Part of a series on Shī‘ah Islam
Ismāʿīlism
Concepts
The Qur'ān · The Ginans Reincarnation · Panentheism Imām · Pir · Dā‘ī l-Muṭlaq ‘Aql · Numerology · Taqiyya Żāhir · Bāṭin
Seven Pillars
Guardianship · Prayer · Charity Fasting · Pilgrimage · Struggle Purity · Profession of Faith
History
Shoaib · Nabi Shu'ayb Seveners · Qarmatians Fatimids · Baghdad Manifesto Hafizi · Taiyabi Hassan-i Sabbah · Alamut Sinan · Assassins Pir Sadardin · Satpanth Aga Khan · Jama'at Khana Huraat-ul-Malika · Böszörmény
Early Imams
Ali · Ḥassan · Ḥusain as-Sajjad · al-Baqir · aṣ-Ṣādiq Ismā‘īl · Muḥammad Abdullah /Wafi Ahmed / at-Taqī Husain/ az-Zakī/Rabi  · al-Mahdī al-Qā'im · al-Manṣūr al-Mu‘izz · al-‘Azīz · al-Ḥākim az-Zāhir · al-Mustansir · Nizār al-Musta′lī · al-Amīr · al-Qāṣim
Groups and Present leaders
Nizārī · Aga Khan IV Dawūdī  · Dr. Burhanuddin Sulaimanī  · Al-Fakhri Abdullah Alavī  · Ṭayyib Ziyā'u d-Dīn
v t e

Abū Manṣūr Nizār al-Muṣṭafá liDīnillāh (1045-1097, Arabic: أبومنصور نزار المصطفى لدين الله‎) was a Fatimid Caliph and a Nizāri Ismā‘ilī Imām. He was deposed by his brother, Aḥmad al-Musta‘lī but his son, al-Hādī ibn Nizār, escaped to Alamūt and took refuge with believers there, thereby continuing the Imāmate.

The followers of Nizār's descendants constitute the majority of the Ismā‘ilī today, with the smaller Musta‘lī branch accepting his younger brother who overthrew him and the Druze ending the Imāmate before either of them.

External links[link]

• AL-NIZAR (487-490/1095-1097)

This Islam-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Nizar Tawfiq Qabbani (Arabic: نزار توفيق قباني‎, Nizār Tawfīq Qabbānī) (21 March 1923 – 30 April 1998) was a Syrian diplomat, poet and publisher. His poetic style combines simplicity and elegance in exploring themes of love, eroticism, feminism, religion, and Arab nationalism. He is one of the most revered contemporary poets in the Arab world.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Qabbani as a youth.

Nizar Qabbani was born in the Syrian capital of Damascus to a middle class merchant family.^[1] Qabbani was raised in Mi'thnah Al-Shahm, one of the neighborhoods of Old Damascus. Qabbani studied at the national Scientific College School in Damascus between 1930 and 1941.^[2] The school was owned and run by his father's friend, Ahmad Munif al-Aidi. He later studied law at the Damascus University, which was called Syrian University until 1958. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in law in 1945.^[2]

While a student in college he wrote his first collection of poems entitled The Brunette Told Me. It was a collection of romantic verses that made several startling references to a woman's body, sending shock waves throughout the conservative society in Damascus.^[2] To make it more acceptable, Qabbani showed it to Munir al-Ajlani, the minister of education who was also a friend of his father and a leading nationalist leader in Syria. Ajlani liked the poems and endorsed them by writing the preface for Nizar's first book.

Qabbani as a law student in Damascus, 1944.

Diplomatic career[link]

After graduating from law school, Qabbani worked for the Syrian Foreign Ministry, serving as Consul or cultural attaché in several capital cities, including Beirut, Cairo, Istanbul, Madrid, and London. In 1959, when the United Arab Republic was formed, Qabbani was appointed Vice-Secretary of the UAR for its embassies in China. He wrote extensively during these years and his poems from China were some of his finest. He continued to work in the diplomatic field until he tendered his resignation in 1966. By that time, he had established a publishing house in Beirut, which carried his name.

