Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Noah Ibrahim (1913- October 28,
1938), dubbed “the popular poet of the 1936 revolution” and “the student of
al-Qassam,” is a Palestinian popular poet, singer, composer, and activist. He
was born in Haifa, Palestine. He wrote poetry from an early age.
The poet Noah Ibrahim expressed the
sentiments of his people in a smooth manner, and in an easy, lyrical,
understandable language, approaching ordinary speech, carrying within it the
love of the homeland, calling for its defense, and urging people to revolution.
His poetry represented the beginning of the golden age of Palestinian popular
poetry, and he carried with his contemporaries among popular poets such as:
Farhan Salam, Abu Saeed al-Hutini and Saud al-Asadi the concern of the
Palestinian society, and its revolutionary resistance against the British
occupation and Zionist settlement in the thirties of the last century.
Noah Ibrahim organized a large
number of folk songs and poems on various Palestinian and Arab national and
political issues and events in that period, and his songs became widely known,
so the CDs of his songs spread all over Palestine, so much of his poetry turned
into chants on the mouths of people in marches and demonstrations, and some of
his songs It is still in circulation today.
biography
his family
Noah was born in the Wadi al-Nisnas
neighborhood in the city of Haifa in House No. 30, to a Palestinian father who
worked in the municipality of Haifa and a mother of Cretan origin called Zaida,
who was a captive who was brought from the island of Crete to the port of Haifa
during the Ottoman era. Ain Hawd village (Haifa district) and married her to a
young man from his relatives named Hussein Abu Al-Haija who lived in Haifa. She
bore him a son named Mustafa, but the husband died shortly after. After that, Mrs.
Zaida married Noah's father, who lived in the Wadi Al-Nisnas neighborhood in
Haifa and owned a two-storey house. She gave birth to a son (Noah) and a
daughter (Badi’a), and then the father was martyred after 4 years of marriage
when Noah was young, and he left nothing to the family except the house, so his
family lived in poverty after him, as its only income was the rent of the first
floor of the house, which it rented to the pilgrim. Muhammad Abdul Qadir Abu
Al-Haija.
At a later stage, she married Badia,
Noah's sister, and gave birth to two daughters. As for his mother, Zaida, she
immigrated to Beirut during the events of the Nakba in 1948, and she died there
in 1952.
his upbringing
As a result of the father’s death at
an early age and lack of income, Noah’s family lived in poverty and need, so
Noah lived in a convent for nuns under the care of the nun Root Sonbol for a
few years. He used to visit his mother while she visited him, until he returned
home to live with his mother. Then Noah joined the Islamic school, which was
later called the Independence School, and it was the only school in Haifa at
that time in 1929, and it is located in the Wadi al-Saleeb area. Noah received
his education at the school from the scholars and Mujahideen in the Islamic
school such as the headmaster of the school at the time, Sheikh Kamel
Al-Qassab, the headmaster of the school Rashid Bey Parsley, the mathematician
Darwish Al-Qassas (a graduate of the French Sorbonne Institute), the English
language teacher Hani (Bachelor of English from the American University), the
Sheikh and the Mujahid Imam Izz al-Din al-Qassam and Sheikh Reda. Then he left
school and worked in one of Haifa's printing presses. And when he finished his
education in the Islamic school, in the sixth grade, he was sent on a mission
to the Orphanage School in Jerusalem, where he learned bookbinding, building
cardboard boxes, as well as printing.
his youth
After his graduation, Noah began his
struggle and labor life, as he worked in the smoke company in the city of
Haifa, and in the company he spread the teachings of struggle and jihad, and
instilled them in the hearts of workers until he succeeded in organizing many
of them in the group of Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam. Later, Noah decided to
leave work in the smoke company, to advance in the field of journalism and
media, and he traveled to Jaffa and worked as an editor in many of the
newspapers that were published in it. He also contributed to the establishment
of the private commercial printing press in Haifa.
