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Sayed Gouda

Ibrahim Nagi. The doctor who healed himself

Abstract: The famous Egyptian poet Ibrahim Nagi was born on 31 December 1898 in

Cairo and passed away on 24 March 1953. He graduated from the Faculty of

Medicine and worked as a doctor of internal medicine until he died while treating a

patient. Nagi was one of the young poets in Egypt who spearheaded Romanticism and

advocated it to replace Neo-classicism. His poetry is marked by an expressive

musicality and innovative metaphorical use of language. His love poems speak of his

pain and healing and show that Nagi’s greatest love was poetry itself and that it

became his remedy in a life full of disappointments.

Introduction

Ibrahim Nagi is probably the best-known representative poet of Egyptian

Romanticism in the 1930s. Because he published only two poetry collections during

his lifetime, many discrepancies arose around some of his poems, the dates he wrote

or published them and for whom he wrote them. Many inconsistent stories were made

up about his life, his love as well as his death. Therefore, tracing the true trajectory of

Nagi’s life is not an easy task.

Nagi’s romantic poetry, search for true love, disappointment in people, aspiration for

idealistic life and relationships with famous actresses made his life story stand out

from that of other poets. Singing his masterpiece poem ‘al-Atlal’ [‘The ruins’] by the

legendary Um Kulthum (1898–1975) was the culmination of all these into one final

glory that shed light on his name and brought him a fame no other poet of his time

had enjoyed.

Nagi was born in Shubra district in Cairo on 31 December 1898, the second of six

children, four brothers and two sisters1. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine,

Cairo University in 1922. After graduation, Nagi opened a clinic in Cairo until he was

appointed physician in the Ministry of Transportation in Suhag, southern Egypt, in

1925. After he had opened a new clinic in Suhag, he was reposted to Elminya, another 1 Amirah Ibrahim Nagi: “Ba‘d 50 ‘aman min rahilihi asrar jadidah fi hayat Ibrahim Nagi, sha’ir al- Atlal” [“New secrets 50 years after the departure of Ibrahim Nagi, the poet of ‘al-Atlal’”]. In: ash-Shuruq [The daybreak] (6/18/2005). https://www.turess.com/alchourouk/3443 (accessed 6/11/2018).

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city in southern Egypt, and in 1927 he was transferred to al-Mansurah where he lived

until 1931. A city known for its beautiful sceneries and green nature around the Nile

River, al-Mansurah might have left its impact on the poet’s romantic and tender soul.

In al-Mansurah, Nagi met other Romantic poets like Ali Mahmoud Taha (1901–

1949), Muhammad Abdul Mu‘ti al-Hamshari (1908–1938) and Salih Gawdat (1912–

1976) who gathered regularly at a certain rock at the Nile River bank to discuss poetry

and read poems by English Romantic poets. They later became the main members of

the Apollo School. In 1931, Nagi returned to Cairo and got married.2

Nagi was diagnosed with diabetes when he was only 26 years old and that tainted his

poetry with sorrow and melancholy.3 He passed away at 11 am on 24 March 1953

from a heart attack while examining a patient in his private clinic in Shubrah district,

the same district where he had been born more than fifty-four years earlier.4

Nagi’s poetry was influenced by classical Arab poets’ elegant language, classical

metaphors, soothing musicality, columnar form, and traditional themes. Western

Romantic poets such as Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), William Wordsworth

(1770–1850) and Lord Byron (1788–1824) had also a great influence on him. In 1926,

Nagi began to translate some poems by Alfred de Musset (1810–1857) and published

his translations in the as-Siyasa al-Isbu‘iya [Weekly Politics] newspaper. He also

translated some poems of Charles Baudelaire’s (1821–1867) Flowers of Evil (1857).

Nagi furthermore published a study on William Shakespeare (1564–1616) and a

psychological study on Tawfiq al-Hakim (1898–1987) in 1938. Other translations

include several other books such as Madinat al-Ahlam [City of dreams] (1935), Kayfa

Tafham an-Nas [How to understand people] (1945) Fi Fan al-Qissah [On the art of

story writing] (1945), Adrikni ya Doctor [Help me, doctor] (1950), Risalat al-Hayat

[The message of life] (1952) and ‘Alam al-Usrah [Family world] (1952).

Furthermore, he published a translation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s (1821–1881) Crime

and Punishment (1866) and a literary magazine called Hakim al-Bayt [The house

doctor] (1934). He was very prolific and published many other essays, research,

2 Kamel. M. M. ‘Uweidhah: Ibrahim Nagi, sha’ir al-Atlal [Ibrahim Nagi, “al-Atlal” poet]. Beirut 1966, p 10. 3Amirah Ibrahim Nagi: “Ibnat Ibrahim Nagi fi ‘id miladihi al 117” [“The daughter of Ibrahim Nagi on his 117th birthday”]. In: al-Akhbar [The new] (12/27/2015). https://www.masress.com/elakhbar/296408 (accessed 6/11/2018).4 Hassan Tawfiq (Ed.): Ibrahim Nagi: al-A‘mal ash-shi‘riya al-mukhtarah [Ibrahim Nagi: selected poems]. Cairo 1996, p. 25, 31-32.

