NEOCLASSICISM 48fields of education, publishing, journalism and law, and was successively
member of the Baghdad Education Council (1886), head of the Baghdad
Press, editor of the official Gazette, known as al-Zaura' (1888), and member of
the Baghdad Court of Appeal (1890). His fame soon spread throughout the
Arab world, and in 1896 he was invited to Istanbul. On his way there he
passed through Egypt where he was well received by distinguished authors
like Ya'qub Sarruf, editor of al-Muqtataf, and Jurji Zaidan, founder of the
periodical al-Hilal. In 1897 the Sultan ordered him to accompany (in the cap-
acity of preacher), an official mission sent out to reform Yemen. A year later
he retHmed to Istanbul, but as he felt he was being watched by the Sultan's
men he is said to have composed a poem attacking the Sultan which resulted
in his imprisonment and his subsequent exile to Iraq. In Iraq he incurred the
enmity of a leader of the Wahhabis, the Muslim puritan fundamentalists, who
accused him of heresy and informed the Ottoman Government that he had
been attacking the Sultan's policies. In response to the charge Zahawi pub-
lished his refutation of the Wahhabi doctrines in his book al-Fajr al-Sadiq (The
True Dawn) (published in Cairo in 1905) and to avoid the Sultan's wrath he
had to preface it with an eulogy of his person.
After the Revolution of the Young Turks of 1908 Zahawi left for Istanbul
where he was appointed lecturer in the philosophy of Islamic jurisprudence,
then lecturer in the Law School of Baghdad. In 1908, as a result of an out-
spoken article he published in the Egyptian newspaper al-Mu'ayyad, entitled
'In Defence of Woman', in which he championed the cause of woman, he
incurred the enmity and indignation of many of his compatriots. We are told
that a demonstration of angry reactionaries, believing that he had attacked
al-Sharl'a (the sacred law) marched to the governor of Iraq, Nazim Pacha,
demanding his dismissal from his office as teacher in the law school. The
governor apparently gave in to the angry masses, although Zahawi was later
reinstated by Jamal Pacha. During the British occupation he was appointed
head of a committee to translate Ottoman laws, and finally in independent
Iraq he was a member in the House of Senators for four years (1925-9).
According to an autobiographical note he declined an offer from King Faisal
to become the poet laureate with a handsome salary because he did not wish
to sink to the level of a paid eulogizer.^58
From this brief account of the main events in Zahawi's life the picture that
emerges is that of a man who led a full and active life, as poet, thinker,
politician and social reformer. He was a prolific poet who published several
volumes: Poetic Utterances (1908), Zahawi's Quatrains (1924), Diwan (Collected
Works) (1924), The Essence (1928), Revolt in Hell, a long narrative poem first
published in a Beirut periodical (1931), but in 1934 included in Trickles. Two