Later, during 1934, Noah moved to
Iraq to work as a technical expert in one of Baghdad's printing presses, and he
excelled in his work until most Baghdadi printing presses considered him the
best technician in it. During his work in this printing press, Mr. Rashid bin
Sabah Al-Jalahma, a native of Bahrain, went to the director of the printing
press in Baghdad and asked him to present Noah with an offer to work as a
technical expert in the Bahrain printing press, which is preparing to issue the
first Bahraini newspaper. The obsession with creating this Bahraini newspaper
goes back to Abdullah Al-Zayed, a Bahraini pearl merchant whose business has
been declining, so he thought of investing his intellectual and literary
abilities in bringing a printing press to Bahrain in the early thirties of the
last century. Therefore, he sent his friend Rashid Al-Jalahma to Baghdad for
two purposes: the first is to train in printing works, so Rashid stayed He has
been training for seven months in Baghdad printing presses, and the second
thing is to bring an expert in printing from Baghdad to train the Bahraini team
that will work in the printing press, so the choice fell on the person of Noah
Ibrahim. Noah was surprised by the offer and asked for an opportunity to think,
and after a week he agreed to the offer and traveled with Rashid Al-Jalahma to
the Land of Pearls with the next large dhow from Basra to the port of Manama,
wearing the white Arab dress that he always insisted on wearing.
After arriving at the printing press,
Noah learned that he was the only one who knew how to operate the modern
printing machines in the printing press, so he started training Bahrainis on
printing machines and how to work with them. During the first three months,
Noah was able to train many workers in Bahrain, so that there would be a full
Bahraini staff of typists, typists and workers such as: Abdul Rahman Al-Hassan,
Abdul Rahman Ashir, Muhammad Al-Jowder, Ahmed Fleifel, Mustafa Buallay,
Abdullah Al-Mannai and others. Then he set the work system in the printing
press, and distributed the work between a printer, an assistant, a worker in
the binding department, a worker in the paper department, and a worker in the
line department. He was loved by those who worked with them, and they competed
to host him in their homes and councils.
Upon the success of the printing press and its progress, Noah began to remember his poems and songs, and despite the hard work in the printing press, his poetic spirit made him keen to attend all the councils in Muharraq and Manama, to which he was invited to hear his national anthems and songs about Palestine and the revolution against the British mandate, so the councils began competing for his attendance. For his distinctive anthems and his sense of humor with which he was known. During this period, Noah also wrote poems and songs about Bahrain, among which he says:
Bahrain, the land of pearls, Bahrain, Manj bin Tallua
A long palm that heals the ailing, and the soul saves you
...
Bahrain, we came to you, we love to have fun with your love
You honor the guest in winter and summer
As it appears in the verses, Noah's life was comfortable in the Pearl Islands, and he sent letters to his friends and family in Baghdad and Haifa, describing his new job, comfortable life, and picturesque country. And on the eve of the end of the first year of his work in Bahrain, the printing press started its commercial work, intending to issue the first weekly newspaper in the Gulf for the owner of the printing press, Abdullah Al-Zayed.
However, after the end of the first year of his work, news of the 1936 revolution began to reach Bahrain. From here, and despite the stability of his situation in the Pearl Islands and the renaissance of the printing press, Noah was determined to pack his belongings, join the revolutionaries, and fight the British and the Jews in Palestine, as he explained to his friend Rashid Al-Jalahma, “Talking no longer works with these executioners.” All the requests of the owner of the printing press and its workers from him to stay were of no avail, as he was waiting for the first ship to take him to Basra, to return from there to Palestine after less than a year and a half he spent in Bahrain. His last request was from the Bahrainis: If you do not fight in Palestine with your soul, then fight with money. But after his return to Palestine and the life of jihad, the British forces expelled him from northern Palestine because of his participation in the struggle against the British Mandate, so he stayed in the village of Ein Karem, where he became famous for presenting plays in the village.
his death
Noah was martyred when he was no more than 25 years old after he joined the revolution carrying his weapon, as well as his pen and his voice. While he was going to visit his relatives in the village of Majd al-Krum, accompanied by three of his companions, on their way to the village of Tamra, the British were fortifying them on the mountain. So they paid attention to these cavalrymen, and monitored their movement, and while they were ascending from a deep valley from the lands of Kabul to the Galilean village of Kawkab Abu al-Haija, the British ambushed them near Khirbet Damaidah, and in a wooded site called al-Sunaiba near Tamra, the four horsemen dismounted to rest a little, and they were surprised by a British military force supported by squadrons From the planes of the British Royal Air Force while they were about to leave, and Noah fell as a martyr with each of his three companions: Muhammad Khader Qiblawi and Izz al-Din Khalayleh, Abu Raad (from the Syrians who volunteered in the revolution), on Friday evening, the first day of Ramadan in the year 1357 AH corresponding to 28\ 10/1938 and the British threw their bodies in a well, then the people of Tamra came and carried the bodies of the martyrs to the old mosque in the village, and they prayed the funeral prayer for them, and buried them in Tamra in the old cemetery in the town, and a memorial was erected for them in the village in 1986.
