By: Dr. Nermine Youssef Al-Houti
Sultan Al-Qasimi was not swayed away, being a ruler, from the cultural project that he wanted for himself and searched for it since his young days Al-Qasimi was building all dialogues in his texts on a reference to Arab causes and using the Islamic Arab city as a symbol of loss and fallBy: Dr. Nermine Youssef Al-Houti
Politics served a positive role throughout history, reflecting all aspects of life, be they intellectual, cultural or artistic, taking into consideration that the theater represents one of the individual’s tools to express his views, opinions, ideas and the concerns of his community, so it was necessary for politics, with all its influence, to show up on the stage.
The play scripts used historical events as political reflections on the contemporary political situation, because history is full of events from which wisdom and example can be deduced. It is natural for the playwright to refer to heritage and history to transform them into a historical drama out of romantic longing to the past with all its events and personalities, while sometimes the aim may be the recovery of historical periods from history to examine and reevaluate from a modern point of view. Sometimes, “historical events become political and artistic pun that relates to the present, so the author hides behind the mask of history to speak about the present away from the risks of political censorship lurking around him.
Sultan Al-Qasimi, in his writings of the Gulf political history , uses his study of the geographic history of the gulf which made him believe that what happened to Arab, African and Asian nations was done by imperialism and great powers fighting during the 18th and 19th centuries as colonization scattered interest of gulf Arabs in particular, divided them and stole their wealth.
0ut of this start , Sheikh Sultan Al-Qasimi paused at the political, geographic, economic, cultural history to say that the (divide and conquer ) policy, and preserving the interests of the colonizers made the interests of the Arabs doomed Arab interests.
We pause to ask a question, why does Sultan Al-Qasimi condemn the authority in his writings while he himself lives in a country rich in its natural resources, a ruler who opens our deep wound, and guide us through literature to the point of its pains and calls that Ibn Al-Alqami must be removed from among us?
As an extension to his interest in the Arab World history and his theory on what happened to the Arab nation by imperialism which scattered Arab interests, Sultan Al-Qasimi’s transformed his feelings into writings and dramas, and his theatrical writings were concerned with research into the reasons that burdened the Arab Islamic civilization and took it to near collapse. They will also cover the internal worlds of the stray ruler, the political and intellectual elite they prepare for defeat.
The writer did not choose from the Arab history, the era of Haroun Al-Yousuf or the Arab conquests era or victories over the crusaders, he rather chose what is more bitter and hard in order to send a resounding warning cry that emanates from the deep past to meet the present of the Arab nation with all that it means in the form of crises and pain, and that “recovery is subject to living the past painful events”.
Sultan Al-Qasimi was not swayed away, being a ruler, from the cultural project that he wanted for himself and searched for it since his young days , so when we look further back we will find that he participated in the school theater in the personality of “Jaber”, in Jaber Atharat Al-Kiram play.
Al-Qasimi says:
“I loved the theater since 1954, and I realized its contents and approaches and I was able to write for it through the reality of life”.
This makes us pose the question:
Is there a link between art and politics?
“the relationship between art and politics is like the relation between politics and economy, the issue is entangled and cannot be separated”.
Sultan Al-Qasimi is considered “a man whose culture is affected by all surrounding social, economic, and political aspects. The writer, especially the founder of the theatrical text must be viewed through his thinking, views and ideologies, in addition to his relation to the authorities and the intellectual, religious, social, economic and political circumstances combined, as they impose a general dominant direction at the time the text is written”.
When you look deep into the writings of Sultan Al-Qasimi you will find that they deal with political or historical issues with applicable dimensions on the present without ambiguity or symbolism. The meaning is clear and indicators do not need to go far into the unknown, and this is due to:
1) He is a ruler, and so he got what the ordinary writer or author does not have, that is his ability to penetrate the controls of the administration establishments, censorship, bans or restrictions, whether they really exist through laws, rules and regulations or through moral existence in the writers imagination which is the fear of the authority and oppression, even in the absence of banning laws or control of creativity because the educated Arab has an inherited fear due to the oppressive practices of authorities throughout history.
2) When the ruler writes about politics and history, he frameworks the other vision from outside the popular art and culture establishment, that is a projection of the authority’s or the official view on events of history ,and then an integrated image about it can be formed.
3) Writings of Sultan Al-Qasimi combine the rulers’ views of historical events and their cultural, political, and social reflections and also his views as a writer and an educated Arab that belongs to this nation, as most of his art, literature and creative interests place him among the Arab writers who are committed to the homeland’s and Arabism issues. His history as a student, away from ruling, then as a ruler confirms the credibility of his commitment and awareness of the country’s causes and his interest in its turns during the time of its prosperity and drawbacks, and his practical interest in literature, art, culture and the educated is only a confirmation of his serious vision.