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translations and lectures in many periodicals and newspapers.5 All these writings and

translations were done in the years after 1934, after Nagi had decided to quit writing

poetry and started writing prose texts instead.6

In 1932, Nagi joined the Apollo School, which was founded in the same year by

Ahmed Zaki Abu Shadi (1892–1955), a young Egyptian poet7, and formed by a group

of other young poets. The school aimed at freeing the Arabic poem from the

traditional themes and restrictive rhyme and wanted to energize it with modern ideas,

themes and the rhythm of Romanticism.8 Soon enough, Nagi was among the most

notable representatives of the Apollo School.9

In 1934, Nagi published his first book Waraa’ al-Ghamam [Beyond the clouds] and,

in 1950, Layali al-Qahirah [Cairo nights]. At-Ta’ir al-Jarih [The wounded bird] was

published posthumously in 1957. Beginning from 1961, several books of Nagi’s

complete works were published, but they included mistakes and inauthentic poems

attributed to Nagi, for example, Fi Ma‘bad il-Layl [In the temple of the night]

published in 1973 in Nagi’s complete collection by Dar al-‘Awdah [The return

publishers] in Beirut. In 1978, Hassan Tawfiq collected Nagi’s unpublished poems

and published 50 of them in a book called Ibrahim Nagi: Qasaed Majhulah [Ibrahim

Nagi: unknown poems]. In 1996, Tawfiq further collected one hundred and one

unknown poems by Nagi in a book of the same title, which was published by The

Supreme Council of Culture in Egypt.

As for Nagi’s creative prose writing, according to Hassan Tawfiq, Ibrahim Nagi

published one novel entitled Zaza in late 1949 or early 1950.10

Criticism

Nagi’s critics called him the doctor of poets and the poet of doctors”11 implying that

he was not good enough to be either. Other critics, however, used the same phrase to

5 Sami al-Kayyali: “Ad-Doctor Ibrahim Nagi” [“Dr Ibrahim Nagi”]. In: Ibrahim Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi [Poetry collection of Ibrahim Nagi]. Beirut 1980, p. 359-360. 6 ‘Uweidhah: Ibrahim Nagi, (note 2), p 29-30. 7 M. M. Badawi: A Critical introduction to modern Arabic poetry. New York 1975, p. 116. 8 Wasif Abu Shabab: al-qadim wal jadid [The old and the new]. Beirut 1988, p. 127; Madi Mumtahin: “Tajdid al-musiqa ‘inda Ibrahim Nagi” [“Ibrahim Nagi’s innovation of musicality”], p. 151. In: Idha’at Fasliya [Seasonal illuminations]. Issue 8.9 ‘Uweidhah: Ibrahim Nagi, (note 2), p 10. 10 Hassan Tawfiq: Interview on al-Nil ath-Thaqafiya [Nile tv: culture] (Accessed: 23/6/2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHvCGUbhCeo. 11 ‘Uweidhah: Ibrahim Nagi, (note 2), p 31.

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praise Nagi as a poet and a doctor as well.12 The harshest criticism of his poetry,

however, came after he published his first poetry collection Waraa’ al-Ghamam

[Beyond the clouds] in 1934. The two most influential critics of the time did not

receive the book enthusiastically. ‘Abbas Mahmoud Al-‘Aqqad (1889–1964) accused

Nagi of being sentimental and that he had plagiarised from his poetry. He wrote about

Nagi’s first book:

The most obvious thing about these poems is their sick weakness and

artificiality. The author, as his words indicate, is one of those who understand

tenderness as weeping, and that a poet writes poetry in order to weep and

complain. If his beloved abandons him he weeps, and when he converses with

his beloved he talks of his sickness and weakness and other sick objectives,

which we have been fighting for twenty years [to put an end to; SG] in poetry,

prose and singing.13,14

Taha Hussein (1889–1973), known as The Dean of Arabic Literature, was no less

harsh on Nagi than al-‘Aqqad was. He described Nagi’s poetry as “poetry of in-door

salons, and once it’s out in the open air it would catch cold from every direction!”15

He also wrote: “He is an easy-read poet, tender, gentle, with a good voice, sweet soul,

light heart, and strong wings but only to a certain extent.”16

This harsh criticism, especially that of Taha Hussein, who was Nagi’s idol,

threw Nagi’s life into turmoil and cast a dark shadow on his soul. He wrote in his

poem “Night in Venice”:

O God, how wonderful this country is!

It has no night. Every night is a morning.

Every face in it is a bandage

While Egypt implants [in us; SG] nothing but wounds!17

After he had published his book, Nagi left Egypt for Europe and the news of what

Taha Hussein had written about his poetry reached him while he was in London.

12 ‘Uweidhah: Ibrahim Nagi, (note 2), p. 3 13 Ahmed al-Mu‘tasim Billah. Nagi, Sha’ir al-Wijdan ath-Thati [Nagi, the poet of subjective sentimentality]. Cairo 1963, p. 74. 14 All Arabic texts and poem excerpts are translated by the author. 15 ‘Uweidhah: Ibrahim Nagi, (note 2), p. 26; al-Kayyali: Ad-Doctor Ibrahim Nagi, (note 5), p. 350. 16 Tawfiq: Ibrahim Nagi (note 4), p. 106. 17 Ibrahim Nagi. Diwan Ibrahim Nagi [Poetry collection by Ibrahim Nagi]. Beirut 1980, p. 157.