Poetic influences[link]

When Qabbani was 15, his sister, who was 25 at the time, committed suicide because she refused to marry a man she did not love.^[3] During her funeral he decided to fight the social conditions he saw as causing her death. When asked whether he was a revolutionary, the poet answered: “Love in the Arab world is like a prisoner, and I want to set (it) free. I want to free the Arab soul, sense and body with my poetry. The relationships between men and women in our society are not healthy.” He is known as one of the most feminist and progressive intellectuals of his time.^[3]

The city of Damascus remained a powerful muse in his poetry, most notably in the Jasmine Scent of Damascus.^[3] The 1967 Arab defeat also influenced his poetry and his lament for the Arab cause.^[3][4] The defeat marked a qualitative shift in Qabbani's work - from erotic love poems to poems with overt political themes of rejectionism and resistance.^[3] For instance, his poem Marginal Notes on the Book of Defeat, a stinging self-criticism of Arab inferiority, drew anger from both the right and left sides of the Arab political dialogue.

Personal life[link]

Qabbani with his family, his parents and brothers.

Family[link]

Nizar Qabbani had one sister, Wisal; he also had three brothers: Mu'taz, Rashid, and Sabah. The latter, Sabah Qabbani, was the most famous after Nizar, becoming director of Syrian radio and TV in 1960 and Syria's ambassador to the United States in the 1980s.

Nizar Qabbani's father, Tawfiq Qabbani, was Syrian while his mother was of Turkish descent. His father had a chocolate factory; he also helped support fighters resisting the French mandate of Syria and was imprisoned many times for his views, greatly affecting the upbringing of Nizar into a revolutionary in his own right. Qabbani's great uncle, Abu Khalil Qabbani, was one of the leading innovators in Arab dramatic literature.

Marriages[link]

Nizar Qabbani was married twice in his life. His first wife was his cousin Zahra Aqbiq; together they had a daughter, Hadba, and a son, Tawfiq. Tawfiq died due to a heart attack when he was 22 years old when he was in London. Qabbani eulogized his son in the famous poem To the Legendary Damascene, Prince Tawfiq Qabbani. Zahra Aqbiq died in 2007. His daughter [Hadba][1], born in 1947, was married twice, and lived in London until her death in April 2009.^[5]

His second marriage was to an Iraqi woman named Balqis al-Rawi, a schoolteacher whom he met at a poetry recital in Baghdad; she was killed in a bomb attack by guerrillas on the [Iraqi embassy] in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war on 15 December 1981.^[2][3] Her death had a severe psychological effect on Qabbani; he expressed his grief in his famous poem Balqis, blaming the entire Arab world for her death. Together they had a son, Omar, and a daughter, Zainab. After the death of Balqis, Qabbani did not marry again.

Late life and death[link]

After the death of Balqis, Qabbani left Beirut. He was moving between Geneva and Paris, eventually settling in London, where he spent the last 15 years of his life.^[3] Qabbani continued to write poems and raise controversies and arguments. Notable controversial poems from this period in his life include When Will They Announce the Death of Arabs? and Runners.

In 1997, Nizar Qabbani suffered from poor health and briefly recovered from his sickness in late 1997.^[6] A few months later, at the age of 75, Nizar Qabbani died in London on April 30, 1998 of a heart attack.^[1][4] In his will, which he wrote in his hospital bed in London, Nizar Qabbani wrote that he wished to be buried in Damascus, which he described in his will as "the womb that taught me poetry, taught me creativity and granted me the alphabet of Jasmine."^[7] Nizar Qabbani was buried in Damascus four days later in Bab Saghir.^[7] Qabbani was mourned by Arabs all over the world, with news broadcasts highlighting his illustrious literary career.^[7]

Bibliography[link]

Poetry[link]

Qabbani began writing poetry when he was 16 years old; at his own expense, Qabbani published his first book of poems, entitled The Brunette Told Me (قالت لي السمراء), while he was a law student at the University of Damascus in 1944.

