Nizar Kabbani

Nizar Tawfiq Qabbani ( ar, نزار توفيق قباني, , french: Nizar Kabbani; 21 March 1923 – 30 April 1998) was a Syrian diplomat, poet, writer and publisher. He is considered to be Syria's National Poet. His poetic style combines simplicity and elegance in exploring themes of love, eroticism, feminism, religion, and Arab empowerment against foreign imperialism and local dictators. Qabbani is one of the most revered contemporary poets in the Arab world.

Biography

Early life

Nizar Qabbani was born in the Syrian capital of Damascus to a middle class merchant family. His mother, ''Faiza Akbik'', is of Turkish descent. Qabbani was raised in ''Mi'thnah Al-Shahm'', one of the neighborhoods of Old Damascus and studied at the National Scientific College School in Damascus between 1930 and 1941. The school was owned and run by his father's friend, Ahmad Munif al-Aidi. He later studied law at Damascus University, which was called Syrian University until 1958. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in law in 1945.

While a student in college he wrote his first collection of poems entitled ''The Brunette Told Me'', which he published in 1942. It was a collection of romantic verses that made several startling references to a woman's body, sending shock waves throughout the conservative society in Damascus. To make it more acceptable, Qabbani showed it to Munir al-Ajlani, the minister of education who was also a friend of his father and a leading nationalist leader in Syria. Ajlani liked the poems and endorsed them by writing the preface for Nizar's first book.

Diplomatic career

After graduating from law school, Qabbani worked for the Syrian Foreign Ministry, serving as Consul or cultural attaché in several capital cities, including Beirut, Cairo, Istanbul, Madrid, and London. In 1959, when the United Arab Republic was formed, Qabbani was appointed Vice-Secretary of the UAR for its embassies in China. He wrote extensively during these years and his poems from China were some of his finest. He continued to work in diplomacy until he tendered his resignation in 1966.

Poetic influences

At the age of fifteen, Nizar Qabbani’s sister died due to contested reasons. When asked whether he was a revolutionary, the poet answered: “Love in the Arab world is like a prisoner, and I want to set (it) free. I want to free the Arab soul, sense, and body with my poetry. The relationships between men and women in our society are not healthy.” He is known as one of the most feminist and progressive intellectuals of his time.

In 1981, Nizar Qabbani’s wife, Balqees, died in a bombing in Beirut, Lebanon, during the Lebanese civil war. The death of Balqees profoundly affected Qabbani’s psychology and poetry. He expressed his grief in an exceptionally moving poem titled ''Balqees.'' Qabbani blamed all Arab regimes for her death.
Additionally, Qabbani used the death of his beloved Balqees to symbolize the death of Arab people in the Levant by their governments.
"Balqees:
I ask forgiveness.
Maybe your life was for mine, a sacrifice.
I know well that
your killers’ aims
were to kill my words.
My beautiful, rest in peace.
After you, poetry will cease
and womanhood is out of place.
Generations of children flocks
Will keep asking about your long hair locks.
Generations of lovers
will read about you, the true instructor.
One day the Arabs will get it
that they killed the prophetess and the prophets."

The city of Damascus remained the most powerful muse in his poetry, most notably in the ''Jasmine Scent of Damascus''. However, Qabbani expressed his love for all Arab citizens and cities from Mauritania extending to Iraq as one people connected by the same struggle and a rich past. In the second stanza of ''Umm al-Mu'tazz'' he said:
"Every Arab city is my mother,
Damascus, Beirut, Cairo, Baghdad, Khartoum,
Casablanca, Benghazi, Tunis, Amman, Riyadh,
Kuwait, Algiers, Abu Dhabi, and their sisters:
These are my family tree.
All of these cities brought me forth from their wombs, cave me to suck from their breasts.
And filled my pockets with grapes, figs and plums. All of them shook their date palms for me so that I could eat.
Opened their skies for me like a blue notebook so that I could write.
For this reason, I do not enter an Arab city without it calling me, "My son."
I do not knock on the gate of an Arab city without finding my
childhood bed waiting for me.
No Arab city bleeds without my bleeding with it."

Qabbani was a vocal opponent of colonial and imperial western projects in the Middle East. Additionally, Qabbani frequently criticized Arab leaders for their corruption, oppression, and hypocrisy most notably in his poem ''Sultan'':
"O Sultan, my master, if my clothes are ripped and torn
It is because your dogs with claws are allowed to tear me
O Sultan!
Because I dare to approach your deaf walls,
because I tried to reveal my sadness and
tribulation,
I was beaten."

Personal life

Family

Qabbani had two sisters, Wisal and Haifa; he also had three brothers: Mu'taz, Rashid, and Sabah. The latter, Sabah Qabbani, was the most famous after Nizar, becoming director of Syrian radio and TV in 1960 and Syria's ambassador to the United States in the 1980s.

Nizar Qabbani's father, Tawfiq Qabbani, was Syrian while his mother was of Turkish descent. His father had a chocolate factory; he also helped support fighters resisting the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon and was imprisoned many times for his views, greatly affecting the upbringing of Nizar into a revolutionary in his own right. Qabbani's grandfather, Abu Khalil Qabbani, was one of the leading innovators in Arab dramatic literature.

The family name, Qabbani, is derived from Qabban ( ar, قبان) which means Steelyard balance.

Marriages

Nizar Qabbani married twice in his life. His first wife was his cousin Zahra Aqbiq; together they had a daughter, Hadba, and a son, Tawfiq. Tawfiq died due to a heart attack when he was 22 years old when he was in London. Qabbani eulogized his son in the famous poem "To the Legendary Damascene, Prince Tawfiq Qabbani". Zahra Aqbiq died in 2007. His daughter Hadba, born in 1947, was married twice, and lived in London until her death in April 2009.

His second marriage was to an Iraqi woman named Balqis al-Rawi, a schoolteacher he met at a poetry recital in Baghdad; she was killed in the 1981 Iraqi embassy bombing in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War on 15 December 1981. Together they had a son, Omar, and a daughter, Zainab. After the death of Balqis, Qabbani did not marry again.

Late life and death

After the death of Balqees, Qabbani left Beirut. He was moving between Geneva and Paris, eventually settling in London, where he spent the last 15 years of his life. In exile, Qabbani continued to write poems and raise controversies and arguments. Notable and controversial poems from this period in his life include ''When Will They Announce the Death of Arabs?'' and ''Runners''.
At the age of 75, Nizar Qabbani died in London on 30 April 1998 of a heart attack.
In his will, which he wrote in his hospital bed in London, Nizar Qabbani wrote that he wished to be buried in Damascus, which he described in his will as "the womb that taught me poetry, taught me creativity and granted me the alphabet of Jasmine." The great Arab poet was mourned by Arabs all over the world, with international news broadcasts highlighting his illustrious literary career.

Awards and tributes

* 1992–1993 Al Owais Award

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