In his obituary to the celebrated Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani, published a few days after his death in May 1998, Adel Darwish writes that “for Qabbani, national liberation was meaningless without sexual liberation.” Qabbani, who had spent much of his life as a diplomat and ardent Arab nationalist, also spent much of his life as a romantic in more conventional terms, and through verse he brought his world and its muses into vivid, living color. Much of the way in which Qabbani achieved this was by using the language of the everyday, stripped of pretense and elitism. In the plain speech of the two poems presented in translation below (an “Ode to Sadness,” or, Qaṣīdat al-Ḥuzn, and “You Want,” or Turīdīna), one may detect a sort of plaintive hope laced with a countervailing, often tongue-in-cheek cynicism: there is a hope that the narrator can be enough for the woman he adulates, that his words can satisfy, and that she can fulfill him in turn.

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There is also a hope in these poems that the landscapes the poet has traversed — the cities and communities that he has had occasion to inhabit and speak on behalf of throughout his life — might meld with, accommodate, or elucidate his love for another human being. In the first poem, we are told that his lover has taught him “how to see Beirut” (to which he migrated after ending his government career) as a harlot on promenade, bedecked with beautiful robes but also divulging pain. In the second poem, the narrator laments that he is unable to give a woman all that she dreams of because he is “A laborer from Damascus — poor,” who “soak[s his] morning loaf in blood/ [his] hair in spit.” Wrapped up in the complications of love are the complexities of the poet’s relationship with these classed geographies, lending credence to Darwish’s point that Qabbani viewed the health of the nation and the free expression of sexuality as intertwined; his humble Damascene roots are thus both a source of pride and anxiety during courtship, while his lurid portrayal of Beirut goes hand in hand with learning the art of sadness from a practiced, female teacher. Indeed, it is through these ambivalent depictions of contemporary locales and the socioeconomic realities that they intimate that the poet fashions some of the most poignant portions of the poems.

Artwork by Molly Crabapple.

In contrast, one of the great joys of these verses is that Qabbani consciously relishes looking backward through the centuries and across a more extensive regional terrain, revivifying the clichés of classical Arabic love poetry. In the spirit of rediscovering old chestnuts anew, he tells the reader in “Ode to Sadness” (the title of which is itself a throwback to the traditional qaṣīda with its opening refrain of love lost and its peripatetic, camel-mounted middle section) that his lover teaches him to act like a child, to read stories of knighthood and gallantry, and to think of women in terms of all the visually delighting but timeworn tropes that the canon has to offer; reading across the two poems, we find a woman whose lips are like pomegranates and whose eyes are like gulf water — she is redolent with fragrance and her eyes are kohl-rimmed. With respect to imagery, this is a very back-to-basics, classicizing approach to depicting a lover, though encased in the modern structure of free verse rather than the old-school ghazal, or metered love poem. In addition to pairing himself with his beloved, Qabbani marries his Christian, Arab, and more trans-regionally Middle Eastern identities and experiences in these pieces: we find references to church bells and heaven-sent manna alongside allusions to the erstwhile courtyard of the Sasanian sovereign Khosroes (the iwān kisrā) in Ctesiphon and the Thousand and One Nights.

It seems fitting, given the date but also the times, to dive into some poetry that deals in the many and hybrid types of love described above, for women, memories, nations, cultures, and of course, for one’s own self.

An Ode to Sadness

By Nizar Qabbani, tr. Rachel Schine

Your love has taught me… how to be sad.
And I have needed, for ages
A woman to make me sad
A woman in whose arms I could weep
Like a sparrow,
A woman—to gather up my pieces—
Like shards of shattered crystal

Your love has taught me, my dear,
The worst of habits
It has taught me to fill up my glass
A thousand times per night
And to sample the treatment of druggists
To knock at the diviners’ door
It has taught me— I now leave my home
To comb the roadside flagstones
And I stalk your visage
In the rain, and in the lights of cars
I stalk your specter
Even… even…
In sheets of advertisements…

Your love has taught me…
How I’ve been love-lost in my own face—for hours
Searching for a gypsy poem,
That every gypsy girl might envy
Searching for a face—a voice—
Your love is all the faces and all the voices.