Over the course of a half-century, Qabbani wrote 34 other books of poetry, including:

• Childhood of a Breast (1948) طفولة نهد
• Samba (1949) سامبا
• You Are Mine (1950) أنت لي
• Poems (1956) قصائد
• My Beloved (1961) حبيبتي
• Drawing with Words (1966) الرسم بالكلمات
• Diary of an Indifferent Woman (1968) يوميات امرأة لا مبالية
• Savage Poems (1970) قصائد متوحشة
• Book of Love (1970) كتاب الحب
• 100 Love Letters (1970) مئة رسالة حب
• Poems Against The Law (1972) أشعار خارجة على القانون
• I Love You, and the Rest is to Come (1978) أحبك أحبك و البقية تأتي
• To Beirut the Feminine, With My Love (1978) إلى بيروت الأنثى مع حبي
• May You Be My Love For Another Year (1978) كل عام وأنت حبيبتي
• I Testify That There Is No Woman But you (1979) أشهد أن لا امرأة إلا أنت
• Secret Diaries of Baheyya the Egyptian (1979) اليوميات السرية لبهية المصرية
• I Write the History of Woman Like So (1981) هكذا أكتب تاريخ النساء
• The Lover's Dictionary (1981) قاموس العاشقين
• A Poem For Balqis (1982) قصيدة بلقيس
• Love Does Not Stop at Red Lights (1985) الحب لا يقف على الضوء الأحمر
• Insane Poems (1985)أشعار مجنونة
• Poems Inciting Anger (1986) قصائد مغضوب عليها
• Love Shall Remain My Lord (1987) سيبقى الحب سيدي
• The Trilogy of the Children of the Stones (1988) ثلاثية أطفال الحجارة
• Secret Papers of a Karmathian Lover (1988) الأوراق السرية لعاشق قرمطي
• Biography of an Arab Executioner (1988) السيرة الذاتية لسياف عربي
• I Married You, Liberty! (1988) تزوجتك أيتها الحرية
• A Match in My Hand , And Your Petty Paper Nations (1989) الكبريت في يدي ودويلاتكم من ورق
• No Victor Other Than Love (1989) لا غالب إلا الحب
• Do You Hear the Cry of My Sadness? (1991) هل تسمعين صهيل أحزاني ؟
• Marginal Notes on the Book of Defeat (1991) هوامش على دفتر النكسة
• I'm One Man and You are a Tribe of Women (1992) أنا رجل واحد وأنت قبيلة من النساء
• Fifty Years of Praising Women (1994) خمسون عاما في مديح النساء
• Nizarian Variations of Arabic Maqam of Love (1995) تنويعات نزارية على مقام العشق
• Alphabet of Jasmine (1998) أبجدية الياسمين

Other works[link]

He also composed many works of prose, such as My Story with Poetry قصتي مع الشعر, What Poetry Is ما هو الشعر, and Words Know Anger الكلمات تعرف الغضب, On Poetry, Sex, and Revolution عن الشعر والجنس والثورة, Poetry is a Green Lantern الشعر قنديل أخضر, Birds Don't Require a Visa العصافير لا تطلب تأشيرة دخول, I Played Perfectly and Here are my Keys لعبت بإتقان وها هي مفاتيحي and The Woman in My Poetry and My Life المرأة في شعري وفي حياتي, as well as one play named Republic of Madness Previously Lebanon جمهورية جنونستان لبنان سابقا and lyrics of many famous songs of celebrated Arab singers, including:

• Mohammed Abdel Wahab
• Abdel Halim Hafez
• Fairuz
• Kathem Al Saher
• Khalid Al Shy'kh
• Umm Kulthum
• Latifa
• Majida El Roumi
• Asalah

And his verses would remain popular after his death, and put to song by Arab pop-music stars such as Kazem al-Saher and Latifa.^[7]

Other Languages[link]

Many of Qabbani's poems have also been translated into the English language, both individually and in collections of selected works.^[2] Some of these collections include:

• On Entering the Sea (1998)
• Arabian Love Poems (1998) translated by Bassam Frangieh and Clementina R. Brown
• Republic of Love (2002) translated by Nayef al-Kalali

References[link]

External links[link]

• Home page
• Nizar Qabbani's books
• Qabbani in English at Poems Found in Translation
• English translations of selected Qabbani works
• Thoughts Inspired by PBS’s Two-Sentence Report on The Death of Syrian Poet Nizar Qabbani By Salman M. Hilmy, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October/November 1998, pages 74–76
• Nizar Qabbani Poems on ArabAdab.net
• Nizar Qabbani Poems in The Other Voices International Project
• English translations of Qabbani's poems I Decided, At Zero and I wrote on the wind.
• English translation of Marginal Notes on the Book of Defeat
• NYT article about Dec 1981 bomb attack on Iraqi Embassy in Beirut: http://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/16/world/bomb-wrecks-iraqi-embassy-in-beirut.html

Nizar Chaari
Nizar Chaari
Born	(1977-06-11) 11 June 1977 (age 35) Sfax, Tunisia
Occupation	Television and radio producer/presenter

Nizar Chaari (Arabic: نزار الشعري‎), (born June 11, 1977 in Sfax), is a Tunisian radio and television presenter and producer. He is best known for his interviews with various Tunisian and Arabic world celebrities, particularly musicians and film/television stars and directors.

Radio career[link]

Radio Sfax[link]

Chaari began in the media business in 1993 at Radio Sfax, where he spent ten years.^[1] In 1997, he launched into production with programs like Zifef El Athir, Marafi El Ahad (news film and theater) and Founoun (theater arts). In 1998, he launched the program Sebii Elfounoun in which he conducted many interviews related to the Carthage Film Festival, including Youssef Chahine, Yahya El Fakharani, Hichem Rostom and Mohamed Zran. From 1999 he also co-produced programs during the summer festivals with interviews with various Tunisian and Arabic world singers.

In 2000, he produced and presented the programs Ithnayn ala Alhawa, Rabii Elfounoun (theater) and Website (internet news). During subsequent seasons, he also produced and presented programs 7 / 7, Binafs al Houdhoudh and Mousica Bilahdoud.

Mosaic FM[link]

Between November 2003 and May 2004, he reached a new stage in his career, and moved to the first private radio station Mosaic FM., becoming the first director of programming for the station on November 7, 2003.

He produces and presents Ala kol Elsen, Monday to Friday at 12:00, with many guests and news from around the world, and Saturday Star with correspondents in Canada, New York City, Paris, Dubai and Cairo.

Television career[link]

Canal 21[link]

Parallel with his radio career in 2003, he was hired by Canal 21 and became correspondent in Sfax. He produced and then presented Chat Rhythm addressing the news of festivals and arts. Introducing Youth Interviews also, he did prime time work for Dima 21 from Sunday to Friday. In 2007 he presented Knet 21.

Tunisie 7[link]

In July 2004, he joined the main public channel Tunisie 7, hand joined Nismet Sbeh on the morning show on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. During that same year he also presented the closing ceremony of the cinematographic Days of Carthage and co-presented the October 24, 2004 presidential elections and TV Hope.

In 2005 and 2007, he presented the Festival of Tunisian Music as well as the opening of the Arab Festival of Television and Radio in 2005. On February 11, 2008, he started a new game show, a Tunisian version of Family Feud entitled Ahna Hakka.^[2] · .^[1]

In 2004, he also began writing a weekly column in Le Renouveau (The Daily Renewal) under the title of Star News.

Personal life[link]

Chaari married in September 2007 with Dora Miled, daughter of Aziz Miled, one of the richest men in Tunisia. Their marriage took place at the Essaada de la Marsa palace in La Marsa, a town near Tunis.^[3] He has received several awards including the title of best host in Tunisia (2005) and the insignia of the Order of National Merit from the Ministry of Culture of Tunisia (June 28, 2008).

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official site of Nizar Chaari (French)