The writings of Sultan Al-Qasimi: (Return of Hulagu), (the Cause) and (Reality…. An Original Copy) adopted a fixed technique, which is an attempt to read the current situation through the past with the purpose of getting onto the future or adjust the present. The author tied his artistic knot according to an ideology or a view that is dictated by the nation’s current political situation according to its entangled problems. Practically we are individual states that are connected by Arabism and Islamic fabric, yet without the economic and political unity tone. Meanwhile, there is an enemy that occupied and controlled Palestine for example, and the texts envisioned the deterioration of the current situation. Now, Baghdad has fallen due to the American occupation , and this reality is similar to events in history, and for that the texts were inspired by the similar moments and captured them to introduce the results and the possibilities that may explain from historical lessons to reproduce them in a new era with a beneficial vision. Also the recall of personalities with their historical glory that are crowned with negative or positive sacredness halos is an artistic necessity to connect with the current problems. For such personalities to receive flesh and blood again and to be mobilized in front of the gathering will definitely restore the mobility of thinking and rescue it from stagnation. These are some of the intensions of the texts and the theater of Sultan Al-Qasimi, as he moves through history and wakes it up in order to draw attention to the current danger, because we are deep into the carelessness situation, as the call of Hulagu in the (Return of Hulagu), and sending life into Abi Abdellah, the King of Granada in the (Issue), and restore movement in Salahueddin (Saladin) in the (Reality…. An Original Copy) are only an artistic technique that confirms the return to the historic stock to rediscover the defeated Muslim and Arab human being’s psychology and reform him according to the national and human vision the texts’ author wants from historic examples and rekindle the spirit of resistance in that broken being. It is also an aesthetical technique that did not stop at getting examples and leave the recipient to take care of himself, rather it was keen to place the recipient in a certain angle to help him overcome the fogginess of the current time and predict the future horizon, not by spreading hope in the possibility of correction but also by serious search into it to overcome the tragedies and defeats of the present.
The history that Sultan Al-Qasimi adopted in his writing is “a confirmation of the legitimacy of oneself and the identity of the Muslim Arab person; it is a worry that confirms the placement of history in confrontation with of the present in order to build the future, because it contributes to moving the static hope energy within people”.
The theatrical writings of Sultan Al-Qasimi were based on a group of references that he mentioned in his texts, and he employed them suggestively through his personal view and gave them contemporary dimensions and indications to uncover the features of the current era, even if he attempted to keep a distance from these references, yet he held to his selections and references, which lead to the development of conditions and events and forms of struggle to confirm the depth of these references in a drama form in his tragic vision of the Arab world and its reality. The goal behind his choice of the theater as a medium for his writings is an attempt to enable this vision to uncover the Arab self-identity in history and place it in history’s mobility and its contents of misfortunes. It is the catastrophe of the Arab civilization which he depicted its status in a way that does not describe the other, rather the goal was to read Islamic history to read the Arab personality which is considered part of a historic system he wanted to be the subject of his theatrical writings as a witness on history. This text becomes a tool to uncover the identity of the other and attempt to resist it , and his plays become an eye that sees the other as an enemy that attempts to wipe the Muslim east from history.
These references were pointed out by Al-Qasimi in an accurate poem, in which he employed the choice of symbols, marks, characters, cities and dialogue, and the theatrical text becomes a reserve for all those who did not read history. Those references tragically build the Arab history in Sultan al-Qasimi’s plays , as he wants to speak with history through his drama text, and speak with contemporary life with a vision of the world. Al-Qasimi supported his theatrical texts and strengthened their structure due to his Arab cultural background and knowledge of the Arab history, and described the elements through which he selected the subjects for history theatrics.
The choice of history and bringing the forgotten reality and including it in the drama writings to understand its lessons, examples and events, helps understand history and understand the place of Arab history. Al-Qasimi makes history in his writing a helping factor to uncover the tragic situation.
The tragic View of the Arab city’s fall:
The dimensions of Al-Qasimi’s vision are linked with the fall of the Arab Muslim city, as Cordoba, Baghdad and Jerusalem were the evidence of this fall and its true vision and the writer resorts to history to uncover the tragedy of a nation that worry and pain accompanied it after the loss of those cities. The drama gets completed in the tragic writing in Al-Qasimi’s vision when the fall of cities gets completed in all plays, as those cities possessed aspects of construction, of the sacred and of civilization, and their loss is considered a puzzling and worrying sign by the writer after Arabs dispersed and became scattered. The talk about those cities is a talk about political subjects and a talk about regional conflicts that were governed by political corruption, and a march without attention to the nation and its cries for support in facing mistakes that threaten the city and its people.
Al-Qasimi , chose to use the fall of those symbols and historical personalities to turn it into theater with his personal vision. He built his program with this loss and fall, and in this he depended on the nature of contradiction between all theatrical characters, and on the truth of the struggle between the Arab entity and its enemies. This vision was moving according to the strategy of building some form of struggles such as the Moguls attack on the Arab-Muslim east in the (Return of Hulagu) play and the Zionist plan to snatch Jerusalem from the hands of Muslims in the (Reality…… an Original Copy), also the disappearance of Muslims in Andalusia and their exit from it in (Al-Qasi ) play.