Your love has made me enter, my dear
Cities of sorrows
Before you, I had not entered
Cities of sorrows—
I had never known—
That a tear was a person
That a person without sadness
Is the memory of a person…

Your love has taught me…
To behave like kids,
To draw your face—
With chalk upon the walls
And on the sails of fishermen’s crafts
Upon the church bells,
And the crosses.
Your love has taught me…
How love alters the turning of time—
It has taught me that when I love,
The earth holds back its spinning
Your love has taught me things…
That were never part of the accounting
So I read the stories of children—
I entered the palaces of the jinn kings
I dreamed that the daughter of the sultan
Married me—
Those eyes of hers… purer than the gulf waters
Those lips of hers… more luscious than a pomegranate’s bloom
And I dreamed that I safeguarded her
Like the knights,
I dreamed that I gifted her,
With strands of pearl and coral
Your love has taught me, my dear, what delirium is
It has taught me how life goes on,
With the sultan’s daughter never coming.

Your love has taught me…
How I love you in all things
In the naked tree
In the desiccated, yellow leaves
In the rainy weather—in the storms
In the smallest of cafes—
In which we, of an evening, drank our black coffee

Your love has taught me to seek refuge
In nameless hotels
In nameless churches
In nameless cafes
Your love has taught me…
How the night distends with strangers’ sorrows
It has taught me… how to see Beirut:
A woman… a madame of seductions
A woman, wearing each and every night
The finest garments she possesses
Sprinkling perfume on her breasts
For the sailors—and the princes—
Your love has taught me…
To weep for lack of crying
It has taught me how sadness sleeps
Like a young boy with severed feet
On the streets of Rūsha and Ḥamrā’

Your love has taught me… how to be sad.
And I have needed, for ages
A woman to make me sad
A woman in whose arms I could weep
Like a sparrow,
A woman— to gather up my pieces—
Like shards of shattered crystal

You Want

By Nizar Qabbani, tr. Rachel Schine

You want, like all women do,
The treasures of Solomon
Like all women…
Cisterns of perfume
And combs of ivory
Swarms of serving girls
You want, my Ladyship,
Him to proclaim your name like a parrot
To say, “I love you” at dawn
To say, “I love you” at dusk
While washing your legs with wine
O, Shahrazad of women,
You want, like all women do…
You want the stars of the sky from me,
And dishes of manna
And platters of quail
And slippers of chestnut blossoms
You want…
Silks from Shanghai
And from Isfahan—
Onagers’ skins.
But I am not one of those prophets,
Who casts his staff
And splits the sea
Who hews his solid stones from light…
You want, like all women do,
Fans of feathers
And kohl
And fragrance
You want a slave
Of profound idiocy
To read you bedside poetry
You want…
At one and the same time,
Rashid’s palatial court,
And Khosroes’ arching hall,
And a parade of bondsmen and captives
Keeping your skirts’ train in tow
O Cleopatra,
But I am not
Some globetrotting Sindbad,
Who can make Babel appear between your hands
Nor the Pyramids of Egypt
Nor the archway of Khosroes
I do not have a lofty lamp
With which to bring you sunrays through the night
As you desire… all you women…
And what’s more,
O Shahrazad of women,
I am a laborer from Damascus—poor
I soak my morning loaf in blood,
My hair in spit…
I live simply.
And I believe in bread and saints,
And I dream of love like the others,
And a partner patching up the holes
In my robes
A child sleeping on my lap
Like a field sparrow
Like the glow on the water
I think of love like the others
Because a lover is like air
Because a lover is a sun, shining
Upon the dreamers behind castle walls,
Upon the toiling breadwinners,
Upon the wretched
And those who lay down in beds of silk
And those who lay down in beds of sobbing
You want, like all women do…
You want the eighth Wonder of the World,
But I have nothing,
Except my boasts.

Rachel Schine is a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, focusing on premodern Arabic, Judeo-Arabic, and Persian literature. Her research interests include orality and storytelling practices, gender/sexuality and race/race-making in popular texts. Her dissertation is titled, “On Blackness in Arabic Popular Literature: The Black Heroes of the Siyar Sha‘biyya, their Conception, Contests, and Contexts.”

Nizar Tawfiq Qabbani (Arabic: نزار توفيق قباني‎ Nizār Tawfīq Qabbānī) (21 March 1923 – 30 April 1998) was a Syrian diplomat, poet and publisher. His poetic style combines simplicity and elegance in exploring themes of love, eroticism, feminism, religion, and Arab nationalism. Qabbani is one of the most revered contemporary poets in the Arab world,^[1][2] and is considered to be Syria's National Poet.