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Despondent, disappointed and depressed, he had a car accident and broke his leg.18 He

recorded this accident in his poem “The Return”:

I left home dragging my sorrow

and returned dragging my leg!19

Nagi’s depression and disappointment were too great for him to bear. He gave up

writing poetry with these words in his introduction to his book Madinat al-Ahlam

[City of dreams]: “Farewell poetry! Farewell arts! Farewell intellectual thoughts!”20

His response to the criticism directed at his poetry was a melancholy one, like the

moan of an injured bird. He wrote in response to Taha Hussein’s criticism:

You think I have strong wings but only to a certain extent; you think I’m too

tender. You call my musicality an in-door one. I can see from you preferring

‘Ali Mahmoud Taha over me that you don’t accept this tenderness, and don’t

like this musicality. You advocate that a poet should have it in him to become

mighty. You advocate powerful literature, a Nietzsche-type literature. You

prefer the eagle that perches on a high tree and spreads its wings dominantly.

Actually, this age needs what you like. As for us, our literature is soft and

feeble, a literature of weeping, tears and weakness. I would like to know, Sir,

your opinion of Alfred de Musset’s Nights and Lamartine's masterpieces like

“The Lake” and “The Valley”.

What do you think of this “hideous” weakness of two poets whose tears are

the only thing that immortalized them? However, tell me honestly, and let al-

‘Aqqad tell me too: What type of literature is closer to our hearts? It’s our

tears that will outlive us. The dead will rise from their graves and every page

in their books will throb with life, screaming: Our tragedies and tears are the

ones that live forever.21

As though Taha Hussein felt sorry for Nagi and did not want to inflict more damage

on his tender soul, he wrote in response to Nagi’s decision of giving up poetry:

I did not feel sad when Dr Nagi announced that he would quit writing poetry

because I knew if he was a true poet he would return to write poetry whether

he liked it or not, whether I criticized him harshly or lightly. And if he was not

a true poet then poetry would not lose much by him renouncing poetry. But 18 ‘Uweidhah: Ibrahim Nagi, (note 2), p. 26; al-Mu‘tasim Billah. Nagi, (note 13), p. 77-78. 19 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 151. 20Tawfiq: Ibrahim Nagi (note 4), p. 115.21 Tawfiq: Ibrahim Nagi (note 4), p. 108.

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I’m waiting for Dr Nagi’s return to the paradise of poetry because I see that he

has a good talent. I believe if he cares more about his poetry and masters his

artistic tools he will achieve a good outcome.22

Fortunately, this response from Taha Hussein helped bring Nagi back to poetry. It

would have certainly been a big loss to modern Arabic poetry and poetry lovers had

Nagi indeed quit writing.

Medicine and Poetry

Nagi’s study of medicine came at a time when his inclination towards literature was

obvious and strong. But his secondary school teacher, who was Syrian, forced him to

excel in his study of science subjects, and this led him to study medicine in the end. In

an interview with al-Akhbar [The news] on 27 December 2015, Nagi’s daughter

Amirah offered another explanation for what led Nagi to study medicine: Because

their cook Abdu had fallen sick and his case was hopeless, Nagi decided to study

medicine in order to cure him. Unfortunately, Abdu died before Nagi finished his

medical studies.

Nagi was always asked how he could strike a balance between being a poet and a

doctor. He answered this question in “Honouring Dr Ibrahim Nagi”, a poem he read at

an event dedicated to honour and celebrate him:

People ask in bewilderment:

Medicine and poetry? How could they match?

Poetry is a mercy to souls. Its secret is

a gift from heaven, a grant from God.

Medicine is a mercy to bodies. Its essence is

coming from that sacred heavenly fountain.

From the clouds and a source beyond the clouds,

they both draw inspiration.23

Nagi sees no contradiction between being a poet and a doctor because both poetry and

medicine are a mercy to the souls and bodies and this mercy cannot come from

anywhere but a sacred and heavenly source. Deeming poetry as mercy to the soul

conforms to what was said in the introduction to his second poetry collection, namely

22 al-Kayyali: Ad-Doctor Ibrahim Nagi (note 5), p. 350-351. 23 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 213.

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that poetry is his healing power. In a poem called Fi Yaum ash-Shabab [“On youth’s

day”], he wrote:

Say to those who want to do good for their nations

by doing a noble thing or by honourable struggle,

By poetry or medicine or by both:

“All efforts are sacrificed for this country.”

Useless in the pen that is not

free and honourable like pure sunrays.

Useless is the medicine that does not visit

the injustice of life like joyful festivals.24

To Nagi, pen and medicine are useless unless they are used to bring freedom, honour,

justice and joy. Again, they complement each other and never clash in contradiction.

