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- Country of residence: Palestine
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Azhari scholar, Palestinian poet and journalist , from a cultural family that produced a number of influential figures in the Palestinian cause, most notably the polymath writer Mustafa Murad al-Dabbagh. He lived and died before the Nakba. He is more famous as a journalist than a poet. He is the poet Sheikh Ibrahim bin Mustafa Al-Dabbagh (1880-1946). The Al-Dabbagh family in Jaffa is a family of Moroccan origin. It immigrated to Palestine and settled in Jaffa shortly after the year 1775, but its origins go back to the Hijaz and the Prophet’s lineage (according to the book The Arab Tribes and Their Descendants by Mustafa Murad Al-Dabbagh). Ibrahim was born in Jaffa in the year 1880. He lived in poverty (according to Al-Zirkli) and died in poverty (according to the Palestinian Encyclopedia). Al-Babtain Dictionary detailed his childhood, saying: He studied in the books of Jaffa. He grew up as an orphan, and his paternal and maternal grandparents sponsored him, and from them he received the Arabic (popular) epics.
He heard some of the councils of Abdullah al-Nadim, the preacher of the Urabi Revolution, when he was exiled there in 1892. He was influenced by the ideas of freedom and reform, and became a supporter of this movement and its ideas. He worked in his youth as a tailor and then a blacksmith, and when al-Nadim encouraged him to complete his studies at Al-Azhar, he moved in his youth to Egypt, and he lived next to Al-Azhar and became an apprentice. With Sheikh Muhammad Abdo and Sheikh Muhammad Ali Al-Marsafi...and his companions in Egypt, Hafez Ibrahim, Ahmed Muharram, Mustafa Lutfi Al-Manfaluti, and Abdel Aziz Jawish...
and before he finished his studies at Al-Azhar, he began publishing his articles and poems in well-known Egyptian newspapers at the beginning of this century, such as Al-Ahram, Al-Muayyad, Al-Liwaa, and Sarkis Magazine. And Al-Raqib... He even published the newspaper “Al-Insaniya” in Cairo in 1903, and it continued to be published for eight years until the government closed it. He contributed to editing the newspapers of the National Party, Mustafa Kamel’s party.
During the years of World War I, he was editor of the Al-Afaf newspaper. The British arrested him for about a year. When they released him, he edited the “Mirror of Literature” magazine. Between 1922 and 1924, he published the newspaper “Al-Zaman”. In 1926, he lost his sight due to diabetes, so he was called “the hostage of the prisoners.” He was also called “the writer of Cairo” and “the Voltaire of Egypt,” but he continued to write his articles and poems and publish them in various newspapers and magazines published in Egypt and Palestine.
The poet Ibrahim Al-Dabbagh died in Cairo on February 26, 1946, at the age of 66. After his death, his library was transferred from Egypt to Jaffa, including several poetry collections, and some of his literary and historical books that were not printed, most of which were lost with the Nakba of 1948. His
cultural production
Al-Dabbagh began composing poetry when he was thirteen years old. He had a prolific vocabulary and a wealth of meanings after he had memorized what he had composed of ancient and modern poets. Until his friend, the writer Ahmed Taymur, described him as “he had a smooth tongue, sweet speech, and a keen soul. He was the miracle of his time in the strength of memory and presence.” "Intuition and erudition."
He collected his poetry and prose and wrote it down, written by his nephew Mustafa al-Dabbagh (according to Al-Zirakli), and published what he collected in a collection of poetry in two parts presented to him by the poet of the two countries, Khalil Mutran, entitled “The Vanguard” and the book “The Hadith of the Silo”. The book “In the Shadows of Freedom” contains selections from his poetry and prose. The same applies to the book “Shahd and Alqam”. And the book “A Treatise on Sufism and Abu Al-Ala.” His unprinted books were lost.
Palestine was not absent from Al-Dabbagh’s poems, especially after he was appalled by its news and the hardships and misfortunes that it almost faced. He sang many poems that depicted the condition of Palestine and denounced Zionist immigration and its ambitions.
He was famous for many patriotic poems, including his poem in which he dealt with the Balfour Declaration. He said:
When do I see the people gathered around the rock... after dispersing from far and near,
I see lightning and a rattle around it... and its thunder has been devoid of raining clouds.
The Balfour Declaration has nothing to do with the sky or .. In the barrenness of our land, a shield for a hattab.
Is the Balfour Declaration legislation if it is neglected? .. An error from him that calls people to wonder.
And also for him:
In the backyard of your home, you were in a state, but contemptible of you.. The sword that you wielded is not known until the
lightning of politics overtakes us, not .. the lightning of thunder and ugliness. It is not developed
And why can a deception deceive us? No deceit and falsehood can bear witness to justice.
This Palestine after the conquerors has become... a myth or a resting place for legends.
How much they have tortured it, so it did not pay any effort and it did not disbelieve... with a blessing, and it is an unrepentant debt.
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