Ma'ruf bin Abdul Ghani al-Rusafi (Arabic: معروف الرصافي; 1875 – 16 March 1945) was an Iraqi poet, educationist and literary scholar.
[6] Ma'ruf al-Rusafi is known to have been born in 1875[4] (his birth date has also been reported as 1 January 1877[7]) at al-Rusafa in Baghdad, Iraq[8] in a family of meagre financial means.
[9] His father, Abd al-Ghani, hailing from the Jibara tribe of Kurdish area,[7] died while he was a child and was brought up by his mother, Fathima[9] who was of Turkish ancestry.
[7] Al-Rusafi left for Turkey of the post Young Turk Revolution, in 1908,[7] and started working in Istanbul as an Arabic lecturer at the Royal College.
[7] After the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, al-Rusafi left Istanbul for Syria as the British authorities in Iraq prevented the return of Iraqis from Turkey.
[3][4][7] During his stay in Jerusalem, Rusafi had the opportunity to associate himself with such literary figures as Issaf Nashashibi, the principal of the training college and in whose name, Issaf Nashashibi Center for Culture and Literature was established in 1982,[10] Adil Jabr, the assistant director of education, Khalil al-Sakakini, an Arab nationalist and Nakhlah Zuraiq, an Arabic faculty member at the English College in Jerusalem.
[3] Al-Rusafi, who was also an attendee at the Congress, later wrote in praise of the declaration, an act which is reported to have placed him in disfavor of the Arab nationalists and his students.
[3] A month after the controversy, when the supporters of Talib Pasha al-Naqib, a candidate at the Iraqi elections of 1921, decided to launch a newspaper, al-Rusafi was reported to have been invited to head the publication.
Some of his poems have been critical of the British occupation of Iraq of 1920, in the wake of the rise of King Faisal I to power after the World War I.
[17] Al-Rusafi was also known to visit the Arif Agha Café on al-Rashid Street, and engage in reciting political poems to motivate demonstrators.
Ma'ruf al-Rusafi was acquainted with western literature through Turkish translations and his writing career started while he was in Istanbul by way of socio political articles in journals such as al-Muqtataf,[21] and al-Muayyad, published from Syria and Egypt.
[9] Al-Rusafi, who is credited with the adding ideas and values to modern Iraqi poetry, has written on a wide range of topics such as nationalism, society, politics and reforms.