Ayoon Wa Azan (A Wrong Comparison)

Ahmad Shawqi, Khalil Mutran, Hafez Ibrahim, Shakib Arslan, Mikhail Naima, Yaaqoub Sarraf, Faris Nimr, Mai Ziadeh, Gibran Khalil Gibran, Zaki Mubarak, Ali Amin, Ahmed Zaki, Amir Baqtar, Habib Jamati, Taha Hussein, Salim and Bishara Takla, Abbas Mahmoud al-Akkad, Zaki Abu Shadi, Ibrahim Abdul Qader al-Mazeni, Salama Moussa, Amina Said, Fikri Abaza, and Saleh Jawdat. I chose these 24 names from two generations. Let’s say that these names were active between 1910 and 1950 (a generation is 20 years or so). Since 1950, three generations have passed in our countries, and when I compare these three generations with the two previous ones, I find that it is a wrong comparison. But I did not start out seeking to do any comparisons. Rather, I was reading Al-Hilal’s last month’s issue, which was a special issue marking the 150th anniversary of Al-Hilal’s founder Georgy Zeidan. This was mentioned by colleague Mohammed Ali Farhat in his column ‘Yawmiyat’, which prompted me to request Al-Hilal’s special issue. The names with which I began my column were among dozens of names belonging to writers, poets, and Al-Hilal contributors and workers – all mentioned in the special issue. I was still learning to read in the fifties, and among the first things I read back then were Al-Hilal and Al-Muqtataf, as my grandfather was a school principle and therefore had a large library at home. What do I remember from when I was eight or nine years old? I remember an editorial in Al-Hilal entitled “Mohammed Ali and Ibrahim Pasha, Two Suns in One Sky”, which means that this issue dated back to before the 1952 revolution. I remember another editorial with a title that I could not understand, since it had been drawn. I read it as “Al-Nahu Al-Natras”, and not until years later did I realize that the phrase was “Al-Nimr Al-Muftaris” [The Predating Tiger]. The piece was about an aging tiger that could not hunt wild animals anymore, and so began predating on the people of a small Indian village. Then once, I saw two pictures and below them the names: Walieddin Yakan and Mustafa Sadiq Rafii. I did not know at the time that Yakan was a family name, so I understood it as the apocopation of ‘Yakoun’ [Ar. Is], and went on to believe for some time that the two names were one name, and that Walieddin and Mustafa are therefore the same person. In my adolescent years, I read Al-Hilal novellas and a number of books. Our home often had the Lebanese magazines Al-Sayyad and Al-Dabbour, along with Al-Musawir, Al-Ithnayn, Hawaa, and Al-Kawakib, all published by Al-Hilal, in addition to Rose al-Yousuf and Akher Saa’ah, which came from Egypt. Georgy Zeidan was a genius. He went to Egypt to study medicine, and then quickly switched to journalism. However, he died aged 53 in 1914, and his work was continued by his two sons Emil and Shukri Zeidan, who added many magazines and books to Al-Hilal’s repertoire. Emil died in 1982, and then Shukri died two years later. I was lucky to have seen them both when I was a young adult, as both often came to Lebanon in the summer and stayed at a hotel in the Bois de Boulogne, above Dhour al-Shweir, sometimes for weeks and months before returning to Egypt. If I recall correctly, the hotel was called the Grand Hotel Bois de Boulogne. The special issue on Georgy Zeidan comprised information I did not know. For example, I learned that Al-Hilal’s publisher had traveled to Palestine in 1912, i.e. before the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the start of Arab interest in and concern for Palestine. Georgy Zeidan toured Palestinian cities and villages, and spoke of 40 Jewish colonies (settlements). He also visited Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, and mentioned 300 thousand acres of fertile land between Haifa and al-Yarmuk, and the Zionists’ attempts to acquire lands in Palestine. The special issue referred to many previous special issues, for example on al-Mutannabi, Abu Nawas, Ahmad Shawqi, Tawfiq al-Hakim, Taha Hussein, Abbas Mahmoud al-Akkad and others. I was hoping to read the name of Dr. Aisha Abd al-Rahman (Bint al-Shati’) in the special issue on Taha Hussein, who was her mentor during her doctoral studies at the Egyptian University - in which her thesis was on Risalat al-Ghufran [The Epistle of Forgiveness]. Instead, the issue ran articles written by another student of Taha Hussein, Suhair al-Qulmawi. I was and still am a fan of Bint al-Shati’ stories about the suffering of Egyptian women, for example in “Scenes from their Lives” in Al-Hilal. Nor did I find the name of Fomel Labib in the special issue. Labib was the editor of Al-Kawakib, and a travel companion to London and Ethiopia. His work always meant that we had the best place in any nightclub we wanted to go to, for example when we travelled to Cairo coming from Beirut. As I compare between a generation and another, I imagine a horrible scenario, in which a day may come where a future generation will lament the ‘geniuses’ of our generation, as I have done with the names of those who came before.