Personal Info
- Country of residence: Syria
Information
Muhammad Azza bin Abd al-Hadi
Darwaza (June 21, 1887 - July 26, 1984) was an Arab thinker, writer, and
nationalist. He was born in Nablus and died in Damascus. In addition to his
political struggle, he was a writer, historian, journalist, translator and
interpreter of the Qur'an. He is one of the founders of Arab nationalist
thought along with Sati Al-Husri and Zaki Al-Arsuzi.
His struggle took a unitary form
that transcended the conditions of fragmentation and artificial borders, so he
participated in the establishment and activity of militant Arab independence
unionist associations and parties in Greater Syria (before its division by
colonialism in 1920), such as the Al-Arabiya Al-Fatat Association and the Arab
Istiqlal Party, and opposed the policy of Turkification. He is a member of the
General Syrian Congress (1919 AD), secretary of the Constituent Assembly, and
one of the drafters of the first Syrian constitution. From the balcony of the
Damascus municipality in Marjah Square, he announced the independence of Syria
and the establishment of the Syrian Arab Kingdom on March 8, 1920. He led many
activities against the British mandate over Palestine and the policy of
dividing Arab lands, and called for the unification of Syria and Egypt in the
fifties of the twentieth century. His autobiography is a history of the
national struggle, independence and unionist movement during the twentieth
century.
Darwazah left more than fifty books
on various sciences related to Arabism, Islam and general history, including a
series of books on the history of the Arab movement and the origins of Arab
nationalism and Arab unity. His books, especially the book “Arab Unity,” are
among the most important books on Arab nationalism and on ways to achieve Arab
unity.
his family
Muhammad Azza (pronounced Izzat)
grew up in a family from the “Al-Farihat” clan, which lives in the village of
Kafranja in the Ajloun region, east of Jordan. It seems that a large part of
the clan abandoned the village at the beginning of the eleventh century AH, and
some of them headed to Nablus. His father, Abd al-Hadi ibn Darwish Darwaza, was
a textile merchant in the famous old Khan al-Tijjar market in the Old City of
Nablus, where he imported his goods from Beirut and Damascus, as Muhammad Azza
reports in his memoirs. It is believed that his family name is derived from the
work of some of his grandfathers in sewing.
his education and culture
Darwazah received his basic
education in Nablus, where he obtained a primary certificate in the year 1900.
After that, he joined the Rashadiya School (today's Fatimid), which is an
intermediate secondary school, and graduated from it after three years,
obtaining its certificate.
Darwazah educated himself and
covered deficiencies by diligent reading and perusal to compensate for not
completing his studies. He read the different books he had in the fields of
literature, history, sociology and law, whether they were in Arabic or in
Turkish and English, which he was fluent in. His work in the Postal Service
allowed him to view the Egyptian periodicals circulating at the time, such as
Al-Ahram, Al-Hilal Magazine, Al-Moayad Newspaper, Al-Moqattam Newspaper, and
Al-Muqtataf Magazine, by virtue of the passage of these publications through
the mail for distribution to subscribers. These periodicals carried a variety
of cultural content and discussed hot issues at the time. They opened the
horizons of thought to the bright young man's mind, broadened his perceptions,
refined his talents, and made him aware of the events that were taking place
throughout the Ottoman Empire.
He did not receive knowledge at the
hands of specialized scholars except for short and intermittent periods during
which he attended lessons in jurisprudence from Sheikh Mustafa Al-Khayyat at
the Great Salahi Mosque in Nablus, and lessons on hadith from the book Sahih
Al-Bukhari from Sheikh Suleiman Al-Sharabi, and others in grammar and
morphology from Sheikh Musa Al-Qaddoumi, who was the director He attended the
religious institute in Nablus until 1967. Darwazah continued to be interested
in science and education while performing his job, and he carried his bookcase
in all his travels and movements, and he did not leave the book in his hand for
most of his day until he read, in a period not exceeding thirty years, one
thousand five hundred books and volumes in various Topics include language,
morphology, grammar, literature, poetry, stories, history, interpretation,
biography and hadith.
his jobs and career
Darwazah moved professionally in
three fields: telegraph and mail, education, and endowments, before devoting
himself to politics and then writing.
in telegraph and mail
The financial circumstances of his
family did not enable him to complete his studies, so he joined government work
as an employee in the Telegraph and Post Department in Nablus in 1906, then
moved to Beirut to work in the Telegraph and Post Directorate in 1914, then
became its director. He was promoted inspector of the civil telegraph and mail
centers in Sinai and Beersheba, and he continued to advance in his positions
until he became in the year 1921 secretary of the court of Prince Abdullah, the
Emir of Transjordan, but he left him after a month, and turned to the field of
education.
