an educational and cultural advisor to his children.
His poetic and literary productions were published in many cultural magazines in Jordan, Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. He joined the International Islamic Literature Association in 2001.
Our poet won a number of various literary and cultural awards from the State of Qatar, and he also won the gold medal for the Pakistani Poet Muhammad Iqbal Award in 1979. In appreciation of his
role in Qatari life, the State of Qatar granted him citizenship in 1989. In view of his services in his hometown of Anabta, the municipality opened a street for him. In his name in his town (see photo), which is located on the main street between Nablus and Tulkarm.
To this day, “the Finance Department at An-Najah University announces scholarships for bachelor’s students in the name of the poet Marouf Rafiq Sheikh Mahmoud.” This indicates his interest in education in Palestine, to which he did not forget to allocate some of his favor by educating its children in universities.
The poet Marouf Rafiq Sheikh Mahmoud died on May 9, 2005 in Doha.
His approach to life through his poetry
Our poet arranged his methodological priorities in life in an order that was reflected in the volume of complete works, and he wrote in his introduction about this arrangement:
I decided to arrange the collections according to the topics of the poems, not according to their date, with the importance of mentioning the date and place of the poem as much as possible, and my philosophy in that is simple, stemming from my faith as a Muslim and as a Muslim. My responsibility as an Arab of Palestinian origin has a major issue that has not yet been resolved.
It began with Islamic studies with a collection of supplications, followed by a collection or collection of Muslim cries (the first and second editions). Then I combined the patriotisms that I had gathered in the homeland.. So the third and fourth collections were, Palestine, the Wound and the Road, then Drop on the Lip of the String.. Then I collected my educational and teaching poems for childhood, boys and girls, and the fifth collection was, according to the order stated on the last page of the fifth collection, entitled (Poems for Boys) And girls).
Then I looked at the new poems I had collected that had a direct relationship to (Jerusalem)... and I included in them poems specific to the Intifada and poems whose goal was to raise awareness of the seriousness of the stage that the Palestinian issue and Jerusalem are going through, and the Judaization, severe injustice and displacement taking place there, the withdrawal of identities, the confiscation of lands, the blowing up of homes, and the uprooting of families. From its land... and I called it (Jerusalem is my poem)... It was published in two editions: the first in the year 97 and the second in the year 98... Each of the poems in the collection revealed the arrogance of the powerful and the steadfastness of the weak.
His approach to poetry:
Marouf Sheikh Mahmoud wrote in the introduction to one of his books, which summarizes for us the study and conclusion of his approach:
I stayed away from satire even though I was able to do it. Because it angers the heart... and makes God angry... unless it is a satire of the enemies who occupy the homelands, and my testimony to myself is that I am a person committed to my identity as a Muslim and an Arab... committed to the pain of the nation in its Arab and Islamic dimensions... committed to my responsibility towards the rising generations. I have said a lot, and I still have a lot... and I pledge to God Almighty, that I will commit to the kind words that instill in souls the love of God and the country... and the love of people of all races... and the love of a speck of dirt and a drop of water, and a love of the environment that we are called to rebuild, not to destroy.
News about Marouf Sheikh Mahmoud
Achievements and Awards
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