Al-Qasimi was building all dialogues in his texts on a reference to Arab causes and using the Islamic Arab city as a symbol of loss and fall. When he brings the city into the drama, he transforms these cities to spaces that include the tragedy’s bitterness, as the city of Baghdad, Jerusalem and Granada became the image of the other’s evil after their fall, and became with multi indicators that are only measured by the Islamic civilization standards., yet they developed with the evils of the invaders and weakness of the political structure in it made it the victim of conspiracies and breaching of treaties by the evil who took the land. Al-Qasimi, in his theatrical text, transforms all these cities with their historical and beautiful places to symbols of an experiment for writing and imagination in texts that summarize the hardships of the lost Arab cities, and rebuilds images of these cities with new eloquence that carries the history of these cities that were dismantled and restructured anew.
Those cities became, with Al-Qasimi, the subject of writing, reading and explanation, and formed with drama a knowledge that carries symbolic constituents that allowed Al-Qasimi to question the world and the Arab entity about the loss. He was able to surpass the superficial engineering appearance of these cities to transform the writing about into a political and intellectual issue with Arab, Islamic, and humanitarian content. He gave it its knowledge dimension as spaces living in the prosperous Arab era with vital, religious, administrative, scientific, intellectual, political and cultural content. They used to live with forgiveness and coexistence between religions, but they fell, as a tragic hero falls, because of a mistake committed by the homeland’s enemies and enemies of forgiveness and coexistence among religions.
In the (Return of Hulagu) play, images of the tragic fall of the Arab Islamic landmarks at the hands of the Moguls:
Caller: Al-Ajami tower fell at the hands of the Moguls (voices of people leaving)
Caller: the east wall is destroyed Moguls (voices of people leaving)
Caller: the Moguls entered Baghdad Moguls (voices of people leaving)
Caller: Duwaidar was killed… Duwaidar was killed (voices of people leaving) Caller: the group of Muslim youth who wore white shrouds… were all martyred on the bridge.
The meaning of falling and martyrdom in all plays written by Al-Qasimi, as if he brings the fall of all Arab cities that witnessed this fall and with it the theater for him becomes written with Arab prints, breath and ardor, and with the fall off these cities this meaning takes the mark of shame and treason, the past is shame and liberation is the hope after accounting for conditions of these cities.
(The Group: They occupied Jerusalem, Jerusalem at the mercy of the Western occupiers… Oh, Islam…. Oh, Islam)
Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammad Al-Qasimi
٭ Born in Sharqa, July 6th, 1939.
٭ Moved between Sharqa, Dubai and Kuwait to get his elementary, intermediate and secondary education.
٭ Was the leader of his school scouts.
٭ Was an athlete, a painter and organizer of scientific exhibitions.
٭ Participated in several theatrical activities.
٭ Taught at an industrial school after completing secondary education.
٭ Studied agricultural engineering at Cairo University, graduating in 1971.
٭ Upon returning home worked as Head of the Courts of his late brother, the ruler of Sharqa, Khalid bin Mohammad Al-Qasimi.
٭ Minister of Education on December 2nd, 1971 in the newly declared UAE.
٭ PhD in history from Exeter University, UK, in 1985.
٭ PhD in Political Geography in the Arabian Gulf from Durham University, UK, 1999.
Publications
٭ The Myth of Arab Piracy in the Gulf, Croom Helm – London 1982.
٭ Division of the Omani Empire (1856-1862), Al-Ghurair Press, 1979.
٭ British Occupation of Eden, Al-Ghurair Press, 1992.
٭ Arab Omani Documents at the French Archives Centers, 1933.
٭ John Malcolm and the British Commercial Base in the Gulf (1800), Gulf House, 1994.
٭ David Seton Diaries in the Gulf (1800-1809), prepared by HH Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammad Al-Qasimi, 1995.
٭ The White Sheikh, Gulf House 1996.
٭ Oman French Relations (1715-1905), Forest Row, 1996.
٭ The Gulf, Historic Maps (1493-1931) Thenik Print Limited, 1996.
٭ Somali Chiefs Letters to Sheikh Sultan bin Saqer Al-Qasimi (1837), Gulf House 1996.
٭ The Revolutionary Amir, Public Authority for Books Publishing, Egypt, 1998
٭ Return of Hulagu , Play, Cultural Center Publications, Sharqa, UAE (1998)
٭ Power and Trade Struggle in the Gulf (1630-1820), Forest, 1999.
٭ The Gulf in Historical maps (1478-1861), Thenik Print Limited 1999.
٭ Al-Qadiyyah (The Cause), play, February 200?.
٭ Historians Statement in the Innocence of Ibn Majid, Investigation by HH Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Mohammad Al-Qasimi (the book is in Arabic, English and Portuguese), Printers: Midad Al-Shariqa, 2000.
٭ Reality… An Original Copy, Play (2001).
nermin-alhoti@hotmail.com
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