Darwazah's first attempts at writing
began during his work in the Telegraph and Post Office, so he contacted the
press, and participated in editing the Ottoman Brotherhood newspaper, which was
published in Beirut by Ahmed Shaker al-Tibi. He used to write a weekly article
dealing with a social or patriotic issue in the Beirut Al-Haqiqa newspaper,
which was published by Kamal bin Sheikh Abbas. He also published articles in
the Palestine newspaper, which was published by Issa Daoud Al-Issa in Jaffa,
and the Al-Carmel newspaper, which was published by Najeeb Nassar in Haifa.
in education
Darwaza returned to Nablus in
October 1918, a month after it fell to the British at the end of World War I.
He moved to the field of education, and in 1921 he assumed the management of
Al-Najah National School, which had been established in Nablus in 1917. The
school was transformed by his hands into one of the centers of patriotism in
addition to its teaching and educational mission. It develops programs that
nurture pride in Arab and Islamic glories and civilization. His efforts in the
five years that he took over the management of the school led to the
improvement of its systems and the upgrading of its curricula until it became
of great stature. His influence was evident in her national orientation, as she
graduated during his presidency and taught many young people who had a
prominent role in the history of the Palestinian national movement. Darwaza at this
stage played a major role in educating the students of the school, from whom
later leaders emerged such as Suleiman al-Nabulsi, the Prime Minister of
Jordan. Among the students of the Darwaza was Akram Zuaiter, who later became a
diplomat and nationalist activist. Zuaiter mentioned that Darwazah used to give
students a weekly lesson on the principles of Arab nationalism and modern
society, and this had a great impact on the development of their thinking and
broadening their horizons.
Darwazah remained committed to this
work for five consecutive years, and the burdens of school did not distract him
from writing social and educational articles, which he used to supply the
magazines Al-Kashf in Beirut, and the New Woman in Cairo, and published
political articles in the newspapers of the Arab League and Al-Quds in
Palestine.
in endowments
In the year 1928, Darwazah moved to
work in the Islamic Endowments Department, where he was appointed
superintendent of the Endowments in Nablus. Then, in 1932, he was promoted to
General Director of the Islamic Endowments in Palestine, and he remained in
this position until the outbreak of the Great Palestinian Revolution in 1936.
As a result of his participation in the revolution, the Department issued The
British Mandate issued a decision to remove him from his position in 1937 and
another decision to prevent him from returning to Palestine, where he was
outside at the outbreak of the revolution, and that was the end of the Darwaza
era in governmental and private jobs.
Achievements and Awards
His death and appreciation
Muhammad Azza Darwazah gave the last
interview to the Palestinian journalist Muhammad Musleh in the year 1983, over
a period of 8 days, during which he was allowed to photograph all his memoirs
without exception, and Musleh says that it was clear that Darwazah’s health was
in constant decline. Muhammad Azza Darwazah died in the Al-Rawda neighborhood
in Damascus on Thursday, July 26, 1984, corresponding to Shawwal 28, 1404 AH.
Darwazah was one of the most
important early nationalist thinkers, along with Sati al-Husri and Zaki
al-Arsuzi. Muhammad Azza Darwazah did not yet take the position he deserves
among the great Arab nationalist writers, despite his great contribution to
laying the foundations of traditional Arab national thought (especially in the
books “Arab Unity” and “The History of the Arab Race”), and his tireless
struggle within the Palestinian national movement during the first half. Of the
twentieth century, his literary and intellectual achievements are evident.
Perhaps this cultural blockade of the Druze and other nationalist thinkers is
imposed as part of the program of the ruling Arab regimes (including the
leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization) to fight any unitary
tendency and preserve the ruling chairs in scattered states. Darwazah himself
did not like to appear, and he did not hold any government political positions,
despite his intense political activity, his complex relationships, and his
friendship with influential personalities. He always chose to leave the front
ranks of others at a time when he was pushing the general trend strongly away
from negligence and concessions and towards a more radical and unitary
direction in the Palestinian national action, and at a time when he was taking
risks and incurring hardship, and at a time when he was wasting hours at work
Hardworking and spends the days traveling.
Interest in the books and heritage
of Muhammad Azza Darwazah focused on a few writers who were his contemporaries.
Recently, the era of the Internet and electronic books has contributed to
unveiling Darwazah's contributions and major achievements in several fields.
National, historical, cultural and Islamic. The following are the most
important books and studies published on Darwazah and his contributions:
Muhammad Azza Darwazah: Pages from
His Life, Jihad, and His Writings, written by Hussein Omar Hamadeh. General
Union of Palestinian Writers and Journalists, Beirut. 1983.
“National Anthologies of Muhammad
Azza Darwazah,” written by Naji Alloush. Center for Arab Unity Studies, Beirut.
1988. In the National Heritage Series.
Muhammad Azza Darwaza, ninety-five
years of life, notes and recordings. Ali Jarbawi and Hassan Shakhshir.
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