Ahmad amiable, open-minded and gifted educator
A brilliant mind and strong passion for learning
This is the first in a series of articles on Ahmad Meshari Al Adwani (1923-1990), an outstanding poet and gifted educator
ABy Lidia Qattan
— Editor
hmad Meshari Al Adwani was born in 1923 in a middle-class family of merchants; his father, Meshari Al Adwani used to travel to India on his business trips hence, during his absence from home Ahmad being the eldest of his brothers had to assume the responsibility of taking his place in the family till he was back.
Incidentally in the pre-oil era in Kuwait when most of the men were abroad for business during the trade season that lasted up to nine months or were engaged at sea during the pearl-diving season that lasted up to four months the elder boys in the family had to assume their father’s place in his absence and behave responsibly as young adults.
Then the typical family unit was large for mutual support and convenience; in it the adults were teaching the children from an early age how to behave while preparing them for life through assuming some family responsibilities that increased as they grew older. At nine years old both boys and girls were well trained in family responsibilities hence to behave as young adults.
Ahmad grew very close to his mother, hence his higher respect of women; apparently she also influenced his amiable-open-minded disposition and shy temperament, traits that won him the respect of his peers. One of his closest friends was the strong-minded, dynamic intellectual, Abdul Aziz Hussein Al Tarkait, he befriended him during their first trip to Egypt to continue their higher education at the Cairo University.
Though sociable, enjoying children games, Ahmad loved to sit by the shore at sun-set watching the sun go down below the horizon absorbed in his own thoughts while enjoying the rippling waves gently rolling at his feet. All Nature inspired him, especially at night when sleeping on the terrace of his house under the starry sky it allowed his mind wandering through the infinity of creation bringing the poet and the philosopher out of him. For him the vast infinity of the heaven was a constant font of inspiration, a passive enjoyment of allowing ideas, images and emotions flow of themselves, as it were through his mind, occasionally experiencing a state of exultation, when, with the expansion of his self-conscious mind, came a stet of cosmic consciousness with the vision of a larger life opening before him. From those early experiences evolved the value and potency of his philosophy, which is the reflection of a healthy-minded disposition towards life in general enhanced by his liberal views on society.
Lidia Qattan
Wisdom
Because of his quiet disposition Ahmad was accepted in adult gatherings, from them he absorbed the wisdom that nurtured the special philosophical tendency of his poetry and his love for knowledge.
Ahmad Meshari Al Adwani began his schooling with a Mullah whose severity left a deep impression on his mind; although he never suffered punishment, he felt hurt seeing his friends undergoing painful, humiliating beatings for trivial offenses those early memories left a reactionary tendency against the educational method of those days. From that time his dream was to make the school, especially for the younger children a happy environment where love and kindness took the place of austerity for the inculcation of a sound morality and love of learning. Throughout his years of schooling Ahmad was an “A” student, for this reason he was one of the first students granted a scholarship to study abroad.
The thirtieth were a decade of innovations leading to the modernization of Kuwait; to meet the challenge a strategy was adopted for preparing the younger generation of brilliant individuals to assume future responsibilities.
Incidentally, the discovery of oil at Bahar in 1934, though not in sufficient commercial quantity it spurred a handful of volunteers of the elite merchant class headed by Sheikh Abdullah Al Jaber to take into greater consideration the education movement, besides other civil administrative innovations.
In 1936 the education department was established, teachers were brought from abroad (Palestine) and in 1937 schools for both boys and girls opened in town with a completely revised curriculum that included the seeds of higher culture, whose development was spurred by an yearly festival held in competition by every school in town.
Education
When the Burgan rich oil field was discovered in February 1938, it fired the educational incentive further; for, that was the beginning of sending promising students abroad to complete their higher education, enhancing their chances of becoming leaders and administrators in the future development of their country. That same year (1938) two teachers, one graduate and one student were the first group sent to Cairo, Egypt; with the establishing of a head-office looking after the student’s welfare, other groups of about fifty students soon followed. From 1956, the first group of girls left the country for a higher education, thereby opening the way to full women’s emancipation.
Incidentally Ahmad Meshari Al Adwani was among the very first group leaving the country, with him were Yousef Meshari Al Beder and Yousef Abdullah Al Omar both teachers, and the young graduate Abdul Aziz Hussein Al Tarkait, who became his closest friend. The young men shared one specification: a brilliant mind and a strong passion for learning.
Ahmadi Al Adwani was the youngest of the group, a 14 years old teenager with strong morals and a sense of vision. Abdul Aziz Hussein was of about the same age; during the long journey to Egypt by land and sea he discovered in Ahmad a young man after his very heart. He felt comfortable in sharing his opinion with him because he was taken by the same serious reflections on important questions which led to the cultural awakening of the sixties.
Cairo with its mundane excitement and intellectual richness strongly contrasting with the simplicity of life in Kuwait made a strong impact on Ahmad and his companions. During the 11 years Ahmad spent in Cairo he completed his formal education, got his diploma in Arabic literature at not against imperialism or on behalf of the Arab struggle, but against the growing threat of ruffianism and hypocrisy crippling civil life, which he compared to a city of dead, a city without a conscience, hence without a future while himself keeping aloof above the tide.
With passionate sincerity and humane feelings combine to his philosophical pondering he reveals his optimism in the final victory of victory over a destitute morality.
To be continued