Nagi might have been the first Arab poet who described a surgery in poetry and

likened it to beautiful art. He might also have been the first to use names of medical

tools within the poem. In general, Nagi’s profession as a doctor had an emphatic

impact on his poetic language. Words like “wound”, “injury”, “blood”, “bandage”,

“malady”, “remedy”, “sickness”, “illness”, “recovery”, “rehabilitation” or “heart”

constitute Nagi’s poetic diction more than they appear in any other poets’ works. In

“Honouring Dr Ali Ibrahim” Nagi he wrote:

Turning massive cruelty into kindness,

uplifting it to become a beautiful art.

[Are these] combats of blood or a battlefield of war

where the clank of spearheads is harmonic?

A fearful scalpel moves into it

obedient, humble in your hand.25

Culturally-Based Thematic Poetry

Even though love constituted the major part of Nagi’s poetry, he also wrote some

poems of different themes like elegies, eulogies, lampoons and poems written for

cultural, political and social events. Writing this thematic poetry was an essential part

of being a complete Arab poet. Based on this, Nagi wrote poems of different social

themes, but he excelled only in writing for and about love. It is important to note that 24 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 94. 25 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 183.

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thematic poetry was culturally structured and was not written out of genuine

inspiration in most cases. At least for Nagi, although he tried his hand at all kinds of

writing, he is best known through his love poems, not through any other theme.

“al-Atlal” [“The ruins”]

For more than one reason, al-Atlal [“The ruins”] is Nagi’s masterpiece. It is his

longest poem and each quartet cascades like a new wave carrying with it a new and

relentless flow of emotions that are expressed in a dynamic language and in heart-

rending images and metaphors. Each quartet ends with a powerful punch key that

dramatizes and projects the wide gap between the noble, innocent and faithful lover

and his deceitful, cunning and unfaithful beloved. Nagi begins the poem with this

introduction: “This is a story of unfortunate love. They met and fell in love. The story

ended with her body in ruins and his soul shattered. This epic records the story as it

happened.”26 The poem was adopted into music and sung by the legendary Egyptian

singer Um Kulthum in 1966, thirteen years after Nagi’s death. Because the original

poem is 134 lines divided into 268 hemstitches, the Egyptian poet, Ahmed Rami, who

composed many poems for Um Kulthum, helped her select only 25 lines of “al-Atlal”

and added another seven lines from “Wada‘” [“Farewell”], another poem that has the

same theme, form and metre as “al-Atlal”. Thus, the poem that Um Kulthum sang

came in 32 lines of 64 hemstitches in total. The melody was composed by Riadh as-

Sunbati (1906–1981), one of the greatest musicians of all times in the Arab world.

The result was a song that is considered by most of the Arab world as the crowning

glory of Arabic songs and the best song in the 20th century. This was enough to gain

Ibrahim Nagi a fame greater than any other poet of his time or any time had dreamed

of gaining. It seems that at last Nagi was rediscovered and acknowledged as one of

the finest poets and that his poetic talent had finally paid off after many years of

disappointment.

When the poem was sung in 1966, the actress Zuzu Hamdi Al-Hakim (1912–2003)

claimed that the poem was written for her. She supported her claim by saying that

Nagi used to love her and whenever she visited him in his clinic, he wrote some lines

of poetry on the prescription pad that carried his name printed on its letterhead.27 Two

26 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 132. 27 Muhammad Ragab: “Ana Mulhimat Ibrahim Nagi” [“I am Ibrahim Nagi’s muse”]. In: Akhbar al-Adab [Literature news] (6/10/2012). https://www.masress.com/adab/5202 (accessed: 24/6/2018).

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other actresses made the same claim and produced some evidence like cigarette boxes

or bits of old papers on which Nagi had scribbled some lines of his poetry. The two

actresses were Zuzu Nabil (1920–1996) and Zuzu Madhi (1914–1982). The three

actresses competed in claiming to have been Nagi’s muse because each of them was

called Zuzu, and Nagi named the woman he loved Zaza in some of his poems as well

as in his only published novel, which carried the same name in order to hide the

woman’s true identity.28

Some journalists claimed that the actual woman who inspired Nagi’s al-Atlal was

neither one of these actresses but the first girl he ever loved when he was still a

medical student. She married another man and since then Nagi had not seen her.

Years passed and one night a man knocked on Nagi’s door and sought his help to save

his wife who was in labour and in critical condition. Nagi responded to the call of

duty and went with the man. While examining the woman, he discovered that she was

none other than his first love. He helped her give birth and left without revealing his

identity, but the incident was imprinted on his heart and inspired his masterpiece.29

Lacking credible evidence, one can dismiss these stories as fabricated and instead

endorse the narrative that al-Atlal was inspired by Nagi’s first love, not by any

actresses. Another story seems more reliable: Wadi‘ Falastin narrated that Amani

Farid told him that she invited Nagi and other friends for lunch at her home. Nagi

arrived late and seemed troubled and tense. When they asked him what the matter

was, he said that he entered Café Groppi to buy a chocolate box for his host when a

woman approached him and asked him if he was Dr Nagi. He answered positively and

then she asked him if he recognised her. He said, “No!” She revealed her name and

that she was his former neighbour and first love. He apologised for not recognising

her and did not tell her that the grey wisps that had invaded her hair and the eyes that

