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Good evening,
I am Lahab, the son of Abu Lahab. My official name is Assef Al-Jundi, and that is because it was not possible to register the name “Lahab” at the time of my birth.
[I started the eulogy with expressions of thanks for Syria’s Vice President Dr. Najah Al-Attar, for the Minister of Culture Dr. Riad Naasan Agha, for the Assistant to the Minister, Dr. Ali Al-Qaiyem, for Ms. Georgette Attiyeh, for all present at the Ta’abeen, for friends and loved ones, and for the entire Al-Jundi family.]
I used to feel hesitant and uncertain every time I sat to write a letter to my father—
How do I address him?
Dear Dad?
Beloved Baba?
Ustaz (Sir) Ali?
I felt that all words, all expressions, were not adequate enough…
His letters to me always started with something different and capricious, and I always found myself smiling after reading the first line—
Chief Engineer (bash muhandes) Lahab Agha
Brother Lahab companion of poetry and life
…and salamat Mr. Lahab to you and all the kin across the seas
In later years, letters got fewer and fewer until eventually they traveled in one direction: from me to him.
Whenever I got the chance to ask why, he used to laugh and say “it is because of laziness of old age”.
In many of his poem, it was as if he was predicting the future. Often I felt that he was foretelling his own. In the poem “The Great Silence”, from the collection “In The Beginning There Was Silence”, he wrote:
…And he departed from our land.
Master of morning’s colors.
Born of a storm.
Hair, tresses of fire.
Mouth, beak of winds’ mythical creature.
- Does he have the eyes of a god, or a prophet?
- His nose is a dagger of a Jahiliyyan conquest.
His breast, a fortress of pagan love.
In his hand, always, a twisting staff.
- It is a serpent.
- Every time he passes it over water’s forehead,
eternity’s roads split wide open.
Whenever he strokes the wind with it,
the thundering of Arabian stallions booms.
In the words of his beloved friend, the great writer Mamdouh Adwan:
“Ali Al-Jundi; the first letter of his name is Al-Watan (homeland).”
He also described him, in his introduction to “Ali Al-Jundi, The Complete Works”, as: “Al-Assifa (the storm)”
To me, and to my sisters, in our childhood days in Homs and Damascus, Ali Al-Jundi was first and foremost Baba. The Baba we loved, and always will, whether in this world, or any other.
The father who I never doubted for a moment his deep love for me and for my sisters.
The parent who was ahead of his time in the way he dealt with me, with my sisters, and with society around us…
In many years, during his military service, and in the years when he worked in Lebanon, we saw him whenever he visited. My memories of those times are filled with smiles, happiness and warmth…
We knew he was the “big poet”, and we were proud of him, but many years passed before I felt that I could read, or begin to understand his poetry.
I can not add to all that has been said about the beauty and richness of his language, or about his incredible creative genius. What I can say is that I was startled when I first discovered, through reading his poetry, the other side of his persona. The attributes I did not know in my youth.
I began to see a soul burdened with the sorrows, fears and disillusionments of an entire nation.
The source of his poetry was strong and plentiful, but his muse presented him with love at times, and with despondency and darkness at others.
That bride of poems was with him from the start. In his first poetry collection “The Felled Banner” he wrote:
My reflection in the mirror is sad.
He appears, changes from man
to a god with no image.
A beast with tender eyes
and the spark of a thwarted existence!
My mother still tells a story from their days at the University of Damascus:
When they first met, my father mentioned to her that he writes poetry, and proceeded to read some of his darker and rather gloomy poems.
A few days later he saw her sitting on a campus bench, and walked over to her. He asked if he could join her. She replied: “yes, but on one condition- don’t read any poetry”!
The other thing I discovered, reading my father’s poetry, is his sense of ”ghourbah”. The sense of longing and estrangement one feels when he is away from the homeland he loves. My father’s “ghourbah” did not require that one leaves home at all!
From “The Felled Banner”:
…and his shadow passed me, shrouded in clouds.
His sword and scabbard
grafted with gold.
Eyes of rubies.
Hair of flames.
He stirred a fear in me, a longing for eternal parting.
He stirred in my black depths a weariness I had forgotten.
I felt my ghourbah,
my loneliness,
that I am not the prophet!
And from the collection “Bleeding Under the Skin”:
“I am tired in this land for which I longed for far too long.
Exhausted from this soil which has become thorns in my eyes…”
His exhaustion is over…
His “ghourbah”, he left for our world—
This, our world, which makes Princess of Flowers feel estranged…
This, our world, which ought to listen more to the wisdom of Elders of Butterflies…
This, our world, which has forgotten, and wandered afar from the galloping fire of its being…
Dear Ali, Prince of Flowers,
Elder of Butterflies,
Master from the Fire that Gallops:
It is impossible for me to imagine who I am without my soul being entwined with yours.
My Flame and my Storm are from you.
My insistence on freedom is from you.
My Sufism, Buddhism, Christianity, are from you.
My sorrow,
My love of beauty,
The white feathers of my wings, are from you.
