26 Facts About Safa Khulusi

Safa Abdul-Aziz Khulusi was an Iraqi historian, novelist, poet, journalist and broadcaster.

Safa Khulusi is known for mediating between Arabic- and English-language cultures, and for his scholarship of modern Iraqi literature.

Safa Khulusi's mother died when he was four years old.

Safa Khulusi travelled to London in 1935 on an academic scholarship, living there until the latter stages of World War II and insisting on staying in the city during The Blitz.

An Arab nationalist, Safa Khulusi turned down an offer of a ministerial position in the post-war British administration of Iraq.

Safa Khulusi served as head of the Arabic Department at al-Mustansiriya University.

In 1959, Safa Khulusi married Sabiha Al-Dabbagh, one of the first women to graduate as a medical doctor in Iraq.

Safa Khulusi later became a regular contributor to health programmes on the Arabic section of the BBC World Service and a campaigner for women's health in the Middle East.

Safa Khulusi's work mediated modern European and American developments in scholarship.

Safa Khulusi extended the academic tradition of comparative literature, publishing Dirasat fi al-Adab al-Muqarin wa al-Mathahib al-Adabia in 1957, and al-Tarjama al-Tahlilia in the same year.

Safa Khulusi later published A Dictionary of Contemporary Idiomatic Usage.

Safa Khulusi was a regular broadcaster on the BBC's Arabic service and a presenter of cultural programs on Iraqi television.

Many years later, when Safa Khulusi met the man again and questioned him on his role in the king's death, the former student answered "all I did was remember Palestine, and the trigger on the machine-gun just set itself off".

Safa Khulusi was one of a group of scholars who assisted in the academic and religious reformation of the madrasas in Najaf.

Safa Khulusi was elected Chairman of the National Muslim Education Council of the UK.

Safa Khulusi sought to improve Islamic education, while supporting co-operation between faiths.

Safa Khulusi wrote several articles in English on Shakespeare and Arabian literature for the Islamic Review, but did not claim Shakespeare himself was Arabian in these publications.

Safa Khulusi's opinions have been opposed by other scholars including Abdul Sattar Jawad, Abdullah Al-Dabbagh, Eric Ormsby, Ferial Ghazoul, as well as the Egyptian scholar Ibrahim Hamadah, who devoted a book, 'Urubat Shakespeare 1989, to refuting Khulusi's thesis.

Notwithstanding the high satiric energy of the novel, Safa Khulusi's intention was to introduce American culture to an Arab readership.

Safa Khulusi compares Iraqi and American nationalism and the practice of religion in his adopted culture with the Muslim faith.

Safa Khulusi concludes that, just as American identity comes from a melting pot of peoples, so too is Arab identity, a cultural commitment by peoples of markedly different ethnic background who have come to intermarry, and replace the allegiance of blood with an attachment to a shared language and culture.

Safa Khulusi set out to introduce English readers to contemporary Iraqi poetry by translating the works of some of the most prominent and influential poets of the first half of the 20th century.

Safa Khulusi chose a less aggressive, more persuasive tone which Khulusi attempts to capture in this sample of his translation:.

Safa Khulusi composed long epics on the subject, and elegized his brother, Ja'far al-Jawahiri who died during the revolt.

Safa Khulusi tries to capture the tone of sarcasm of the original poem:.

Safa Khulusi renders entire poems and extracts of this ground-breaking literary work and illustrates the range and versatility of these pioneering women.