had lost their sparkle of youth had stopped him from recognising her. Instead of

having lunch with his friends, Nagi sat down elsewhere and started writing “al-

Atlal”.30

28 Tawfiq: Ibrahim Nagi (note 4), p. 60; Muhammad al-Masry: “Rihlati ma‘a Amani, Mulhimat Sha‘ir al-Atlal” [“My journey with Amani, the muse of the al-’Atlal poet”]. In: October [October magazine] (21/18/2011). https://www.masress.com/october/118863 (accessed: 24/6/2018). 29 Dalia Muhammad: “Ta’arraf ‘ala Qisat Ughniyat al-Atlal li Um Kulthum” [“Know the story of Um Kulthum’s song, al-Atlal”]. In: al-Muwatin [The citizen] (17/7/2017).; Ahmed al-Murshid: “al-Atlal, Qisat Hub Lam Taktamil” [“al-Atlal, unfinished love story”]. In: al-Ayam [Days] (6/1/2018). 30 Yusuf Bakkar: “Mulhimat Ibrahim Nagi al-Haqiqiyah fi Qasidat al-Atlal” [“Ibrahim Nagi’s true

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A Quest for the Ideal Love

Ni‘mat Fo’ad (1926-2016) thought of Ibrahim Nagi as a man who could not be

satisfied with only one love. In a series of articles published in the ar-Risalah [The

message] magazine from 1947 to 1949, ‘Abbas Khidr31 agreed with her by calling

Nagi “Dr ‘Omar ibn Abi Rabi‘a” who lived from 644 to 711 and was the most famous

representative poet of sensual and erotic love. Khidr wrote an article about the love

poems exchanged between Nagi and Amani Farid as evidence of the flirty nature of

Nagi.32 In May 1980, No‘man ‘Ashur (1918-1987) also wrote in ad-Dawha [Doha]

magazine that to Nagi, love was like having light snacks. However, Muhammad

Mustafa al-Mahi (1895-1976) wrote in a manuscript before his death that Nagi loved

one of his relatives of his same age. They loved each other but she could not wait until

he graduated from the Faculty of Medicine and married another man. Hassan Tawfik

agrees with al-Mahi’s version: “Ibrahim Nagi lived his life like a bewildered butterfly

that moved from one branch to another searching for a replacement for the flower he

was searching for.”33 Hassan Tawifq supports al-Mahi’s story by quoting Nagi’s

dedication of his second collection Layali al-Qahirah [Cairo nights] in which he

wrote:

To my friend E.M.

The one who dabbled in the wilting flowers in the trees of the past and

implanted in the orchard of the present dewed flowers full of hope and life.

To him I present to what he inspired me…

Ibrahim Nagi34

According to Tawfiq, Nagi’s best friend Salih Gawdat (1912-1976) and Nagi’s elder

brother Muhammad and younger brother Hassan Nagi confirmed that E.M. were

initials for ‘Enayat Mahmoud at-Tawir. Her name was kept a secret out of respect for

her privacy until she passed away and Hassan Tawifiq finally revealed her name in an

article published in the ar-Rayah [The banner] magazine on 18 July 1984. However,

Amirah, Nagi’s daughter, said in an interview that the name of the first woman her

muse who inspired his al-Atlal”]. In: Ar-Ra’i [The opinion] (4/11/2014). http://alrai.com/article/642056.html (accessed 6/10/2018). 31 ‘Abbas Khidr: “Qadhiyat Adab wa Fan” [“An issue of literature and art”]. In: ar-Risalah [The message magazine] Issue 816 (21/02/1949). 32 Khidr: Qadhiyat Adab wa Fan, (note 32). 33 Tawfiq: Ibrahim Nagi (note 4), p. 38. 34 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 117.

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father had loved was ‘Effat.35 Surprisingly, in another interview, the name changed

into ‘Aliyah!36 Obviously, one of the two newspapers misquoted Amirah. She also

added in these interviews that her father married her mother, Samiah, the daughter of

the Cairo Governor and that the first five years her parents lived happily. She also

added that all the love poems written for “S” were poems for her mother, Samiah.

According to Amirah, she was born five years into the marriage.37

Furthermore, according to Amirah, ‘Effat – or ‘Aliya – was Nagi’s neighbour and

Nagi loved her in secret and was too shy to reveal his love to her. She spoke only

French and for this Nagi had to learn the language in order to read stories in French

with her. Nagi kept his love a secret until she married another man when he was still a

student of medicine. Her marriage caused him a powerful emotional shock. He wrote

his early love poems for her and his al-Atlal after his encounter with her many years

later. He also wrote many love poems for other women, many of whom were famous

actresses like Zinat Sidqi. He saw her on the stage and she was sick at that time. He

treated her and wrote “Wada‘ al-Maridh” [“Parting with a patient”] for her in 1928.

