Arabic Language Blog

There are quite literally hundreds of Arabic-language TV channels out there, broadcasting from within the Arab world and beyond. But only two names usually sound familiar to most ears: Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya.

There’s no doubt that Al Jazeera is the most famous and still most successful Arabic-language channel out there.

Its name “الجزيـــــــرة” means “island” in Arabic, referring to شبه الجزيـــــــرة العربيـــــــة (the Arabic Peninsula.) Its current chairman is a relative of the Qatari Emir.

In addition to the main news channel, Al Jazeera also broadcasts الجزيرة الوثائقية (Al Jazeera Documentary) and the very popular الجزيرة الرياضية (Al Jazeera Sports Channel) ran by the Qatari businessman who now owns the prestigious French Football team Paris Saint-Germain.

Since not too long ago, it provides an English, Urdu, and Serbian-Croatian versions of its news content.

Second in prominence after Al Jazeera is Al Arabiya. It was launched only a few weeks before the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

The decision came mainly as a Saudi response to Al Jazeera’s often irreverential coverage of the ruling royal families of the region. And large funds from the late PM of Lebanon Rafiq Al-Hariri were committed to its launching.

It is based today in Dubai’s tax-free city, Dubai Media City, and is directed by the former editor-in-chief of “الشرق الأوســــط” (“The Middle East”) newspaper, Abdelrahman Al-Rached, for a while closely linked with another Saudi businessman, Othman al Oumeir (owner of Maroc Soir, a publishing group very close to the royal family of Morocco, as well as the self-declared “most liberal of Arab online publications”, the website Elaph.)

To understand the news perspective of Al Arabiya, and why it is palpably different from that of Al Jazeera for example, you have to understand that it is part of the MBC group, which celebrated last year its 20th anniversary.

Today, MBC is equally shared between Abdulaziz bin Fahd, the favorite son of the late Saudi King Fahd, and his maternal uncle.

The ties between media, politics, and other sectors of the economy in both Saudi Arabia and Lebanon are numerous: To illustrate this point, consider for instance that the other major business concern for the Saudi Abdulaziz is Saudi Oger, one of the largest construction companies in the Arab region. Saudi Oger is actually owned by none other than the family of the aforementioned Prime Minister of Lebanon, Rafiq Hariri.

What you are about to read in today’s post is an excerpt of one of the crown jewels of Arabic literature and poetry.

The author is known as المُتَنَبِّـــــــــــــي (Al-Mutanabi.)

He wrote those verses as a مــــــــــدح (praise) of one of the leaders of his time, Seyf al Dawla, whose name literally means in Arabic “the Sword of the State.” 

Although it is no easy task to convey the full meaning of the original Arabic, here is a tentative English translation, the value of which you will hopefully appreciate.

المُتَنَبِّـــــــــــــــــــــي (Al-Mutanabbi)

علـــــــــــــــى قـــــــــــــــدر أهـــــــــــــــل العـــــــــــــــزم تأتــــــــــــي العزائـــــــــــــــم

Resolutions are measured according those who take them

وتأتـــــــــــــــي على قدر الكـــــــــــــــرام المكـــــــــــــــارم

And so much is true for generostiy and its givers

وتعظـــــــــــــــم في عيـــــــــــــــن الصغيـــــــــــــــر صغـــــــــــــــارها

Trifle matters are magnified in the eyes of little people

وتصغـــــــــــر فـــــــي عيـــــــــــــــن العظيـــــــــــــــم العظائـــــــــــــــم

While grandeur is belittled in the eyes of the great

يكلـــــــــــــــف سيـــــــــــــــف الدولـــــــــــــــة الجيـــــــــــــــش همَّـــــــــــه

Sayf al-Dawla commands his will to his army

وقد عجـــــــــــــزت عنــــــــــه الجيـــــــــــــوش الخضـــــــــــــارم

Although the most veterans of the armies could not achieve similar feat

ويطلـــــــــــــب عند النـــــــــــــاس ما عند نفســـــــــــــه

He asks men what he possesses

وذلك مــــــا لا تدعيـــــــــــــه الضراغـــــــــــــم

Though even lions cannot make the same claim

Then he says further (Skip to verse 16 in the video):

