The Image of Women in the Poetry of Ma'ruf al-Rusafi: Between Social Traditions and Intellectual Renewal

Abstract

Praise be to God, who created everything in pairs, and made woman the sister of man, and placed between them affection and mercy. Woman is a cornerstone and a solid pillar in building the family and society, and a support and a home for man. Since ancient times, she has been a source of inspiration for poets, who have sung about her and her beauty and depicted her in many images: lover, wife, mother, sister, and daughter. To this day, Arab poets continue to draw from her symbolic and moral presence in their poems.

        The subject of women in modern Arabic literature and thought constitutes an important axis for understanding the social and cultural transformations in Arab societies during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These transformations were obscured by the dust of the battle waged around them by reformers and liberators, who threw them into the depths of the pit, leaving them between two groups: a strict conservative who wanted them to remain in a state of marginalization and ignorance, and a reformer who wanted to elevate them so that they could attain all their rights, including education, marriage, and work.

         In the midst of this conflict, the Iraqi poet Ma'ruf al-Rusafi (1875-1945) emerged as one of the most prominent reformist voices who stood by women in their battle against ignorance and marginalization. In his poetry, he called for their liberation from the shackles of tradition, and emphasized their right to education and work, and their right to determine their familial and social destiny. He made women's issues part of his intellectual and social project, shouldering their concerns, depicting their suffering, and expressing their aspirations in a conscious and profound poetic language.

        Based on this importance, this research entitled “The Image of Women in the Poetry of Ma’ruf al-Rusafi: Between Social Traditions and Intellectual Renewal” came to reveal the presence of women in al-Rusafi’s poetry, not only as a symbol of beauty, but also as a social and human issue that occupied his mind and aroused his interest. He embodied this in eloquent poetic images that express the reality of women in his society, and the injustice and exclusion they suffered, in contrast to his reformist vision through which he sought to advance them to their true status.

       This study is divided into an introduction, three axes, and a conclusion. It adopts the descriptive and analytical approach in investigating the various images in which women appear in the poetry of Ma'ruf al-Rusafi.