He also wrote “Sakhrat al-Max” [“Max rock”] for Zuzu Madhi. The belly dancer

Samiah Gamal asked him to describe her in a poem and he wrote “Billahi Mali wa

Malik” [“For God’s sake, what do we have in common?”]. He wrote “Qalb Raqisah”

[“Dancer’s heart”] for another dancer, Karimah Ahmed. For the actress Aminah Rizq,

he wrote “Nifertit al-Jadidah” [“The new Nefertiti”], just to mention a few.38

Hassan Tawfiq resembles Nagi’s E.M. to Dickens’ Dora in David Copperfield

(1849/1850). He also takes Nagi’s translation of Cynara (1950) by Ernest Dowson as

supporting evidence that Nagi was searching for his only love in all the women he

encountered in his life.39 Nagi’s translation was published in the al-Hadith [The new]

magazine in January 1950. He introduced his translation as follows:

When his beloved Cynara deserted him, he was searching for another one like

her, but he could not find one. Dowson wrote this poem to brilliantly express

his feelings.40

This interpretation falls in line with Dr Ghazi Abdul Rahman al-Qusaibi’s comments

on Nagi’s comparison of his beloved to a star in “Darkness”. Nagi wrote: 35 Nagi: Ba‘d 50 ‘aman (note 1). 36 Nagi: Ibnat Ibrahim Nagi (note 3). 37 Nagi: Ba‘d 50 ‘aman (note 1). 38 Nagi: Ba‘d 50 ‘aman (note 1). 39 Tawfiq: Ibrahim Nagi (note 4), p. 69. 40 Tawfiq: Ibrahim Nagi (note 4), p. 69.

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Don’t tell me it was a star that faded away

O my heart! Everything has gone!41

Al-Qusaibi points out that Nagi turned his beloved into a star in the sense that both are

too distant for him to reach.42 While al-Qusiabi is right to say that Nagi turned almost

all his women into “stars”, Hassan Tawfiq was also right to state that it was only one

star that Nagi was searching for in vain among all of them.43

According to Hassan Tawifq, Nagi’s love poems show us that he was always in

search of one ideal love. He was not someone who was seeking sensual love, as

thought by some, but rather a spiritual love. This spiritual quest for his ideal love

reveals itself in many of his poems, as the following examples show:

This love that taught me

to love all people and love the whole world,

This love that made

a barren desert appear to me like spring,

It made me see how people

brought down its sacred strong fortress.

It made me see the universe in its depth,

like eyes weeping blood not tears.44

Even though the wound inflames

and cauterizes my senses!

I would never forget that she betrayed

while I kept my promise and honoured my oath.45

O love that purifies hearts

and cleanses [them of] filth and dirt.

How great and elegant intimate whisper is,

Sung by two burned souls.

They abandoned the world, but in their bodies

dwell the prisoner’s humiliation and the executioner’s cruelty. 41 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 252. 42 Ghazi Abdul-Rahman al-Qusaibi: Ma‘a Nagi wa ma‘ha [With Nagi and with her]. Beirut 1991, p. 26. 43 Tawfiq: Ibrahim Nagi (note 4), p. 71 44 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 253. 45 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 153.

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They looked up at the sky and floated

ascending towards the sky.46

Love as Malady and Remedy

Just as the famous classical Arabic poet Abu Nuwas (756–814) once wrote of wine

“Blame me not for blame is temptation / and medicate me with what was my

malady”47, love was one of Nagi’s disappointments in life. Yet it was equally a

malady and remedy. The following examples from his poems illustrate this point:

In your love I seek cure, how then did you leave me?

Nothing left of me but a soul, bones and skin.48

Neither has cure visited me, nor your shadow returned.

How untrue my hopes and your rendezvous are!49

O one who touched the wound, what have

merciful lips and a hand done to it?50

When is the one return to your courtyard

to show you my wound, blood and the dagger?51

You are mercy, will you have mercy on

the stranger’s thirsty soul?

O curer of my soul, my soul is complaining

of the injustice of her curer to her Creator.52

O poet, you doze off,

you remember the pledge and wake up.

When a wound is healed,

memory inflicts a new wound.53

46 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 114. 47 Abu Nuwas: Diwan Abi Nuwas [Abu Nuwas poems]. Beirut 1953, p. 6. 48 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 121. 49 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 168. 50 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 149. 51 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 160. 52 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 136.

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O you who saw my deep overwhelming sadness,

you cured my wound with a fresh one.54

[S]he throws [the arrow] and cures simultaneously. How strange

that the one who has the cure never knew.

How would [s]he cure me when I do not ask

for healing and would rather suffer sleeplessness and sickness?55

O wounded one, entrusting his wound

to a beloved who deepened it,

[S]he would not weep if a mourner

reported this to her.

O mighty one! Will you perish

because of a woman?56

The question in the last line “Will you perish because of a woman?” does not imply

that Nagi berated women in any way. On the contrary, his whole life was based on,

pivoted around and lived for women. However, one thing we cannot miss while

reading Nagi’s poems is his dignity and pride vis-à-vis his nonchalant beloved. He

illustrates this clearly in the following lines:

This love that I won, in which

I don’t fear all kinds of blame,

This beach on which I found

safety and health after seeing the high tides of the sea,

It tore my heart apart in cruelty

and put bitterness in my cup of regret.

It became fire and destruction in my blood,

and a conflict between a heart and its pride.57

Poetry as Healing Power

53 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 139. 54 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 173. 55 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 210. 56 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 139. 57 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 253.

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In his introduction to his second collection Layali al-Qahirah [Cairo Nights], Nagi

wrote:

Poetry for me is a window out of which I look at life…

and observe eternity…

and what is beyond eternity…

It is the air I breathe…

and the remedy with which I medicated my wounds in a time when healers

were rare.

