For the past sixty years, Arab communists and their ilk have been living their most prosperous times. They have been granted the opportunity of a lifetime by Arab authoritarian regimes to take center stage in the cultural scene as utilitarian intellectuals, engaging in morally dubious tasks that are antagonistic to the Arab people and their aspirations, in addition to conspiring to bolster the position of the Zionist enemy and entrench its aggressive existence, supporting separatist movements in Arab countries (the Kurds, South Sudan, South Yemen, the Red River...), and siding with rebellious sects and ethnic groups. One should not be swayed by their rhetoric about unity, struggle, liberties, progress, enlightenment, and modernity... in addition to their tireless and relentless war against Islam and its values and morals!
An Excisional Desire
Because they control most publishing windows in the Arab world, literature, thought, and culture have regressed to an unprecedented degree in the history of the nation. Their excisional desire to monopolize the scene has deprived any real talent or dissenting voice, especially if it is a Muslim. They silence, marginalize, and obscure anyone who expresses themselves or breaks the barriers to reach the people and display their work. If someone manages to do so, they smear them, diminish their value, and do not hesitate to write security reports disguised as articles or false press topics, which could lead them into dark obscurity!
Sacred Idols!
They have made themselves sacred idols that people, according to their conception, must bow down and prostrate to instead of God. They react violently if anyone approaches them with criticism or reveals the truth. Strangely, they are adept at fabricating lies and slander, playing the role of the wronged victim who is oppressed by rigid dark forces, meaning those who belong to Islam.
Arab Communist Enemy
Islam has become the sole enemy of the Arab communist theory. They no longer speak of class struggle, the rights of the poor, laborers, or historical inevitability, nor of the fight against savage capitalism. For them, the theory is the excision of Islam, the violation of Muslims, and accusing them of denouncing others and depriving them of entering paradise. Moreover, they adopt an indecent vulgar style of insulting anyone who opposes them or corrects their ignorance or exposes their errors... I will present an example that I would not have cared about if it were not for the cheap campaign promoting it in the newspapers and propaganda outlets they dominate.
What Poetry Is This!
It is Saadi Youssef, the Iraqi communist writer whom they call or who calls himself “the last communist," named after one of his published books. The communists have exploited the illness of old age (87 years) that he suffers from, accusing the Iraqi authorities of failing to care for him, even though he has lived outside Iraq for fifty years under various regimes. They have launched into slandering Muslims and describing them with all kinds of odious attributes because some people felt he does not deserve attention after he insulted Islam, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and his wife, Mother of the Believers, Aisha, in some of his writings that he calls poetry, which is far from being poetry!
Who is Saadi Youssef?
He was born in Abu Al-Khasib in Basra, southern Iraq, in 1934. He joined Baghdad University and graduated from the Higher Teachers’ Institute in Baghdad in 1954. He worked in teaching, cultural journalism, and translation. He left Iraq in the 1970s and has been living in London since 1999. He has received numerous awards: the Sultan bin Ali Al-Owais Award (which was later revoked), the international Italian award, and the Kavafy prize from the Hellenic Association. In 2005, he won the Veronia Prize in Italy for Best Foreign Author, and in 2008, he received the Metropolis Prize in Montreal, Canada. He is also involved in the editorial boards of several left-leaning magazines.
Authorship and Translation
Since 1952, more than thirty poetry collections have been published, including: "The Pirate" (1952) - "Songs Not for Others" (1955) - "51 Poems" (1959) - "The Star and the Ashes" (1960) - "Far from the First Sky" (1970) - "Endings of North Africa" (1972) - "Al-Khudr bin Youssef and His Concerns" (1972) - "Under the Mural of Faiq Hassan" (1974) - "How Al-Khudr bin Youssef Wrote His New Poem" (1977) - "Less Silent Poems" (1979) - "The Prayer of the Pagan" (2004).
He translated poetry collections for foreign poets from various languages, including: Walt Whitman - Cavafy - Yannis Ritsos - Lorca - Gunnar Ekelöf - Vasco Popa - Ungaretti, and others.
He also translated several novels and literary studies, and published some other works in short stories, novels, plays, diaries, and essays.
