Syrian poet, novelist and thinker Abdullah Issa al-Salameh passed away in the Jordanian capital Amman at the age of 82, after a creative and intellectual journey that spanned more than fifty years, during which he left a prominent impact on contemporary Arabic poetry, Islamic literature, the novel and the short story.
Born in 1944 in the village of Al-Hadidi near Manbij, in an environment that gave birth to Al-Bahtari, which led critics to nickname him "Bahtari al-Asr", he studied Arabic at Damascus University, and began his life as a teacher before becoming involved in public affairs, which led to his arrest in 1973.
He left Syria in the early 1980s to settle in Jordan, where he lived most of his years in exile and continued his cultural activity, earning a law degree in 1988.
The Poet of Exile... A classic language with a contemporary spirit
The name Salama was associated with poetry before any other literary genre, and he published five collections that formed the main stages of his experiment: Shadow and Freedom, Oasis in the Labyrinth, Warts in the Samaritan Front, Excuses, and Lightning Waves, and his poetry was characterized by a mixture of classical language and contemporary concerns, with a striking presence of existential and political questions.
He gained a wide presence among the audience of the Islamic anthem through poems that turned into famous hymns such as "I and the Nightingale" and "Let My Hands Go and I am Not One of Your Prisoners", which have been passed down by generations of minstrels since the 1970s.
His contribution was not limited to poetry, but he also delved into the novel and the story, presenting works that criticize tyranny, corruption, and human alienation in symbolic and satirical ways, including The Serpent, The Weeping Cloud, The Mystery of the Wanderer, and Who Killed the Mysterious Man?, in addition to collection of stories such as Why Does the Butcher Lie? And the tears of Dergham.
A cultural legacy that goes beyond literary creativity
He has written dozens of articles and studies on thought, politics, and literature, and was a member of the World Islamic Literature Association, contributed to debates related to identity, culture, and political reform in the Arab world, and won prestigious awards, including the Okaz Prize for Poetry and the Al-Babtain Prize for Poetic Creativity.
Critics believe that the importance of safety lies not only in the size of its production, but also in its being a model of the Syrian intellectual who combined creativity and intellectual commitment, and carried the experience of exile without interrupting his connection to the issues of his homeland and nation.
With his departure, the Arab cultural scene is losing a voice that remained faithful to the idea of literature as a testimony to the times and a means of defending freedom and human dignity, values that were strongly present in his books, novels, and essays over the decades of writing.
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