Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
A large number of poets appeared in Palestine among and around the literary waves that we highlight in this series, given their role not only in establishing the status of Palestinian poetry and literature among the many trends and waves in the Arab world, but also for their role in shaping the features of Palestine’s identity...and also in order for it to be complete . A picture of the literary scene in Palestine. They lived through the Palestinian issue in all its details, just as the famous Palestinian poets experienced it, and it is important to read Palestine through their eyes and pens, so that the light does not remain focused on one group that belongs to one approach and vision without giving the opportunity to other visions, despite their great role in confirming belonging to Palestine.
In the category of veteran Palestinian poets, the poet standsMuhyi al-Din al-Haj Issa is in their honorable segment, as they are the ones who wrote about the Nakba and its tragedies, the revolution and its successes, and they did not despair or lose compass even though the spotlight was not highlighted on him because he did not belong to the prevailing environment, and he was not “spoiled” in literary and media circles, as he was Islamic in affiliation and production. It did not receive the attention of the dominant trends in that period.
He was also mentioned in many sources except by his Palestinian name (Muhyi al-Din al-Safadi), after the city of Safed in which he was born, and from there he set off in Palestine and then in Syria and Jordan.
He was raised in a scholarly family, which influenced his talents. He turned to reading and reading the Qur’an and memorizing poems by Arab poets of successive eras, especially poetic commentaries. He took from his literary teachers, such as Sheikh Abdul Qadir Al-Mubarak, Sheikh Mustafa Al-Ghalayini, and the literary Sheikh Abdul Qadir Al-Maghribi.
Dr. Kamel Al-Sawafiri says in his book “Contemporary Arabic Literature in Palestine”: “An inspiring poet from Palestine, he did not get his share of fame, no critic shed the spotlight of criticism on his poetry, and no researcher went to study it despite his exceptional poetic talent and tremendous energy.” Dr. Nasser al-Din al-Assad says in his book “Lectures on Modern Poetry in Palestine and Jordan”: “Muhyi al-Din al-Haj Issa did not have the fame that some poets of Palestine had, and he was not mentioned in the same way as others who had some articles or books published about them.” However, whoever reads his poetry... considers him one of the first class of our poets to whom the poetic statement was delivered with an integrity and ease that is difficult for many others.”
He composed poetry at the age of fifteen, but most of his poetry was lost as a result of his displacement from his homeland, Palestine, and his memory did not help him with more than the titles of the lost poems.
The writer Abdullah Al-Tantawi says about him: “I met our poet in the late sixties. We were neighbors in the Ismailia neighborhood in Aleppo, and after illness crippled him in the last two years of his life, I used to visit him daily, entertain him, and benefit from his abundant information about Palestine, the Palestinian issue, and the Jews.” And Zionism, and about the Palestinian and Arab leaders, both good and corrupt, and about the deceit of the British, and their betrayal of the Arabs who trusted them, and their hostility towards Islam and Muslims... They are the ones who empowered the Jews in Palestine, and they are the ones who fought the loyal leaders... The poet had two wishes, which he mentions: As for the first, it is impossible
. The investigation in my life, and perhaps in your lives, is the liberation of Palestine from the hands of the Jewish invaders, because there is conspiracy against it at home and abroad... As for the second: I want to see my poetry printed before I die.
When the doctors said: The poet was on the edge of his grave, we - with his son Iyad - took the initiative to fulfill his second wish, and presented him with the first fragment of the collection. I read it to him and corrected it in front of him. His feelings were relieved and his tears washed away the depression that he saw on his friendly smile, and he said in a whisper: “Praise be to God.” Then he soon died - may God have mercy on him - in 1974 AD.