This is my poetry.

Ibrahim Nagi58

Nagi suffered several setbacks in his life in terms of his health, love, poetry,

profession and self-esteem: he was diagnosed with diabetes as a young man; the only

girl he loved married another man; his first collection of poetry received harsh

criticism from the two major critics of his time. Moreover, a purge campaign forced

him to retire from practicing his profession as a doctor after the military coup that

deposed King Farouq and turned Egypt republican ruled by some young military

officers in 1952. The reason is unclear, but the pretext was that he supposedly was an

unproductive member of society. This early retirement was too painful for him to bear

because it was a clear stab to his dignity and upright personality.59 He expressed his

suffering in many poems, in which pain became a sign of nobility. He complained

about life by saying:

When life deteriorates, you will see nothing

raised high in glory but pain.60

In the midst of all this suffering and pain, poetry was Nagi’s healing power, so much

so that it became such an important driving force in life that it surpassed everything

else. He wrote to advise other poets, or maybe to remind himself:

Write for art’s sake, never exchange it for

passing pleasures of life or perishing ruins.61

In mourning his friend Muhammad al-Harrawi (1885-1939), Nagi wrote:

All talks will perish except theirs,

All people will die except poets!62 58 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 117. 59al-Qusaibi: Ma‘a Nagi wa ma‘ha, (note 42), p.62-6360 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 252. 61 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 214.

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Even though he was known for his formidable recitation, Nagi was too emotional to

recite the elegy he had written mourning the writer Ibrahim Disuqi Abaza (1889-

1953). Tearful and heartbroken, he stood aside listening to someone else reading his

poem. Muhammad Mustafa al-Mahi (1895-1976) wrote in his manuscript that he said

to his friends that Nagi was actually mourning himself. Nagi wrote in this last elegy:

I bade my dreams farewell and renounced my life,

and after you, I have buried my youth in the sand.

No, shedding tears over you would not save me,

my tears have dried up on the trough of death.

The past appears to me joyful,

bright with hopes and smiles,

but when I turn to my present I see it

gloomy, and my future shadow scares me!63

Indeed, few months after his humiliating retirement and this painful elegy, Nagi

passed away on 24 March 1953. On the next day, Al-Ahram, the most widely

distributed newspaper in Egypt, published this obituary:

The medical and literary world was shocked yesterday afternoon at the news

of the sudden death of the late doctor poet Ibrahim Nagi. Losing Nagi has a

devastating impact on the hearts of his friends and acquaintances who loved

him. The deceased dedicated his life to medicine and literature and excelled in

both. He devoted all his efforts to the service of humanity and idealistic

values. While his medicine was a refuge to the poor sick and needy, his poetry

was an illumination from a divine inspiration leading to the truth and

illuminating the way for bewildered souls. Dr Nagi was a staff of the Railway

Department, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Endowments and then

he retired from government service two months ago. In every department he

worked, he left a legacy that was appreciated and valued by all. No one will

forget his decency, humbleness, tenderness, and his sense of duty in its highest

form. May God forgive him and grant him paradise and inspire his family

members and friends to beautiful solace.”64

62 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 19), p. 179. 63 Tawfiq: Ibrahim Nagi (note 4), p. 89. 64 Tawfiq, Ibrahim Nagi (note 4), p. 141.

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He left behind a wife and three daughters to whom he left no wealth except an

abundance of people’s love for his poetry. Nagi did not earn much from his private

clinic because he used to treat poor people for free. Before his death, he had to sell the

only piece of land he had owned in order to cover his life expenditure.65

One of the touching stories that show his kind heart narrates that he once treated a

poor man whose only illness seemed to be poverty and hunger. Nagi gave him a

pound and told him to buy two chickens to feed himself with and he would be fine. A

few days later, Nagi met the man in the street again. Nagi asked him how he was, and

the man replied that he was fine. Nagi asked him if he had followed his advice and

bought the two chickens. The man replied that with the pound he had received from

Nagi he visited another doctor who cured him with medicine!66

Conclusion

Many inconsistent stories overshadowed Nagi’s life and this led critics and

researchers to adopt contradictory views. Some considered Nagi a poet with a heart

that could love multiple women simultaneously. Others, like Hassan Tawfiq, deemed

Nagi sincere in his search for a replica of his first love. This quest took him from one

encounter to another. All these encounters with women, however, once they failed to

be the true love he was searching for, became his muses, not his beloved, and gave

him a good excuse to write poetry.

These two views are not fully convincing. On the one hand, the bohemian lifestyle

Nagi led does not suggest that he was in search of an ideal in all his relationships, as

Tawfiq claimed. On the other hand, who is not in search of this ideal person in life?

The question is where and how is this search done? Is Nagi’s ideal an actress or a

belly dancer? Hardly so. This dismisses Tawfiq’s claim that he was in search for his

ideal partner through all these relationships. It also disproves the claim that Nagi had

many love relationships, for none of these was real love.