• 1Biography
• 3Personal life
• 5Bibliography

Biography[edit]

Early life[edit]

Nizar Qabbani was born in the Syrian capital of Damascus to a middle class merchant family of Turkish descent.^[3] His mother is Faiza Akbik is also of Turkish descent. Qabbani was raised in Mi'thnah Al-Shahm, one of the neighborhoods of Old Damascus. Qabbani studied at the national Scientific College School in Damascus between 1930 and 1941.^[4] The school was owned and run by his father's friend, Ahmad Munif al-Aidi. He later studied law at the Damascus University, which was called Syrian University until 1958. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in law in 1945.^[4]

While a student in college he wrote his first collection of poems entitled The Brunette Told Me. 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.^[4] 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[edit]

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 the diplomatic د until he tendered his resignation in 1966. By that time, he had established a publishing house in Beirut, which carried his name ().

Poetic influences[edit]

When Qabbani was 15, his sister, who was 25 at the time, committed suicide because she refused to marry a man she did not love.^[5] During her funeral he decided to fight the social conditions he saw as causing her death. 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.^[5]

The city of Damascus remained a powerful muse in his poetry, most notably in the Jasmine Scent of Damascus.^[5] The 1967 Six-Day War also influenced his poetry and his lament for the Arab cause.^[5][6] The defeat marked a qualitative shift in Qabbani's work – from erotic love poems to poems with overt political themes of rejectionism and resistance.^[5] For instance, his poem Marginal Notes on the Book of Defeat, a stinging self-criticism of Arab inferiority, drew anger from both the right and left sides of the Arab political dialogue.

Personal life[edit]

Nizar Qabbani Quotes

Family[edit]

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 great uncle, Abu Khalil Qabbani, was one of the leading innovators in Arab dramatic literature.

Qabbani family were of Turkish origin who originated from Konya.^[7] Qabbani is derived from Qabban (Arabic: قبان‎) which means Steelyard balance.^[8]

Marriages[edit]

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,^[9] born in 1947, was married twice, and lived in London until her death in April 2009.^[9]

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.^[4][5] Her death had a severe psychological effect on Qabbani; he expressed his grief in his famous poem Balqis, blaming the entire Arab world for her death. Together they had a son, Omar, and a daughter, Zainab. After the death of Balqis, Qabbani did not marry again.

Late life and death[edit]

After the death of Balqis, Qabbani left Beirut. He was moving between Geneva and Paris, eventually settling in London, where he spent the last 15 years of his life.^[5] Qabbani continued to write poems and raise controversies and arguments. Notable controversial poems from this period in his life include When Will They Announce the Death of Arabs? and Runners.

In 1997, Nizar Qabbani suffered from poor health and briefly recovered from his sickness in late 1997.^[10] A few months later, at the age of 75, Nizar Qabbani died in London on 30 April 1998 of a heart attack.^[3][6] 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.'^[11] Nizar Qabbani was buried in Damascus four days later in Bab al-Saghir.^[11] Qabbani was mourned by Arabs all over the world, with news broadcasts highlighting his illustrious literary career.^[11]

Bibliography[edit]

Poetry[edit]

Qabbani began writing poetry when he was 16 years old; at his own expense, Qabbani published his first book of poems, entitled The Brunette Told Me(قالت لي السمراء), while he was a law student at the University of Damascus in 1944.

Over the course of a half-century, Qabbani wrote 34 other books of poetry, including:

