Mourad Farag

Murad Faraj

Mourad Farag or Murad Faraj ( Arabic مراد فرج Murād Faradsch , DMG Murād Faraǧ , Hebrew מוראד פרג '; born 1866 ; . died in 1956 in Cairo ) was an Egyptian writer , member of the Jewish - Karaite community, poet and author of numerous books in Arabic , Hebrew and French , who engaged in law, theology and grammar. His works underline the close relationship between Judaism and Islam and also establish a connection between Hebrew and Arabic .

Attorney and lawyer

In 1902 he made a name for himself by taking on the defense of Hayyim Kahana , a Port Said Jew who was charged with the "ritual" murder of a six-year-old Christian child and initially sentenced to one year of forced labor. Mourad Farag first reached an appeal, and eventually the final verdict placed the Egyptian state in charge of all costs of the legal proceedings. The historian Pierre Vermeren introduced him to other nationalist Egyptian Jews, such as Yaqub Sannu , the creator of the slogan “Egypt for the Egyptians” and René Qattawi (or Cattaoui), the leader of the Sephardic community in Cairo , who founded the Egyptian Jewish Association in 1935 Youth with the slogan: "Egypt is our homeland, Arabic is our language". In 1923 he helped draft the Egyptian constitution , which he had passionately demanded.

journalist

From 1901 to 1903 he was editor of the magazine of the Karaite community, at-Tahdhib , in which he published his first articles before becoming a permanent contributor to the major Egyptian newspapers and magazines.

At-Tahdhib appeared entirely in Arabic, with the exception of a few Hebrew words pertaining to Jewish rites that are supplemented with an Arabic translation, such as Kashrut or Brit Milah . The content of this weekly newspaper is very varied: Farag deals with Jewish topics, the relationships between the communities, also moral and philosophical topics such as freedom and nature as well as the family and especially the rights of women in marriage. The magazine also offerspages on Arabic culture, for example on the Abbasid poet Abu Nuwas or the caliph al-Ma'mun . The magazine becomes part of the Arab cultural renewal movement, Nahda , by promoting its belief that society will change through the diffusion of knowledge. Mohammed A. Bamyeh also noted in it the expression of an appreciation of progress, the desire for social reforms and a call for religious tolerance, which heanalyzesas typical themes of the Nahda .

From 1908 to 1909 Mourad Farag was involved in the publication of another Karaite magazine , al-Irschad .

In the same decade (1900-1910) he wrote regularly for important Egyptian newspapers such as al-Jarida , edited by Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid and al-Mu'ayyad , edited by Sheikh Ali Yusuf .

He then published articles and poems in Egyptian Jewish newspapers such as Isra'il (1920–1933), al-Shams (1934–1948) and the Karaite newspaper al-Kalim .

poet

In Arabic he takes up the classical form of qasida and that of zajal . His style is similar to that of the Egyptian poet Ahmad Shawqi from the twentieth century. The historian Joel Beinin , based on Farag's Arabic poetic work, recalls that the Karaites were fully integrated into the Arab-Egyptian culture. The literary historian Reuven Snir considers Farag's poetry to be traditional, as the author's main concern was to demonstrate a virtuoso command of the Arabic poetic language (most Jewish poets traditionally write in Hebrew ).

Among other things, he wrote nationalist poems such as B. "Egypt, my country of birth, my home".

Jewish community life

Farag co-founded the Historical Society for Jewish Studies in Egypt in 1925. He campaigned for rapprochement between Karaites and Rabbanites .

biography

Mourad Farag came from a Karaite family that belonged to the largest Jewish community in Cairo . His father was a goldsmith. Originally the family was called Eliyahu , but chose an Arabic name.

After the establishment of Israel , he stayed in Cairo and died there during the Suez War , which dealt a fatal blow to the Egyptian Jewish community.

Works

• Al-Qara'oun wal-Rabbaniyyoun (The Karaites and Rabbanites), 1918.
• A collection of Arabic poems in 4 volumes, Dīwān Murād (I, 1912; II, 1924; III, 1929; IV, 1935).
• Al-Qudsiyyāt (Sacred Works), 1923: This collection includes poetry and prose on Jewish subjects. Five years later, Farag translated it into Hebrew under the title Ha-Kodshiyot . There he supported the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. However, this did not prevent him from being honored by the Egyptian monarchy with the title of Bey.
• Arabic-Hebrew dictionary
• Hebrew-Arabic grammar
• Anthology of Arab-Jewish Poetry
• Farag translated the novel Ahavat Tzion (Love for Zion) (1853) into Arabic, a historical Hebrew novel set in antiquity and by the Lithuanian writer Avraham Mapu (1808–1867), one of the representatives of the Haskala , one of the Enlightenment influenced movement, was written.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c d e} Moshe Behar and Zvi Ben Dor-Benite: Modern Middle-Eastern Jewish Thought, 1893-1958 . Brandeis University Press, Massachusetts 2013, pp. 48 .
2. ↑ ^{a b} Pierre Vermeren: La France en terre d'Islam. Empire colonial et religion, XIX - XXe siècle . Belin, Paris 2016.
3. ↑ Mohammed A. Bamyeh: Intellectuals and Civil Society in the Middle East: Liberalism, Modernity and Political Discourse . IB Tauris, 2012, p. 64 .
4. ↑ Mohammed A. Bamyeh: Intellectuals and Civil Society in the Middle East: Liberalism, Modernity and Political Discourse . IB Tauris, 2012, p. 65-70 .
5. ↑ Mohammed A. Bamyeh: Intellectuals and Civil Society in the Middle East: Liberalism, Modernity and Political Discourse . IB Tauris, 2012, p. 62-63 .
6. ↑ ^{a b} Mohammed A. Bamyeh: Intellectuals and Civil Society in the Middle East: Liberalism, Modernity and Political Discourse . IB Tauris, 2012, p. 62 .
7. ↑ ^{a b} Joel Beinin: Egyptian jewish identities communitarianisms, nationalisms, nostalgias. Retrieved February 17, 2020 . 
8. ^ ^{A b c} Reuven Snir: Arabness, Egyptianess, Zionism, and Cosmopolitanism: The Arabic Cultural and Journalistic Activities of Egyptian Jews in the 19th and 20th Centuries . In: Orientalia Suecana . No. 55 , 2006, pp. 133-164 .
9. ^ Société d'Études Historiques Juives d'Égypte. Retrieved February 17, 2020 . 
10. ↑ L. Nemoy: Mourad Farag and his book The Karaites and the Rabbanites . In: Revue des Études Juives CXXXV . No. 1-3 , 1976, pp. 87-112 .
11. ↑ ^{a b c} F. Abécassis and F. Faü: Les Juifs dans le monde musulman à l'âge des nations (1840-1945) . In: A. Germa, B. Lellouch, E. Patlagean and Champ Vallon (eds.): Les Juifs dans l'histoire . 2011, p. 562 .