The Full Poetic Collection(final part) [Archives:2006/914/Culture]

Abu Al-Kalmah Al-Tayyibah
Author: Ali Abdul-Rahman Jahhaf

Language: Arabic

Publisher: Ministry of Culture and Tourism

Year Published: 2004

In his poem, Poetry “As It Seems to Me”, Ali Abdurrahman Jahhaf clearly spells out what poetry means to him:

If my feelings do not dance to a poem,

And if its discourse and rhythm, my ears are not pleased by.

Then poetry it is not, and call it whatever you want,

Except that poetry, which is sought by all nations.

Poetry is then that which excites my sides1,

And removes from my soul depression and pain

And rejuvenates me with feelings and enriches my pleasures

And creates in me the smile, which did not hence exist.

Yes, for Jahhaf poetry was indeed his way of enriching his life, but the enrichment he made to our lives by his poetry is even more worth citing. What is also worth citing is that Jahhaf not only recited his poetry to enrich Yemeni literature, but also to deliver a spiritual message to his people (the Yemeni people, his nation (the Arab nation) and to deliver a message of peace and justice to the world at large. He wrote several poems addressing his people advising them to safeguard their spiritual heritage and not to be suckered into falling in love with the mundane. He points out time and again that it is through an ongoing one to one relationship with God that happiness can come here in this world and in the world to come. His religious devotion was not a tendency to lean towards the extreme, but a moderate conviction based on reasoning and logic: if one is not convinced by religious ordinance, then one cannot be faithful, as God would want one to be. The cause that Jahhaf adopted was the removal of oppression and injustice and the cause was a universal one for him. Even his praises for Hezbollah in his poetry can be seen as a praise for those who sacrifice their lives for the freedom of their land, for the defeat of the arrogant aggressor, who has been reputed to be an unbeatable tiger, amidst a nation that has forgotten its honor and devotion to its cause. Jahhaf sees Hezbollah, as a link in the long line of those who have sacrificed their lives for a different world that their children should live in: a world free from plunderers who have come from afar to take that which is not theirs and to do so with tortuous agony to anyone who may stand in their way. Like all Arabs and most Moslems, the victory of Hezbollah is Southern Lebanon was a respite amidst so much failure by an Arab leadership that has forgotten its root, a leadership that has forgotten that it also must have a cause to uphold and defend, or else all it can ever expect to see is failure:

Thanks to those who told Tel Aviv “no”!

Is not that the word of the honest, courageous and the adamant.

Thanks to those who defeated arrogance,

And destroyed the saying about the enemy,

That they are the invincible.

Thanks to those from whom we have learned

That the tigers of Tel Aviv are just paper tigers.

This may sound unpleasant to many a western ear, but this is how most Arabs viewed the victory of Hezbollah in driving the Israelis out of Southern Lebanon and for most Arabs, the Israelis are viewed with the same disdain that the American right wing views Al-Qaeda terrorists. After all, the Israelis are the plunderers of the Holy Land, as most Arabs and Moslems see them. Notwithstanding the phony peace which is being sold to most Arab leaders by the United States and her Allies, with a lot more persistence from the former, without justice and without disciplining the Israelis there can be no peace. Poets have always echoed how the Arabs “in the street' really feel about events at home and in the world, and it should be expected that Jahhaf would not be any different from the Syrian poet, Nazar Qabbani, who also echoed the feelings of most Arabs in their contempt for their leaders and in the pleading to God to relieve them from all the frustrations of defeat and foreign plunder of their land, their resources and even their own way of living.

Finally, we come to some of the verses in which Jahhaf reveals his universal inclinations. The poem is called “Let Us Pray”:

For a world full of love and faith that enjoys happiness and prosperity.

For justice to exist to rise and the nights of sufferings to end!

Let us pray, my brothers2, so that the air of brotherhood in our lives shall prevail.

Let us pray, my brother in humanity,, to God, who raised the sky.

For a world, wherein no beasts of the jungle3 live, void of fear with abundant growth.

Wherein men shall not oppress brother men, or in which violence has no place in life and by which life is not ridiculed.

Let us pray my brothers, for a world wherein peace, joy are not threatened by wretchedness;

A world free of arms of destruction and all the tools of annihilation.

Let us pray to the Creator of life, Who ordained the law for his creation.

So that men, under the shadow of the Lord, may enjoy with all their upheld rights.

1 I.e., literally, my rib cage (the chest).

2 In mankind.

3 The barbarians of men.
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