• Childhood of a Breast (1948) طفولة نهد
• Samba (1949) سامبا
• You Are Mine (1950) أنت لي
• Poems (1956) قصائد
• My Beloved (1961) حبيبتي
• Drawing with Words (1966) الرسم بالكلمات
• Diary of an Indifferent Woman (1968) يوميات امرأة لا مبالية
• Savage Poems (1970) قصائد متوحشة
• Book of Love (1970) كتاب الحب
• 100 Love Letters (1970) مئة رسالة حب
• Poems Against The Law (1972) أشعار خارجة على القانون
• I Love You, and the Rest is to Come (1978) أحبك أحبك و البقية تأتي
• To Beirut the Feminine, With My Love (1978) إلى بيروت الأنثى مع حبي
• May You Be My Love For Another Year (1978) كل عام وأنت حبيبتي
• I Testify That There Is No Woman But you (1979) أشهد أن لا امرأة إلا أنت
• Secret Diaries of Baheyya the Egyptian (1979) اليوميات السرية لبهية المصرية
• I Write the History of Woman Like So (1981) هكذا أكتب تاريخ النساء
• The Lover's Dictionary (1981) قاموس العاشقين
• A Poem For Balqis (1982) قصيدة بلقيس
• Love Does Not Stop at Red Lights (1985) الحب لا يقف على الضوء الأحمر
• Insane Poems (1985)أشعار مجنونة
• Poems Inciting Anger (1986) قصائد مغضوب عليها
• Love Shall Remain My Lord (1987) سيبقى الحب سيدي
• The Trilogy of the Children of the Stones (1988) ثلاثية أطفال الحجارة
• Secret Papers of a Karmathian Lover (1988) الأوراق السرية لعاشق قرمطي
• Biography of an Arab Executioner (1988) السيرة الذاتية لسياف عربي
• I Married You, Liberty! (1988) تزوجتك أيتها الحرية
• A Match in My Hand , And Your Petty Paper Nations (1989) الكبريت في يدي ودويلاتكم من ورق
• No Victor Other Than Love (1989) لا غالب إلا الحب
• Do You Hear the Cry of My Sadness? (1991) هل تسمعين صهيل أحزاني ؟
• Marginal Notes on the Book of Defeat (1991) هوامش على الهوامش
• I'm One Man and You are a Tribe of Women (1992) أنا رجل واحد وأنت قبيلة من النساء
• Fifty Years of Praising Women (1994) خمسون عاما في مديح النساء
• Nizarian Variations of Arabic Maqam of Love (1995) تنويعات نزارية على مقام العشق
• Alphabet of Jasmine (1998) أبجدية الياسمين

Other works[edit]

He also composed many works of prose, such as My Story with Poetryقصتي مع الشعر, What Poetry Isما هو الشعر, and Words Know Angerالكلمات تعرف الغضب, On Poetry, Sex, and Revolutionعن الشعر والجنس والثورة, Poetry is a Green Lanternالشعر قنديل أخضر, Birds Don't Require a Visaالعصافير لا تطلب تأشيرة دخول, I Played Perfectly and Here are my Keysلعبت بإتقان وها هي مفاتيحي and The Woman in My Poetry and My Lifeالمرأة في شعري وفي حياتي, as well as one play named Republic of Madness Previously Lebanonجمهورية جنونستان لبنان سابقا and lyrics of many famous songs of celebrated Arab singers, including:

• Mohammed Abdel Wahab ( Ayazon : does he think? ) ^[12]
• Abdel Halim Hafez ( Qareat Alfinjan : The cup reader ) ^[12]
• Fairuz ( La Tasaalouny : Don't Ask Me ) ^[12]
• Kadhim Al-Sahir ( Madrasat Alhob : School of Love) ^[12]
• Umm Kulthum ( Alan Endi Bondoqyah : Now I Have Rifle ) ^[12]
• Latifa ( Talomony Aldunia : The universe blames me ) ^[12]
• Majida El Roumi (Beirut Sit Aldunia : Lady of universe Beirut ) ^[12]
• Asalah (Egdhab kama Tashaa : Get angry as you may ) ^[12]
• Najat Al Saghira^[13] ( Matha Aqool Laho? : What shall I say to him? ) ^[12]

And his verses would remain popular after his death, and put to song by Arab pop-music stars such as Kazem al-Saher and Latifa.^[11] However, such songs were introduced after filtering the original poems.

Other languages[edit]

Many of Qabbani's poems have also been translated into English and other languages, both individually and as collections of selected works.^[4] Some of these collections include:

English

• On Entering the Sea (1998)
• Arabian Love Poems (1998) translated by Bassam Frangieh and Clementina R. Brown
• Republic of Love (2002) translated by Nayef al-Kalali
• Journal of An Indifferent Woman (2015) translated by George Nicolas El-Hage, Ph.D

Italian

• Poesie, a cura di G. Canova, M.A. De Luca, P. Minganti, A. Pellitteri, Istituto per l’Oriente, Roma 1976.
• Il fiammifero è in mano mia e le vostre piccole nazioni sono di carta e altri versi, a cura di V. Colombo, San Marco dei Giustiniani, Genova 2001.
• Il libro dell’amore, traduzione di M. Avino, in Antologia della letteratura araba contemporanea. Dalla nahda a oggi, a cura di M. Avino, I. Camera d’Afflitto, Alma Salem, Carocci, Roma 2015, pp. 116–117.
• Le mie poesie più belle, traduzione dall’arabo a cura di N. Salameh e S. Moresi, postfazione di P. Caridi, Jouvence, Milano 2016.