My humanity,
My Jahiliyya,
My Arabism,
are from you…
I am Lahab, the son of Abu Lahab. My official name is Assef Al-Jundi, and that is because it was not possible to register the name “Lahab” at the time of my birth.
[I started the eulogy with expressions of thanks for Syria’s Vice President Dr. Najah Al-Attar, for the Minister of Culture Dr. Riad Naasan Agha, for the Assistant to the Minister, Dr. Ali Al-Qaiyem, for Ms. Georgette Attiyeh, for all present at the Ta’abeen, for friends and loved ones, and for the entire Al-Jundi family.]
I used to feel hesitant and uncertain every time I sat to write a letter to my father—
How do I address him?
Dear Dad?
Beloved Baba?
Ustaz (Sir) Ali?
I felt that all words, all expressions, were not adequate enough…
His letters to me always started with something different and capricious, and I always found myself smiling after reading the first line—
Chief Engineer (bash muhandes) Lahab Agha
Brother Lahab companion of poetry and life
…and salamat Mr. Lahab to you and all the kin across the seas
In later years, letters got fewer and fewer until eventually they traveled in one direction: from me to him.
Whenever I got the chance to ask why, he used to laugh and say “it is because of laziness of old age”.
In many of his poem, it was as if he was predicting the future. Often I felt that he was foretelling his own. In the poem “The Great Silence”, from the collection “In The Beginning There Was Silence”, he wrote:
…And he departed from our land.
Master of morning’s colors.
Born of a storm.
Hair, tresses of fire.
Mouth, beak of winds’ mythical creature.
- Does he have the eyes of a god, or a prophet?
- His nose is a dagger of a Jahiliyyan conquest.
His breast, a fortress of pagan love.
In his hand, always, a twisting staff.
- It is a serpent.
- Every time he passes it over water’s forehead,
eternity’s roads split wide open.
Whenever he strokes the wind with it,
the thundering of Arabian stallions booms.
In the words of his beloved friend, the great writer Mamdouh Adwan:
“Ali Al-Jundi; the first letter of his name is Al-Watan (homeland).”
He also described him, in his introduction to “Ali Al-Jundi, The Complete Works”, as: “Al-Assifa (the storm)”
To me, and to my sisters, in our childhood days in Homs and Damascus, Ali Al-Jundi was first and foremost Baba. The Baba we loved, and always will, whether in this world, or any other.
The father who I never doubted for a moment his deep love for me and for my sisters.
The parent who was ahead of his time in the way he dealt with me, with my sisters, and with society around us…
In many years, during his military service, and in the years when he worked in Lebanon, we saw him whenever he visited. My memories of those times are filled with smiles, happiness and warmth…
We knew he was the “big poet”, and we were proud of him, but many years passed before I felt that I could read, or begin to understand his poetry.
I can not add to all that has been said about the beauty and richness of his language, or about his incredible creative genius. What I can say is that I was startled when I first discovered, through reading his poetry, the other side of his persona. The attributes I did not know in my youth.
I began to see a soul burdened with the sorrows, fears and disillusionments of an entire nation.
The source of his poetry was strong and plentiful, but his muse presented him with love at times, and with despondency and darkness at others.
That bride of poems was with him from the start. In his first poetry collection “The Felled Banner” he wrote:
My reflection in the mirror is sad.
He appears, changes from man
to a god with no image.
A beast with tender eyes
and the spark of a thwarted existence!
My mother still tells a story from their days at the University of Damascus:
When they first met, my father mentioned to her that he writes poetry, and proceeded to read some of his darker and rather gloomy poems.
A few days later he saw her sitting on a campus bench, and walked over to her. He asked if he could join her. She replied: “yes, but on one condition- don’t read any poetry”!
The other thing I discovered, reading my father’s poetry, is his sense of ”ghourbah”. The sense of longing and estrangement one feels when he is away from the homeland he loves. My father’s “ghourbah” did not require that one leaves home at all!
From “The Felled Banner”:
…and his shadow passed me, shrouded in clouds.
His sword and scabbard
grafted with gold.
Eyes of rubies.
Hair of flames.
He stirred a fear in me, a longing for eternal parting.
He stirred in my black depths a weariness I had forgotten.
I felt my ghourbah,
my loneliness,
that I am not the prophet!
And from the collection “Bleeding Under the Skin”:
“I am tired in this land for which I longed for far too long.
Exhausted from this soil which has become thorns in my eyes…”
His exhaustion is over…
His “ghourbah”, he left for our world—
This, our world, which makes Princess of Flowers feel estranged…
This, our world, which ought to listen more to the wisdom of Elders of Butterflies…
This, our world, which has forgotten, and wandered afar from the galloping fire of its being…
Dear Ali, Prince of Flowers,
Elder of Butterflies,
Master from the Fire that Gallops:
It is impossible for me to imagine who I am without my soul being entwined with yours.
My Flame and my Storm are from you.
My insistence on freedom is from you.
My Sufism, Buddhism, Christianity, are from you.
My sorrow,
My love of beauty,
The white feathers of my wings, are from you.
My humanity,
My Jahiliyya,
My Arabism,
are from you…