A third perspective in analysing Nagi’s life and love poems is probably closer to the

truth: His poetry was his real love. It is no exaggeration to say that the criticism he

received from Taha Hussein when he was a mature man had a greater impact on him

than losing his first love when he was still a student. We accept Nagi’s daughter’s 65 Nagi: “Ba‘d 50 ‘aman” (note 1); Nagi: “Ibnat Ibrahim Nagi” (note 2) 66 Radhwa al-Fiqi: “Ibrahim Nagi, Sha‘ir La Tuwarihil al-Atlal [“Ibrahim Nagi, a poet the ruins cannot bury”]. In: al-Masry al-Youm [The Egyptian today] Issue 1657 (26/12/2008). http://today.almasryalyoum.com/article2.aspx?ArticleID=191961 (accessed: 24/6/2018).

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story that he fell in love with his neighbour whether her name was ‘Effat, ‘Aliya or

‘Enayat.67 Too shy to express his love, he kept it a secret. She married, and he was

emotionally traumatized. He wrote his masterpiece “al-Atlal” for her. After settling in

Cairo and visiting theatres and literary salons he came to know many actresses for

whom he wrote many love poems. Some of these poems came at the request of some

actresses. He was good to all and his love poems did not express real relationships but

served as poetic experiences. To many poets, this is not unusual. Meanwhile, this does

not contradict the fact that he was married and also wrote many love poems for his

wife, as his daughter stated.68

As to what poetry means to Nagi, his introduction to his second book Layali al-

Qahirah [Cairo nights] explains it all. We can only understand his words against a

backdrop of his life trajectory. Together with all his misfortunes and misrecognition,

it comes to no surprise that Nagi suffered from depression. In the midst of all his

emotional pain, poetry became a therapeutic measure that afforded him to endure

many failings in life. He found solace in poetry, and it soon became a healing power

for his misfortunes, the reason for his existence and his true and only love when life

robbed him of values he dearly prized.

Much of the lore around Nagi’s lifestyle is misleading in one very important aspect: It

implies that Nagi’s quest for love motivated his poetic passion. However, considering

reliable circumstances that I pointed out above, the essence of Nagi’s poetry lies in

the fact that poetry itself was his greatest love: While Romantic poetry naturally lends

itself to writing about love and nature, Nagi had an inborn Romantic and melancholy

disposition that found its perfect expression in love poetry as a genre. This does not

necessarily presuppose a true love or numerous love affairs. Although certain women

might have inspired him to write poetry, his love of poetry itself was the foundation of

his talent and achievement. It is for this reason, too, that Nagi’s poetry – not women –

was medicine to himself.

67 Nagi: “Ba‘d 50 ‘aman” (note 1); Nagi: “Ibnat Ibrahim Nagi” (note 3). 68 Nagi: “Ba‘d 50 ‘aman” (note 1); Nagi: “Ibnat Ibrahim Nagi” (note 3).

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“al-Atlal” [“The ruins”] – Excerpts69

O Heart! May God have mercy on love,

for it was a tower of illusion that collapsed.

Drink with me on its debris,

and tell my story. How often have my tears betrayed me!

How did that love become history,

and just a reminiscence?

How can I forget you when you have seduced me

with sweet and tender lips,

with a hand reaching to me,

as one reaching through the waves to a drowning soul,

with a sparkle any wanderer would yearn for?

Where, in your eyes, is that sparkle now?

O Beloved! On whose tree I once perched

flying in longing, singing my pain.

In you is the composure of the humiliating, the blessing

and the transgression of the commanding, the governing.

My longing for you burns my ribs

and seconds are embers in my blood!

Give me my freedom! Release my hands!

I gave [you] everything and left nothing.

O your fetters have wounded my wrists.

Why should I keep them when they sacrificed me?

Why should I keep pledges you did not keep?

And why should I remain in shackles when life awaits me?

Where is my charming lover

who is glorious, majestic, yet bashful,

69 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 132.

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who walks with angelic confidence,

overly lovely, voraciously vain,

magically fragrant as the mountain’s breeze,

with a distant look, as the evening dreams?

How can I reach your kingdom

when you are temptation, complete in glory and light

and I’m love, a floating heart

and a bewildered butterfly approaching you?

“Wadaa‘” [“Farewell”]70

Only longing is our messenger,

a waiter fills our cups.

Has love ever seen drunks like us?

How many fantasies we have built!

We walked on a moonlit road,

with joy jumping before our steps.

We laughed like two children,

and ran, until we outran our shadows!

Fragrance evaporated, and we awoke.

We have wished we had never awoken.

The awakening shattered our fantasy,

our enchanting night has gone.

Light is suddenly an ominous alert,

and dawn suddenly approaches like a terrifying fire,

and the life we know is suddenly back,

and lovers are suddenly apart again.

70 Nagi: Diwan Ibrahim Nagi, (note 17), p. 35.

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O poet, you doze off,

you remember the pledge and wake.

When a wound is healed,

memory inflicts a new one.

So, learn how to forget

and learn how to erase [the past]!

O Beloved! Everything is predestined.

It is not our choice to be so wretched.

Maybe one day our fate will bring us together

when we fail to meet.

If one denies his partner,

a stranger meets a stranger,

and each one goes his way,

never say it is our choice, but say it is our misfortune!

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A screenshot of Nagi’s prescription, on which he scribbled lines of his most famous

poem “al-’Atlal”.