2023-09-10 12:27:57
What do you say on the 100th anniversary of the absence of Sayyed Darwish, and half a century since the absence of Taha Hussein? Egypt is celebrating? Egypt remember? The poet Abdel Wahab Muhammad says in “Fakerouni”: “Think of me, how is it that I forgot you?” Can a day go by without Egypt being mentioned, remembered or heard? Sayed Darwish opens the morning of the Nile with Badie Khairy’s song “This sweet girl rose to knead in Badriya,” or “Oh Maria, you are the captain and the marine’s sweeper.”
But what does the musician of popular song have in common with the dean of contemporary Arabic literature, so that we can celebrate them both? They are united by what sociologist Gamal Hamdan called “Egypt’s character” and “the genius of the place.” A genius that transcends centuries. After a hundred years, Sayed Darwish lives happily in his songs. Dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of songs, roles, taqtaqat, plays, and “This Sweet One Kneaded in the Badriya.”
And the Al-Azhari Al-Saidi priest, who reached the Sorbonne University and returned from there with a doctorate on behalf of the first priest, Abu Al-Ala Al-Maarri. As for that blind man, Taha, he has crossed two centuries and continues to fill Egypt, with his great determination, with dozens of works on the novel, in lectures, in theater, in criticism, and in biography. He is a university professor and dean of university deans, unveiling the cover of metaphors, and a traveler in countries with boats falling on him. . All of this was done by Taha, or “our friend,” as he referred to himself. Taha had been blind since the age of four. As for the other, who created an entire folklore on his own, how old was he the day he disappeared? 31 years old. So, let me ask: Did you repeat Sayed Darwish? Do you repeat Taha Hussein? How many writers, how many composers, did Egypt give, how many Taha’s, and how many masters among them?
What is this miraculous abundance? What is this beauty? What is this rapture? What is this person who sings “Lal-Arabjiyya,” “Al-Gharsunat,” “The Milk Sellers,” and “Al-Tahfjiyya” (The Hashshashin), and then passes away at the age of 31?
And you, my dear and dear Dean, you and your masterpieces: “The Curlew’s Prayer,” “The Tree of Misery,” “The Days,” and “The Spring Journey.” And effect after effect. And duel after duel. And you are blind. No one saw you without a tie. Without complete elegance, it is as if you are at a party for seers. No one has heard you disparage the meaning of words. No one did what I mentioned in “Wednesday’s talk.” That weekly lesson that surpassed (your favorite expression) all of your university lessons.
Some cross from era to era. From century to century. One because he is the genius of popular song, and one because he is the genius of the elite in the treasures of literature. In every Arab library, public or private, there is a wing by Taha Hussein. And in every popular café, there is a sound that has been repeated for a hundred years, happy, cheerful, and colorful with the simplicity of life: This sweet one… in Badriya.
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