The news of Noah Ibrahim's death spread in the Arab countries, so Al-Shabab newspaper in Cairo, which was owned by the Palestinian Mujahid Muhammad Taher, wrote about Noah's death the following news:
Noah Ibrahim Jerusalem On October 28, 1938, the Arab poet Noah Ibrahim, one of the most prominent leaders of the revolution, was killed during the attack carried out by British forces on the outskirts of Haifa last Tuesday, and his body was discovered yesterday near Tamra.. This is the painful news that we were surprised about last week, and it had the strongest impact on the souls, because the martyrdom of this brilliant young man is a loss for the Arab national movement and for the popular national jihad, and the phonograph companies were racing to record his national anthems that he used to compose himself and were printed. Hundreds of thousands of them, and people in communities and homes used to listen to it, and it worked in their souls and penetrated into the depths of their hearts. Noah Ibrahim
His most famous poems
Noah published his poems in a booklet, the first edition of which is still kept by a very small number of families. On its inner cover, he wrote: “The Collection of Poems of the Struggling Palestine - Arranged and Composed by Noah Ibrahim, the Palestinian popular poet and student of Al-Qassam - Haifa - Palestine - It contains poems and popular social, patriotic and enthusiastic poems and records The new popularity, which will be issued soon - copyright, authorship and composition are reserved and private.
However, as previously mentioned, this booklet was prevented from publishing and importing it into Palestine from outside it, so there is no specific place that concentrates all of his poems, and the poems that the Palestinian people memorized emerged.
Noah Ibrahim became famous for his poem of lamentation for the martyrs of the Al-Buraq Revolution in 1929, which is on the occasion of the execution of three Mujahideen Muhammad Jamjoum, Fouad Hijazi and Atta Al-Zir in Acre Prison in Acre on June 17, 1930 during the Al-Buraq Revolution. That day was later known as “Red Tuesday” for the heroism of the three martyrs in the face of death. Fouad Hijazi and Muhammad Jamjoom were graduates from the American University of Beirut, and Atta al-Zeer was a worker. The three left behind three wonderful letters calling for the celebration of their martyrdom, which they wrote before ascending to the gallows. to which they raced.
The name of the poem is “From Acre Prison”, and its beginning is:
From Acre prison, the funerals of Muhammad Jamjoom and Fouad Hijazi took place
Other poems as well:
What a loss, Izz al-Din
The poet Noah Ibrahim was one of the students of Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam. This poem is a lamentation poem he said following the martyrdom of the Mujahid Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam after his famous battle with the English army in the forests of Ya`bad in 1935. It is one of his famous folk poems that he composed, sang and recorded with his own voice on a record, and all generations who became aware of the thirties still memorize it by heart. And they started repeating it on their national occasions. The beginning of the poem is:
Izz al-Din, with your loss, I went to sacrifice for your nation
Manage it, Mr. Dall
Achievements and Awards
Medals and immortalization of his
memory
In 1990, the name of the martyr poet
Noah Ibrahim was awarded the Jerusalem Medal for Culture and Arts, from the
Palestine Liberation Organization.
An award for folklore was
established, bearing his name in 1983. It was issued under the name of the
“Palestinian Folklore Encyclopedia Committee,” which was established in
Al-Bireh in 1966. It awarded financial and appreciation prizes to creators in
the fields of folklore.
The artist of Palestinian origin,
Hussein Al-Mundhir (leader of the Al-Asheqeen band), embodied the character of
Noah Ibrahim in the series Izz al-Din al-Qassam in 1981.
His name was given to a street in
the Yarmouk camp in Damascus.
Writings about it
A number of books have been
published about him:
Nimr Hijab, the popular poet, the
martyr Noah Ibrahim, 2005.
Samih Shabib, the popular poet Noah
Ibrahim: Witness and Martyr, a study in a symposium entitled “Palestinian
Social History between the Forest of Archives and Trees of Tales”, November
21-22, 2003 / Bir Zeit University.
Abdel Aziz Abu Hadba, “The Poet Noah
Ibrahim, With the Melody Word, Chronicled the Palestinian Revolution,
1935-1938,” Al-Zawiya Magazine, Issue 3-4, Winter-Spring 2003.
Khaled Awad, Noah Ibrahim, poet and
martyr. Venus Press, Nazareth, 1990.
Khaled Awad, Noah Ibrahim, the
popular poet of the 36-39 revolution.
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