The Al-Babtain Dictionary describes his poetry: “Most of his poetry was an honest expression of the catastrophes that befell his homeland, Palestine, the last of which was the Great Nakba of 1948. His poetry urges revolution and calls for unity in confronting the enemy, rejoicing in that about the unity that happened between Egypt and Syria in his time. He has poetry.” In his lamentations for the martyrs, especially his lamentations for the martyrs of the Buraq Wall in Jerusalem in 1930, in addition to his poetry of reproach in which he urges Arab and Muslim leaders to come to the rescue of Jerusalem, which Al-Farouq Omar called for its conquest. He also wrote purposeful poetic theater, reminding through it the consequences of disagreement and conspiracy. And the corruption of appreciation, and he wrote poetic poems full of symbolism, and he has poetry on special occasions, as he wrote in Nostalgia, and he has poetic correspondences about the Brotherhood that include the concerns of his homeland, as he wrote in elegy for Ahmed Shawqi, the Prince of Poets, and he has poetry in reminding the nation of its first knights, and he has poetry in praise. With knowledge, its students, and its family of scholars.He is distinguished by his long poetic breath, in addition to the strength of his language, the loudness of his voice and the ease of his compositions and patterns, and his imagination is free... and he adhered to the Khalili approach in constructing his poems.”
Who is our poet?
The poet Muhyi al-Din al-Hajj Issa was born in 1900 or 1897 in Safed. He received his primary education in his hometown, and in Akka School, he continued his preparatory education, and he received his secondary education in the Sultanies of Damascus and Beirut, then he moved from the finishing grade in the Sultanies of Beirut to the Saliha College and studied there for three years.
He worked as principal of Safed School for eight years, during which he obtained a law degree from Jerusalem. He spent fifteen years as a teacher of the Arabic language in Jerusalem, and after that he returned to Safed as deputy director of its secondary school, and was in charge of teaching the Arabic language there until the Nakba in 1948. He fled with his family to Syria and
settled in the city of Aleppo as a teacher of Arabic literature at Muawiyah High School and the Teachers’ Home for five years. . He taught at the American College for Women Teachers until 1964.
He was a member of the Young Men’s Muslim Association since 1939. He died in Aleppo in 1974.
He has written poetry plays: “The Death of a Kulaib” in 1947, “The Family of a Martyr” in 1966. His collection of poems, “From and to Palestine,” was published in 1975, after he completed its revision.
Examples of his poetry:
When the great strike took place in 1936 in Palestine... and the revolution broke out after it, our poet composed a poem entitled “In the Revolution of 1936”: O
honorable hero, a greeting... a handkerchief is given to you,
six months out of history... you did not complain of a fraud. And do not exhaust yourself
with a sliver of sustenance during the length of your day.. You have not feared hunger or poverty.
Among them:
And the planes are hovering, dropping from.. the heart of the sky lightning bolts of burning
in their interiors. Death lies crouching.. If they explode, it will be on the necks. And when an
Armaments Week was held in Syria in 1955 to save Palestine, he organized A poem in which he said:
O Lord, you have blessed the hands that have set out...
People raced to the caller, but not everyone... shows reluctance, nor does he claim to be deaf.
They fought with the glory of their wealth and honour... the goodness of the clouds when they descended in unison. He
saluted the heroes of the Battle of Al-Karama in 1968 with a poem in which he said:
I surrender your right hand, O hero... for the transgressor has departed, and he is a deceiver who
has been deceived. A treachery that has passed for a long time.. For eternity in its days are
the countries of these lands, our homes have rested.. in them are the origins of our first origins. The intruder
was disgraced and will not be accepted for him.. live and there will be no hope for him.
The land of dignity, you are immortal.. the
Arabs have in you ransoms like enemies who have come seeking harm in you.. and they made excuses. As long as the ills wished
, then the strongholds were thundering... they were driven back before they arrived,
and then the enemy was fleeing in fear... neither plain nor mountain could protect
him. His paths were narrowed, so his paths were burning with fire.
Regarding Safed and the longing to return to it, he composed a poem entitled “Al-Dardari” in which he says:
The house in Safed complains of the misfortunes of the Nubians.. And you are young, suffering the distance in Aleppo,
O phone of longing, you have called to a listener.. He listened to you with a dry, tired heart.
Here I have gone to my homelands on my feet.. and affection. My eyelids were sore and I
felt joy, so I came hastily to knock on the door of the house... the knock of the one who refused, from a distance and an exile.
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