Nizar Qabbani Quotes

Nepali

• Many of Qabbani's poems has been translated into Nepali by Suman Pokhrel, and are collected in an anthology tilled Manpareka Kehi Kavita.^[14][15][16]

Hindi

Many of Qabbani's poems are translated into Hindi by Siddheshwar Singh, Arpana Manoj, Manoj Patel, Rinu Talwar and other translators.^[17]

Russian

Evgeniy Dyakonov wrote his PhD thesis on the translation of Nizar Qabbani's poetry into Russian; Dyakonov's translations were published by Biblos Consulting, Moscow, in 2007.^[18]

Nizar Qabbani Poetry

References[edit]

1. ^Darwish, Adel (5 May 1998). 'Obituary: Nizar Qabbani'. The Independent.
2. ^“Nizar Qabbani: From Romance to Exile”, Muhamed Al Khalil, 2005, A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Department of Near Eastern Studies in partial ulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate College of the University of Arizona, USA.
3. ^ ^ab'Qabbani, Nizar'. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 23 June 2007.
4. ^ ^abcde'Biographical notes on Nizar Qabbani'. American University of Beirut. Retrieved 23 June 2007.
5. ^ ^abcdefg'Nizar Qabbani'. PoemHunter.com. Retrieved 23 June 2007.
6. ^ ^ab'Nizar Qabbani, Major Arab Literary Figure, Dies'. CNN.com. 30 April 1998. Archived from the original on 25 May 2005. Retrieved 23 June 2007.
7. ^Sadgrove, Philip (2010), 'Ahmad Abu Khalil al-Qabbani (1833–1902)', in Allen, Roger M. A.; Lowry, Joseph Edmund; Stewart, Devin J. (eds.), Essays in Arabic Literary Biography: 1850–1950, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, p. 267, ISBN978-3447061414
8. ^تعريف و معنى قبان في معجم المعاني الجامع - معجم عربي عربي. almaany (in Arabic).
9. ^ ^ab'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 30 May 2009. Retrieved 29 May 2009.CS1 maint: Archived copy as title (link)
10. ^'Qabbani Recovered from Sickness, Gratitude Message to Syrians'. Arabic News. 15 December 1997. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 23 June 2007.
11. ^ ^abcd'Nizar Qabbani: Pioneer of Modern Arab Poetry'. Arabic News. 4 May 1998. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 23 June 2007.
12. ^ ^abcdefghi'قصائد نزار قباني المغنّاة... من فيروز وأم كلثوم إلى كاظم الساهر وماجدة الرومي'. Laha Magazine. 11 August 2015. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
13. ^'Who is Najat Al Saghira?'. 19 June 2015. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
14. ^Akhmatova, Anna; Świrszczyńska, Anna; Ginsberg, Allen; Agustini, Delmira; Farrokhzad, Forough; Mistral, Gabriela; Jacques, Jacques; Mahmoud, Mahmoud; Al-Malaika, Nazik; Hikmet, Nazim; Qabbani, Nizar; Paz, Octavio; Neruda, Pablo; Plath, Sylvia; Amichai, Yehuda (2018). Manpareka Kehi Kavitaमनपरेका केही कविता [Some Poems of My Choice] (Print)|format= requires |url= (help) (in Nepali). Translated by Pokhrel, Suman (First ed.). Kathmandu: Shikha Books. p. 174. ISBN978-9937-9244-5-0.
15. ^Tripathi, Geeta (2018). 'अनुवादमा 'मनपरेका केही कविता'' [Manpareka Kehi Kavita in Translation]. Kalashree. pp. 358–359.
16. ^Prof. Abhi Subedi : Sahitya ra Aam Britta p 189, 2014, ISBN978 9937 852531
17. ^http://kavitakosh.org/kk/निज़ार_क़ब्बानी
18. ^http://www.arabbook.ru/?document=22&lng=ru

The life and times of Nizar Qabbani, The Nation, Faizan Ali Warraich, 10-October-2018, https://nation.com.pk/11-Oct-2018/the-life-and-times-of-nizar-qabbani

External links[edit]

• Nizar Qabbani's books(in Arabic)
• Qabbani in English at Poems Found in Translation
• Thoughts Inspired by PBS’s Two-Sentence Report on The Death of Syrian Poet Nizar Qabbani By Salman M. Hilmy, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October/November 1998, pages 74–76
• English translations of Qabbani's poems I Decided, At Zero and I wrote on the wind.
• NYT article about Dec 1981 bomb attack on Iraqi Embassy in Beirut: https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/16/world/bomb-wrecks-iraqi-embassy-in-beirut.html