Hasan Sa'id Karmi ( ar, حسن سعيد الكرمي; 1905 – May 5, 2007) was a

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

linguist and broadcaster for the BBC Arabic Service.

Biography

Hasan Karmi was born in

Tulkarm Tulkarm, Tulkarem or Tull Keram ( ar, طولكرم, ''Ṭūlkarm'') is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, located in the Tulkarm Governorate of the State of Palestine. The Israeli city of Netanya is to the west, and the Palestinian cities of N ...

(then in the Ottoman Empire). The son of a

sharia Sharia (; ar, شريعة, sharīʿa ) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the H ...

court judge, Sheikh Sa'id al-Karmi, and the brother of the Arab poet

Abd al-Karim al-Karmi Abd al-Karim al-Karmi ( ar, عبد الكريم الكرمي), (1909–11 October 1980), known as Abu Salma (), was a famous Palestinian poet and one of the Arab poets, was born in Tulkarm, and was a member of the Palestine Liberation Organizatio ...

. Hasan Karmi studied in a local Qur'anic school in

and later attended English College in Jerusalem. He joined the British mandate government's education department and won two scholarships, in 1939 and 1945, to study at the

Institute of Education IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society (IOE) is the education school of University College London (UCL). It specialises in postgraduate study and research in the field of education and is one of UCL's 11 constituent faculties. Prior to m ...

in London.

Practical life

Karmi and his family were forced to flee in the 1948

Nakba Clickable map of Mandatory Palestine with the depopulated locations during the 1947–1949 Palestine war. The Nakba ( ar, النكبة, translit=an-Nakbah, lit=the "disaster", "catastrophe", or "cataclysm"), also known as the Palestinian Ca ...

. They eventually settled in the neighbourhood of

Golders Green Golders Green is an area in the London Borough of Barnet in England. A smaller suburban linear settlement, near a farm and public grazing area green of medieval origins, dates to the early 19th century. Its bulk forms a late 19th century and ea ...

, in London, United Kingdom. Karmi joined the BBC Arabic Service and worked as a broadcaster for nearly 40 years. He was the creator, writer, and presenter of a weekly literary program called ''Qawlun ala Qawl'' (Saying on a Saying) devoted to Arabic poetry and proverbs.Hasan Karmi - aljazeera
/ref> The program was the longest running in the history of the BBC Arabic Service. For many years he also wrote a column in ''Huna London ''(London Calling), which the embassy in Saudi Arabia used to distribute on behalf of the BBC Arabic Service. In 1969 Karmi was awarded an

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

for services to the BBC. Karmi was married to a Syrian woman, Amina, had one son, Ziyad, and two daughters, Siham and

Ghada Karmi Ghada Karmi ( ar, غادة كرمي, ; born 1939) is a Palestinian-born academic, physician and author. She has written on Palestinian issues in newspapers and magazines, including ''The Guardian'', ''The Nation'' and ''Journal of Palestine Studi ...

. He returned to the Middle East, to Jordan, in 1989 and spent his remaining years working on eleven dictionaries, one Arabic-English, the rest English-Arabic.

Death

He died on 5 May 2007 in

Amman Amman (; ar, عَمَّان, ' ; Ammonite language, Ammonite: 𐤓𐤁𐤕 𐤏𐤌𐤍 ''Rabat ʻAmān'') is the capital and largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of 4,061,150 a ...

, Jordan.

Articles

* *Karmi, Ghada: ''In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story''

Verso ' is the "right" or "front" side and ''verso'' is the "left" or "back" side when text is written or printed on a leaf of paper () in a bound item such as a codex, book, broadsheet, or pamphlet. Etymology The terms are shortened from Latin ...

2002 *Marwan Asmar
Remembering Hassan Al Karmi, the Intellectual I knew
Hackwriters.com *Donald Macintyre
Hasan Karmi Broadcaster and lexicographer
18 May 2007,

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Karmi, Hasan 1905 births 2007 deaths Men centenarians Palestinian academics Palestinian centenarians People from Tulkarm Members of the Order of the British Empire Palestinian emigrants to the United Kingdom