Muhammad Mahdi al-Jawahiri

Muhammad Mahdi al-Jawahiri (محمد مهدي الجواهري) (26 July 1899 – 27 July 1997) was an Iraqi poet.

Why is it whenever a violent storm shakes us thoroughly we resort to pen and paper?
Did the writers or the poets rescue Sham [Syria] or Baghdad by their writings?

Quotes

• O Damascus, be strong in the face of hardships / as gold being melted many times but never burns out.
  • As quoted in Khaleel, Ahmed (2015) The Poetics of Human Rights: Auden and al-Jawahiri in the 1930s. PhD thesis, University of York[1], citing as "Dimashq Jabhat al-Majd": 44.

• Do you know or do you not know / that the wounds of victims are a mouth?
  • From the poem "My Brother Jaʿfar", as quoted in Thompson, E. F. (2018). The 1948 Wathba Revisited. International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies

• أكلما عصفت بالشعب عاصفة     هوجاء نستصرخ القرطاس و القلما
  هل أنقذ الشام كتاب بما كتبوا     أو شاعر صان بغدادا بما نظما
  • Why is it whenever a violent storm shakes us thoroughly we resort to pen and paper?
    Did the writers or the poets rescue Sham [Syria] or Baghdad by their writings?
    • Bleeding Palestine (1929)

• سلى الحوادث و التاريخ هل عرفا     حقا ورأيا بغير القوة احترما
  • Ask history and its events; has it ever seen any right unprotected by force respected?
    • Bleeding Palestine (1929)

• They boast that a towering tyrannical wave
  has blocked the path to every outlet and escape
  But they lie, for my verses fill the mouth of time
  endlessly traversing from the east to the west
  Tearing them from their youth and dropping them
  to their fate, destroying their grand palace of lies
  For I am their death, bringing their houses upon them,
  inciting even doormen and babies to curse their name!
  • From the poem "My Brother Jaʿfar", as quoted in The Dangers of Poetry: Culture, Politics, and Revolution in Iraq by Kevin M. Jones

• What further wishes and desires / do you seek from life
  Have you been offered / to see all your dreams come true
  And the mighty hands were / willing to satisfy you
  But you love to suffer / like the pious’ love for adhān.
  • From the poem "Fī al-Sijn", lines 1– 4, as quoted in Khaleel, A.F. (2016). Suffering and Techniques of Poetic Resistance: Mohammed Mahdi al-Jawahiri's "In Jail" and W. H. Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts". Journal of Literature and Trauma Studies 5(1), 95-120. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jlt.2016.0016.

Quotes about

• Muhmmad al-Jawahiri's poetry is highly charged with emotion and the explosive nature of his violent and often original imagery has an almost physical impact on his reader, with the result that the poet's anger at social injustice, political corruption and the degradation of man becomes infectious and reaches a degree of intensity that is at times truly terrifying.
  • Mohammed Mustafa Badawi, as quoted in Altoma, S. J. (1997). MUHAMMAD MAHDIAL-JAWAHIRI (1900?-1997). Arab Studies Quarterly, 19(4), v–viii. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41858216

• It is regrettable that only a very few poems or excerpts of his works have been translated into English. This is due in large measure to the fact that his poetry draws, as indicated earlier, on a rich legacy of rhetorical usages, allusions, and other devices which are not easily translatable. The fact that his poetry is highly political and that he was openly critical of the West has undoubtedly contributed to his marginal place in, or even total absence from, Western works on modern Arabic literature.
  • Altoma, Salih J. "In memoriam: Muhammad Mahdi al-Jawahiri (1900?-1997)." Arab Studies Quarterly 19, no. 4 (1997): V+. Gale Academic OneFile (accessed March 16, 2025). https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A20576619/AONE?u=anon~ca2f674f&sid=googleScholar&xid=a5967cc1.

• He [al-Jawahiri] played an important role through his poetry in the political scene of his time, inciting public emotions against political decadence and compromise, and subsequently suffering oppression and exile.
  • Salma Khadra Jayyusi, as quoted in Altoma, S. J. (1997). MUHAMMAD MAHDIAL-JAWAHIRI (1900?-1997). Arab Studies Quarterly, 19(4), v–viii. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41858216

• The poetry of Muhammad Mahdi al-Jawahiri has penetrated the Arab soul, in Iraq, gradually and with ease for more than forty years of Iraq's modern history. It has become a part of the emotional, intellectual, and political experience of the entire nation no matter how much individuals differ in their attitudes toward the poet himself... He is more like the voice of the nation's conscience.
  • Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, as quoted in Altoma, S. J. (1997). MUHAMMAD MAHDIAL-JAWAHIRI (1900?-1997). Arab Studies Quarterly, 19(4), v–viii. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41858216