Poetry Closer to Prose
His poetry is closer to prose; in fact, much of it, even the versified parts, lack the spirit of poetry. He seeks to employ simple details to create poetry from their substance, but unfortunately, he lacks what is called "poetic quality." Some of it is closer to narrative or storytelling, as seen in his remarks about the "Al-Bustan" café frequented by some writers and literary vagabonds in Cairo. He says: “I don’t know who named this café, ‘Al-Bustan,’ nor do I know the reason... I know that the café occupies an intersection of two streets lined with mechanics’ workshops, and stalls displaying scattered debris among carpets, telephones, and local bread. I know that coal is the prevailing color here in this dark corner of the world... I know this, and I ask myself: Who named this barren land a garden? Who brought what is supposed to be a garden: flowers, trees, birds... etc.? The things are dilapidated, to the extent that one can no longer trust a chair, and the tea here is as black as coal; so where is the garden? I tell you: ‘Al-Bustan’ is the first dream of the garden!”
The Blind Time!
Saadi Al-Shahabi's vision revolves around the idea that Arabs live in "blind time," and nations have passed through closed eras, from which they have emerged and continue to emerge, because they have retained the ember of culture, which can spark new reasons for naming new generations. By "ember," he means the opposing culture capable of energizing every generation that strives for it, which is counter to the prevailing culture (and guess what the prevailing culture is?).
Then he wonders: "What would we have done without Taha Hussein? For his banner leads us through blind time." (The Collected Poems, Volume One, Al-Jamal Publications, Beirut/Baghdad, 2011, p. 11).
A cultured person like him must understand – as it is presumed – that the key to progress can only be achieved under one condition: freedom. Freedom of expression, action, work, and participation, which Arabs and Muslims lack under the banner of black tyranny. A living proof is the emergence of some Islamic countries from closed or blind time, as he calls it. Looking at Malaysia, for example, we find that it has broken the dark cocoon and is moving towards positive development at a reasonable pace. Indonesia and, to some extent, Pakistan are similar; while in non-Islamic countries, some states have found their way to freedom and internal peace after bitter experiences, like Rwanda and Madagascar... As for Taha Hussein's freedom, while we respect some of his literary works, it represents the boldness against religion in his youth, and he was biased towards the rulers. He was the first to attribute Egypt to those rulers, for instance, when he said: "Egypt of Farouk," and "Egypt of Nasser," and subsequently, others referred to "Egypt of Sadat" and "Egypt of Mubarak."
Not Belong to Great Poets
Saadi, whose writings, which he calls poetry, amount to thousands of pages and have been published by some Arab publishing houses, does not belong to the school of great poets in Iraq: Jawahiri, Nazik, Al-Sayyab, Al-Biaty, and some of them were communists. However, he practically belongs to the school of the sectarian communist Adunis, which focuses on hatred of Arabs and Islam and believes in ancient civilizations. Saadi follows him in writing based on the destruction of Arab music in poetry and establishing prose writing as an alternative to the superior verse.
However, Adunis appears to be more talented in writing and more intelligent in expressing his populist ideas, having previously published good poetry, even if it overflows with hatred for Islam and Arabs and their unity, and a belief in Phoenicianism, or what is called ancient Syrian civilization. He sees nothing in Islamic history and Arabic poetry that is worthy of appreciation and respect except for black spots like the Zanj rebellion, the Qaramita, and populist movements, as well as poetry of sodomy and pornography.
Saadi follows Adunis in his methodology and vision; it is enough to open the first pages of his collection of poetic works to see him praising the Zanj rebellion and their leader Ali ibn Muhammad, saying: "In a corner, dreaming..., the cheerers disperse from you, and the lowly bureaucrats gnaw at you, but Ali ibn Muhammad, with his Zanj battalions, rises among the race... and between the race, a burning carnation." (previous, p. 15).
A Deviant Revolutionary
Saadi ignores that Ali ibn Muhammad was a deviant revolutionary who worked for himself and not for the masses, and he was corrupt, murderous, a thief, and a violator of sanctities, reaching a degree of crime that involved prophecy and a claim to divinity! He harmed the slaves whom he claimed to be freeing, treating them with different forms of woe!
