Ali Al-Rimawi (1860-1919) was a Palestinian poet, educator, and journalist. He was proficient in the Arabic language and wrote poetry. He graduated from Al-Azhar Mosque, and worked as a teacher of jurisprudence and language at the Rasasiyya School in Jerusalem.
He was one of the pioneers of literary and cultural clubs that included writers, poets, and educators of that period. He established the Al-Najah newspaper, which was one of the first Arabic newspapers in Palestine.
Birth and upbringing
Sheikh Ali Al-Rimawi was born in Beit Rima, Ramallah District, in 1860. His origins go back to the city of Aleppo, from which his ancestors moved to Palestine during the reign of Saladin Al-Ayyubi, and they were called “Aleppo.” His father, Sheikh Mahmoud Al-Rimawi, was one of the scholars of his time.
Study and training
Ali Al-Rimawi received his initial studies in Jerusalem at the Rasasiyya School at the hands of his father, Mahmoud Al-Rimawi. He then traveled to Egypt to complete his studies at Al-Azhar, and remained there for 12 years, during which he studied the foundations of jurisprudence and the Arabic language and literature.
He became famous in Egypt for his poetry, and he began publishing much of it in Cairo newspapers, and in the Jerusalem magazine Al-Manhal, owned by the late Musa Al-Maghribi.
Jobs and responsibilities
When Ali Al-Rimawi returned to Jerusalem and lived there, he was appointed as a teacher of jurisprudence and Arabic language sciences in an Amiri School, then Sheikh Ali moved to teaching in the Al-Ma’arif School.
He published his productions in newspapers published between 1908 and 1914, including Al-Quds Al-Sharif newspaper, owned by Jurji Habib Hanania, and editor of Al-Ghazal newspaper, in which he recorded the most important national occasions and events of that period.
After the Young Turk revolution and the restoration of the constitution in 1908, intellectual life and literary and journalistic activity flourished. On December 24, 1908, Sheikh Ali issued the first issue of his newspaper, “Al-Najah,” which was a political, literary, scientific, and agricultural newspaper, as it known itself.
Sheikh Ali wrote an article entitled “Arabic and Turkish are sisters, so why do they quarrel?” and called on Arabs to learn the Turkish language (Othmanic in Arabic letters) so that they can advance to government positions and not fear losing their nationality.
He was known for his long poems, as he was one of the prominent poets and journalists in Palestine on the eve of World War I.
Intellectual orientation
Sheikh Ali Al-Rimawi is convinced that no force can control the Arabs as long as they have these intellectual, literary and religious energies, and as long as they are loyal to their principles and beliefs.
He is a supporter of benefiting from the colonizer as much as possible to improve the reality of life for Arabs and Muslims, and to improve their living conditions so that they can devote themselves to other matters.
When the rule of the Ottoman Empire ended and the British Mandate came, there was no fundamental change in his positions, as he remained on the same intellectual premise that occupation must be fleeting, and one must exploit it until suitable conditions arise to confront it.
Sheikh Al-Rimawi is considered a traditionalist in his poetic and journalistic writings, and his mastery of Arabic styles appeared through the solidity of the language of rhetoric, and his use of metaphors, metaphors, and graphic images.
Al-Rimawi contributed, with his prolific production, to reviving the Arabic language and defending it against the policy of Turkification. He criticized the government for persecuting Arabs and excluding them from government positions, and called for the application of the principles of freedom declared by the constitution.
In 1916, Sheikh Ali went to Istanbul (Istanbul) with a scientific delegation representing Palestinian scholars, headed by Sheikh Asaad Al-Shukairy, and as members of Sheikh Ali Al-Rimawi, Sheikh Taher Abu Al-Saud, and Sheikh Salim Al-Yaqoubi, to confirm loyalty and fidelity to the Ottoman Caliph.
When World War I broke out, a scientific delegation of scholars and writers was formed, chosen by the people of Syria and Palestine, by order of Jamal Pasha, and it headed to the Sultanate House in Istanbul, to declare the residents’ loyalty to the state and the Sultan, and to extend their congratulations on the victory of the Ottoman army in the Battle of Çanakkale over the English fleet.
The mission included 31 individuals representing 4 million residents of the Levant, 9 of whom were from the cities of Palestine. The mission departed from Damascus in September 1915, and spent several weeks in the Ottoman capital in order to contribute to Turkish propaganda among Muslims.
During the mission’s visit to Istanbul, speeches and poems were delivered in praise of the state and its presidency, the most famous of which were the poems of Sheikh Ali Al-Rimawi.
He was one of those who welcomed the demise of Ottoman rule after World War I, and he expressed this in his poems. He welcomed the entry of the British in the hope of helping the Arabs achieve independence.
Thus, Sheikh Ali spent his last days praising a new rule, but he did not live long to see what the British had brought, especially for the Palestinian people.
Khair al-Din al-Zirkli says in his book “Al-A’lam”: “He had written to me that he was working on collecting a collection of his poetry, and perhaps he had completed it,” but it seems that he died before completing it, and no collection of his or any other works were found other than his articles and poems that were published in the newspapers of those days. .
His death
Ali Al-Rimawi died in Jerusalem after suffering from a pneumonia in the winter of 1919, and was buried in his hometown of Beit Rima.
