Just Home-Educated, Farraj Altayeb Becomes Authority On Arabic, Literature, Religion
14 October, 2018
KHARTOUM (Sudanow) - Linguist Farraj Altaeb (1932-1998) never went to school. His father Altayeb Alsarraj, a knowledgeable scholar of Arabic and its literature, taught him at home and allowed him at a very early age to attend linguistic and literary seminars and symposia the father used to hold at his own home.
This early tuition, the literary events he attended and his discretion as he grew up, qualified him to present rich literary programs on the local media, some of which continue to be rebroadcast on the local radio, decades after his departure. This success has also allowed him to clinch the portfolio of Manager of the State-run Public Culture Corporation during the rule of elected Prime Minister Sadiq Almahdai (1986-1989) and prompted the Omdurman Islamic University here to award him the honorary doctorate of Arabic and its arts.
Sudan had known home-held literary and artistic discussions (in what was known as literary and arts saloons) a hundred years ago. The first of such places was set by Ibrahim Hammo in his home in Port Sudan in 1905. The Hammo saloon had used to be held on irregular basis, bringing together men of letters, intellectuals and those with interest in Arabic in the Port City.
The influence of those literary and arts saloons became apparent after the 1924 military uprising against British rules. The saloons have also then grown into bigger cultural and literary societies that had a big effect in disseminating national, cultural and social awareness and knowledge among the public. Many more saloons then came into being with the sole concern to literature and the arts, which were frequented by outstanding poets, men of letters and critics. The most famous of these was the Alnadwa Aladabiyaa (the literary symposium), held at his home in Omdurman’s post office neighborhood by writer Abdallah Hamid Alamin. Another of such saloons was set at his home in Abu Roaf Neighborhood by Sheikh Altayeb Alsarraj, FarraJ’s father. Farraj took over the responsibility of the saloon after his father’s departure.
Farraj had taught Arabic at the Alsha’ab Schools (People’s schools), a property of his family, the Alsarraj family, in Khartoum North. Side by side with his teaching effort, Farraj kept presenting literary radio programs, the most remarkable of which was: Lisan Alarab (Tongue of the Arabs). That program was first aired in 1971 and continued through 1996. The programme still continues to be broadcast on the State Radio of Omdurman.
Other programs and works of drama Farraj had presented were: Min Turath Alarab (from the Arab Heritage). Min Alqasas Alrarabi (from Arab stories), Risalat Alnoor (A message of light), Fi Mihrab Als’hir (in Poetry’s gracefulness), Fi Mihrab Alqura’an (in the gracefulness of the Koran).
Wrote Poet Mustafa Sanad about the Late Farraj: Nobody should think that Farraj was just specialized in Arabic and its literature and rules alone. He was a scholar of Islamic jurisprudence and Sharia. He learned the Koran by heart and had used to interpret it and speak about its miracles. He was an authority on the seera (biography) of the Prophet Mohammad. He had used to give rulings on Islamic faith just as well-established scholars could do.
Critic Majthoub Alaydarous tells Sudanow that beside his
tuition by one of the country’s renowned linguists, his father Altayeb Alsarraj, Farraj had read in-depth in the writings of linguists, including Father Enstas Mari Alkarmali, an Iraqi linguist. Farraj was imbued with the love of Arabic, a matter that prompted him to keep defending it against those who seek to belittle it. Beside his knowledge, Farraj was a poet, presenting verses in the renowned “Mirbid” poetry festival in Iraq. Farraj had had attempts to renew the Arabic poem, despite what
was said about him in this respect that he was an advocate of the traditional poem, asserts Aydarous.
Farraj had used to organize a symposium every Friday which used to be attended by poets and critics, including from Arab states like Mohammad Yahya Hussein Alsharfi, Dr. Nazar Ghanim (Yemen), and Yemeni Ambassador to Sudan. From the Sudan the symposium used to attract poets Khalid Abulroos, Mahdi Mohammad Saeed, Saifeddin Aldusugi, Abugroon Abdallah Abugrooon, Alim Abbas and Mustafa Sanad. The symposium had used to discuss literary works published in the daily press and magazines in addition other literary issues of interest.
Poet Abdelgadir Alkitayyabi says that the Altayeb Alsarraj’s literary forum (or symposium or saloon) was located in the heart of Aburoaf neighborhood where many men of letters and writers had lived and that since the early 1920s the area had gained much fame because of that. Kitayyabi said as a young boy below 20 he used to attend this forum, which he could describe as “the school of literary orientation”, or what critics now call “the traditional school.” The place was visited by guests from the Arab world at distant intervals. Some government ministers and dignitaries had also used to call.
The traditional school had adopted what is called amoodi verse, where the poem looks like a straight amood (pole). Here the poet is always committed to ending all his lines in one tone, one rhythm. If the poem is composed in the forms of stanzas, the lines of each stanza should also end in the same tone. Like his father, Farraj was a staunch advocate of pre-Islam verse and the verse of the Amawi and Abbasi dynasties.
He disliked modern verse. Because of his bad temper, he once smeared those schools. Nonetheless, some proponents of modern verse had continued to be part of Farraj’s saloon. Some proponents of modern verse distanced themselves from the Farraj group and later on set the Sudanese Writers Union, leaving the old organization “The literary Writers Union “ for Farraj and his group. This divide had often taken political dimensions.
Siddiq Mujtaba, the former general secretary of the Arabic Language Academy said the forum set at Farraj’s home had developed into a distinguished cultural and literary center during the 1970s. The symposium had become an umbrella of many generations and trends of verse writers and had kept diplomatic contact with Arab and other poets, namely from East Asia and China alongside the students of the Africa International University in Khartoum. The forum had used to discuss what is published in the literary pages of the country’s newspapers and magazines. Farraj had used to raise some issues, but had never obliged others to adopt what he was saying.
One of the forum’s outstanding achievements was that it had written an Arabic syllabus for schools in China. This syllabus had encouraged Chinese to open more schools in their country. The forum had also taken part in many events organized by the Graduates’ Congress and the Omdurman Central Library and other events around the country.
Mujtaba says Farraj was a staunch supporter of the causes of Palestinians and the causes of the Arabs and Moslems, though he was never known to have joined a certain political grouping. Farraj did not lean towards the left in politics, though some leftist figures were part of his forum.
In addition, Farraj was an actor, performing some plays written by his relative Maysara Alsarraj.
His son ‘Altayeb’ says all of his father’s hand-written radio programs were in safe custody and that he had started to computerize them, prior to publication. The collection includes all the series of his radio program Lisan Alarab (Tongue of the Arabs), Farraj’s poetry and his newspaper articles.
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Hassanelaffandi
15 October, 2018Well done and well prepared....he was afriend to me and I like him very much believing that he was the better of most linguistics that people think they were more prominent than Frag...thanks alot