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Criticism of the Ottoman Authority by Thirteenth-Fourteenth/Nineteenth Century Poets of medina

These droplets of critical poetry directed against the Ottoman authority grew into a torrent in the next century. The Medinan poet Ibrāhīm al-Uskūbī ⁽¹⁾ (1246 – 1332/1830-1913) was also known for his critical attitude towards the Ottoman Empire, which he expressed in his poem published in 1912 in al-Balāgh al-Bayrūtiyya magazine ⁽²⁾. Because of the hard line that he took, the ruling authority summoned him to Istanbul, Where he was accused of disloyalty, but the poet defended his attitude. They sent him back to Medina, where he died after a short time, which led his grandson, Muhammad SaCīd Daftardār, to suggest that his death might have been arranged by the Ottoman authority ⁽³⁾ because of their dissatisfaction with the poet’s line and the poem itself, which had been received with unusual attention and admiration. In this poem, which is dated 1331/1912 in the poet’s unpublished Dīwān ⁽⁴⁾, al-Uskūbī seriously questioned the ruling authority’s luxurious manner of life to which they had become attached and its effects on their policy or any political future they expected, reminding them at the same time of their predecessors:

سلوا الحَشَايا التي ملكتموا تَرَفاً

هل قيلَ كانت لأسْلاَفِ لكم تُطْرَى

أو الأَسِرَّة تعْلُو فوقها كِلَلٌ

هل تَعْبُر البحر إِنْ رُمْتُم بها عَبْرا ⁽⁵⁾

("Would you ask the luxurious cushions you own if ever it were said that your predecessors ever knew? Or would the thrones and royal seats surmounted with crowns ever be able to cross the sea if you sought to pass through?").

Al-Uskūbī repeated throughout his poem that if they wanted to strengthen their position in this world among other nations, then they should have followed the path of Islam and mobilised the energy of the nations to manufacture weapons. He stressed that in their present condition they would never come near the advanced countries:

لو أَلْفَ عام طلبتم علم أوربّة

وحالُكُم هكذا لم تَبْلغوا العُشْرَا ⁽⁶⁾

"If you sought the knowledge of Europe for a thousand years, in this condition you would never reach the tenth of that").

Ibrāhīm ibn Hassan ibn Husayn al-Uskūbī was born and brought up in Medina’s, where he studied in Medina’s Mosque and later taught after he became qualified, i.e. by the beginning of the fourteenth/nineteenth century. He died in Medina in 1332/1913. See CAbd al-Salām al-Sāsi, al-MawsūCat al-Adabiyya, vol. I (Mecca, 1388/1968) p. 1-10. "Usküb (Serb. Skoplye), capital of the former Turkish wilayet of Kosowa (Serb. Kosovo), now the capital of the Vardar banat in… Jugoslavia". (F. Bajraktarević, art. "Usküb, " EI, vol. IV, -p. 1052).	[1]
See CAbd Allāh CAbd al-Jabbar, al-Tayyarat al-Adabiyya fī Qalb al-Jazirat al-CArabiyya (Cairo, 1959) p. 138 - 41.	[2]
A.H. fi al-Hijaz, p. 95-105.	[3]
See the Ms. Copy of the Dīwan al-Shaykh Ibrāhīm al-Uskūbī al-Madani, p. 102 in the Hafiz Library, Medina.	[4]
Ibid., p. 104.	[5]
Ibid., p. 105.	[6]