24 Facts About Badawi al-Jabal

Muhammad Sulayman al-Ahmad, better known by his pen name Badawi al-Jabal, was a Syrian poet known for his work in the neo-classical Arabic form.

Badawi al-Jabal was born in 1903 to an Alawite family in the village of Difa, near al-Haffa, in the Latakia District.

Badawi al-Jabal's father, Sheikh Sulayman al-Ahmad, was a prominent Alawite imam from the Kalbiyya tribal confederation, and served in the Damascus-based Arab Academy of Language in 1919.

Badawi al-Jabal developed an early understanding of the Qur'an and classic Arabic poems from his father.

Badawi al-Jabal fought alongside Saleh al-Ali's men, committing acts of sabotage against French forces.

Badawi al-Jabal became a professor of Arabic at the University of Baghdad.

Badawi al-Jabal joined the National Bloc upon his return to Syria in 1943.

Badawi al-Jabal was instrumental in founding the National Party along with Shukri al-Quwatli and others, and served on its central committee.

In reaction to the establishment of Israel in 1948 and its victory over Arab forces, Badawi al-Jabal blamed the leadership of the Arab countries for leading their people to defeat.

Badawi al-Jabal subsequently fled to Lebanon, before returning later that year after al-Zaim was assassinated.

Between that time and Shishakli's ousting in 1954, Badawi al-Jabal actively opposed military rule.

Badawi al-Jabal was appointed the position in Fares al-Khoury's government in October, serving until February 1955.

Badawi al-Jabal was a fierce critic of socialism, particularly the way that the ideology was adopted by Egypt and Syria.

Badawi al-Jabal wrote that socialism was an "evil" system that merely served to concentrate power and wealth into the hands of the elite by seizing resources, denying individual freedom and justice to citizens and encouraging immorality in society.

When Syria and Egypt united to form the United Arab Republic in February 1958, Badawi al-Jabal lambasted the union for bringing an end to the democratic system in Syria.

Badawi al-Jabal first moved to Lebanon, then to Turkey and Tunisia, before ending up in Switzerland, which Badawi referred to as his new "permanent residence".

In 1962, months after the dissolution of the Syrian-Egyptian union in a Damascus-based coup that Badawi al-Jabal supported, he returned to Syria, but decided to stay out of politics.

Early in his career, Badawi al-Jabal viewed the role of the poet as synonymous with that of the "public spokesman of the [sic] community", according to literature expert Reuven Snir.

Badawi al-Jabal began publishing his poetry in magazines based in Beirut and Damascus in the early 1940s.

Badawi al-Jabal's poems centered on romantic Arabic verse and criticism of the state of Syria's politics.

In Badawi al-Jabal's view, the incorporation of shi'r hurr into modern Arabic poetry is an unnecessary innovation, arguing that the classical Arabic form is a satisfactory means of expression in the modern day.

Badawi al-Jabal did not consider free verse to be poetry at all, but rather a completely different form of literature, insistent that eventually, Arabic poets would return to the classical tradition.

Badawi al-Jabal belonged to the neoclassical school of Arabic poets, which included Ahmed Shawqi.

Badawi al-Jabal's poetry reflected an extent of automatism as testified by a moment during one of his parliamentary campaigns in the 1950s when a crowd of supporters gathered around to hear him speak about his political goals.