أتـــــــــــــوك يجــرون الحديـــــــــــــد كأنمـــــــــــــا

Your foes unleashed their iron swords upon you

سروا بجيـــــــــــــاد ما لهـــــــــــــن قوائـــــــــــــم

As if they were riding legless horses

إذا برقـــــــــــــوا لم تعـــــــــــــرف البيـــــــــــــض

When the light hit them, you couldn’t tell

منهم ثيابهـــــــــــــم من مثلهـــــــــــــا والعمائـــــــــــــم

Their white-clad armor from their shinny swords

And later says (Skip to verse 22 in the video):

وقفـــــــــــــت وما في المـــــــــــــوت شك لواقـــــــــــــف

You stood in the face of certain death

كأنك في جفـــــــــــــن الردى وهو نائـــــــــــــم

As if you lied within the eyelid of Doom while it slept

تمر بك الأبطـــــــــــــال كلمـــــــــــــى هزيمـــــــــــــةً

Heroes pass by you wounded and defeated

ووجهـــــــــــــك وضَّاحٌ وثغرك باســـــــــــــم

While you are all smiles and your face radiantly bright

Today, May 15th, is to be remembered as يــــــوم النكبــــــــــــــة (“The Day of the Catastrophe”), a day commemorated by virtually everyone in the Arab world—in addition to an important number of Orthodox Jews who not only vigorously uphold the Palestinian cause, but who also, in the name of the Jewish faith which they dearly cherish and identify with, are uncompromisingly opposed to the apartheid ideology of Zionism.  

Now, setting all political considerations aside, here is a little fragment of a major piece of modern Arabic poetry that deserves to be presented in such an occasion.

I’m confident that upon hearing its verses, no lengthy introduction of its author will be required.

That is why, please, simply meet: 

تمِّيــــــــــم البرغُـــــــــــــوثــــــــــي (Tamim Al-Barghouthi)

 Since the already existing English translations available on the Web do not truly render it justice, here is my own translation, which I believe is more faithful to the spirit of the original Arabic poem:

فــــــــــــــــــــــــي القُــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــدس (In Jerusalem)

مَرَرْنـــــــــــــا عَلــى دارِ الحبــــــيب فرَدَّنـــــــــــــــــــــــا

By our beloved’s house we passed, but were turned away

عَنِ الدارِ قانـــــــــونُ الأعــــــــــادي وســــــورُهـــــــا
By the foes’ laws and walls

فَقُــــــــــــلْتُ لنفســــــــــــــي رُبمَّــــــــــــا هِيَ نِعْمَــــــــــــــــــــــــةٌ
 A blessing in disguise, I thought to myself

فماذا تَرَى في القُدسِ حيـــــــــــــــــــــــنَ تـــــــــــــــــــَزُورُهـــــــــــــــــــــــا؟

After all, what’s in Jerusalem, when you see it?

تَــــــــــــــــــــرَى كُلَّ ما لا تستطيــــــــــــــــــــعُ احتِمالَــــــــــــــــــــهُ
All that which you cannot bear is what you see

إذا مـــــــــــــــــــا بَدَتْ من جَانِـــــــــــــــــــبِ الدَّرْبِ دورُهــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــا

 Whenever its houses emerge along the side of the path

وما كلُّ نفـــــــــــــــــــسٍ حينَ تَلْقَـــــــــــــــــــــــى حَبِيبَهـــــــــــــــــــا تُـسَــــــــــــــــــــرُّ

No, not every soul is delighted to meet its soul mate

ولا كُلُّ الغـِيــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــابِ يُضِيــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــرُها

Nor must every absence fill it with pain

فإن سـرَّهــــــــــــــــــــــا قبلَ الفِـــــــــــــراقِ لِقـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــاؤُه
For its secret resides in meeting it, before bidding it farewell 

 فليسَ بمأمــــــــــــــــــــــونٍ عليها ســــــــــــــــــــــرُورُها

There’s no telling if there is ever a safe haven for its happiness

متى تُبْصِــــــــــــــــــــــــــــرِ القُدسَ العتيقــــــــــــــــــــــــــــةَ مَــــــــــــــــــــــــــــرَّةً
Yet if you looked upon the old Jerusalem once

! فســــــــــــوفَ تراها العَيْــــــــــــــــــــــــنُ حَيْثُ تُدِيرُهــــــــــــــــــــــــا 

Then wherever your eye is set afterwards, you shall see it!