Abdul Aziz promotes pure Arabic poetry
Poet harnessed all his faculties to succeed
This is the seventh in a series of articles on Dr Abdul Aziz Saud Abdul Aziz Al Babtain, a tycoon and a poet, an outstanding intellectual in the galaxy of Kuwaiti pioneers
TBy Lidia Qattan
he great setback in achieving Arab unification is the inherent individualistic tendency of the Arab race fostered by its ancient culture.
Indeed so jealous are the Arabs of their individual autonomy that not even the power of Islam, or the Arab nationalist movement could affect a lasting unity!.
The National Movement, which was born in 1847 under the leadership of the poet, Nasif Yazeji and the linguist Brutus Bustani, was not only a battle cry against imperialism, in itself it was a call for the revival of Arab culture, of literature and poetry in particular.
Ruthlessly extinguished by the Ottoman Turks, that cry was again heard in 1908, it has been echoing ever since in the works of intellectuals and poets.
Their work was successful in redeeming the Arab nation from the bonds of foreign empires, whose political scheme further fragmented the Arab world with establishing individual states and their frontiers; before then tribes could move freely throughout the Arabian peninsula in search of pasture and waterholes for their animals.
Though the Arabs share the same religion, the same history, and the same language they are far from united; the situation is aggravated by the growing materialistic tendency of institutions that are oblivious of the spiritual need of the nation.
Abdul Aziz Saud Al Babtain saw the role of the Arab intellectual as the key to a cultural unity; observing that the use of individual Arabian dialects in poetry has been widening the gulf between Arabian communities instead of narrowing it down, he strove to do something to avert it.
Noticing that local authorities were giving no importance to the flourishing of higher culture, and prosperous individuals were doing nothing in favor of awakening the creative spirit of the nation, as a man of means he took action hoping others would follow his example.
All cultural, political and social changes begin with the pioneering work of individuals. Abdul Aziz Saud Al Babtain is the first man in Kuwait, if not in the whole of the Arab world, who set his heart and soul and his wealth to improve the standard of higher culture in the field in which he is mostly concerned.
By systematically encouraging the development of pure Arabic poetry, he has been striving to obliterate the intellectual frontier set-up by individual dialects. For this reason, although he loves the N’abatian poets and is thrilled by their work, he will not encourage their creativity.
He made an exception in 1997, when she sponsored a special study on the work of the late poet, Mohammed Bin La’boon, whose poetry is closest to pure Arabic.
Commitment
The idea that led Abdul Aziz Saud Al Babtain to a life of commitment in the revival of the pure Arabic poetry, had been fermenting in his mind from the forties, when as a child he was sitting quietly in his father’s diwaniya taking tea around to the guests, listening to fits of inspired poetry, absorbing its portent.
At that time his elder brother, Abdul Latif Saud Al Babtain was busy noting down the work of contemporary poets, of those frequenting the Diwaniya of his father, and of others of the Arabian Peninsula whose work was reaching him directly or indirectly.
Later, the collection of N’abatian poetry Abdul Latif compiled became instrumental in saving from oblivion a wealth of N’abatian poetry, whose historical portent was fully recognized when published in book-form in 1995.
As he grew older and he became
Lidia Qattan
that procrastinated the development of the project, the Abdul Aziz Saud Al Babtain Prize for Creative Poetry festival was established in Cairo, Egypt, and continued for three consecutive years under the auspices of the Egyptian minister of culture, Farook Husni.
In 1991 the first board of directors “Mejless Al Omana’ ”was formed headed by Dr Abdul Aziz Saud Al Babtain himself, consisting of 9 members chosen from different parts of the Arabian world, reelected every three years.
The function of this Board has been to further the scope of the institution, to appoint the prizes, to schedule and prepare for the next festival, to chose the candidates for the prizes among hundreds of entries, to determine where the festival will be held and the sequence of events that will be taking place.
Another, “Mejless Al Am “(the General Board) was elected to carry out the resolutions passed by the Board of Directors.
From 1992 the Abdul Aziz Saud Al Babtain Prize for Creative Poetry evolved into a comprehensive cultural activity of greater consequence, because of the serious studies carried out by renown critics, concerning the work of a chosen poet in whose name each festival has been held and the study that is scheduled to be held during the festival; those studies are then published in book form.
By such festivals a wealth of books is being produced on contemporary poetry in its variety of schools and forms, providing a wealth of information of great value to scholars and to students for generations to come.
At the same time the meeting of so many critics, intellectuals and poets at those festivals from all over the Muslim world, the exchange of their views, the published studies of each festival in books that are given out free of change to cultural institutions; the whole combined makes those events a strong factor in the acknowledgement of contemporary regional Arabian poetry, while drawing the whole Muslim world into one common cultural objective.
To be continued