When an Iraqi minister said: "My belief in my sacred religious values and my respect and appreciation for the feelings of the large majority of people is more important than my sympathy, for I believe as a state official that sacred values and the feelings of people should always take precedence over any other consideration, therefore I apologize to anyone who felt pain in their national, religious, and humanitarian conscience."
This apology from the minister came after the feelings of Muslims were hurt by Saadi Yusuf's degrading and irresponsible writing about the Prophet - peace be upon him - and his wife, the Mother of the Believers, Aisha - may God be pleased with her - in what he refers to as a poem, relying on the structural composition based on the repetition of a popular song common in Iraq in several places. The song invokes the name Aisha and says:
"The sun rose on the hair of Aisha,
Aisha, the daughter of the pasha, playing with the beads!"
He recounts the story of the Mother of the Believers and her marriage to the Prophet - peace be upon him - and how the women told her that she would be a bride, as they adorned her and prepared her for the wedding, while she was a child who understood nothing of the matter, seeking refuge with Saadi to save her from the marriage for which she was not qualified! He then discusses the intimate relationship in an inappropriate manner between a prophet and a child wife, as he depicts her: "And Aisha, the reddish one... beautiful like an Irish woman, with red hair... oh, God's gift! Muhammad, between his prayer and the following prayer, intends to engage with her, and sometimes he sees between her legs, a prayer... Thus she tasted his sweetness, and Muhammad tasted her sweetness... She is who she is: Hawwa Aisha the reddish, beautiful like an Irish woman... the idol of the prophet!"
Indecency and Boldness
He then transforms Aisha into a warrior and fighter, who overcomes the Prophet in bed and leads the war in the Battle of the Camel: "But Aisha the beautiful will announce that her silky hair will remain red; she will declare that she will always be a warrior... She conquered a prophet in bed, and here she is, on a camel, fighting... Aisha the reddish, the prophetic woman, after the male prophets have turned to dust..."
This vulgarity cannot be written by Saadi about an Arab ruler in power and his wife, naming them and discussing her domination over him in bed! However, he, along with communists and fame-seekers, brazenly disregard Islam and its symbols, and some defend him by presenting us with Hadiths that support some of his claims but do not negate the boldness, vulgarity, and impunity.
The paradox is that the head of the Arab Writers Union at that time—a communist Egyptian—awarded him the Union's prize, as if he were challenging Islamic sentiments across the world. However, this communist president did not anticipate the outrage of the Islamic world and its scientific institutions everywhere.
The Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) severely criticized the General Union of Arab Writers for awarding the prize to the Iraqi Saadi Yusuf, following his offensive poem about the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and his wife Aisha, and called on Al-Azhar to intervene and demand the cancellation of the decision. The organization described the Union's decision as "wrong and encouraging of such degrading and offensive stances, which have no connection to the world of literature and creativity."
A Blatant Offense
Khaled Al-Shai'a, the Assistant Secretary-General of the Global Committee for the Defense of the Prophet, stated that the poem was "a degrading offense and a detestable injury" to the Prophet, likening its author to "Ibn Salul," the leader of the hypocrites. Al-Shai'a pointed out that Yusuf had "slips that passed without consequence," but he emphasized that his recent transgressions "will not be like the previous ones, as they are falsehood, slander, and injury to the noblest of creation and the best of messengers." He added that what Yusuf considers a flaw regarding the Prophet's marriage to Aisha at a young age was not seen as such even by his enemies in Quraysh, who did not blame him for it. Al-Shai'a hoped that unions, associations, and cultural bodies in Arab and Islamic countries would take a "decisive stance" toward Yusuf.
The organization "Poets Without Borders" removed Saadi Yusuf's name from the list of the top hundred poets in response to the offensiveness of his writing, following the withdrawal of the prize awarded to him by the Union's communist president!
A Vicious Campaign
However, they seized the opportunity of the Iraqi government's refusal to sponsor the writer, even though there are those who sponsor him both Arab and internationally, in addition to the returns from translations and writing in daily, weekly newspapers, and others. They launched a fierce campaign against Muslims, describing them as unworthy of anything but contempt!
They played the victim while they do not dare insult a petty officer or minister among those who govern the Arab world today, for a simple reason: they well know the consequences. Furthermore, they are fully aware of their utilitarian role in serving oppressive tyranny!
