89th anniversary of Salah Jahin, today

CAIRO - 25 December 2019: Today is the birth anniversary of the legendary Egyptian poet Salah Jahin, who was born in December 25, 1930.

Jahin was a multi talented man; (a poet, cartoonist, and journalist) and many other arts that distinguished Jahin among any crowd. The late poet also discovered numerous talents and adopted many other artistic talents. However, the man knew that despite his multi talents, the world will always remember him for his poetry.

According to the book “Khareg el-Seyaq” (Out of context) by Ahmed Megahed, Jahin said to his son Bahaa one day, “if history remembers me, it will remember me as a poet, especially for my Quartets.”

Bahaa recounts that the birth of the Quartets took place by chance, as Jahin was on his usual daily walk to “Sabah el-Khair” Magazine (Good Morning), four lines of poetry persisted on his mind.

After Jahin arrived to the magazine, he informed his friend at the time Ahmed Bahaa el-Din, the editor-in-chief, the four lines of poetry stuck to his mind all morning. It appealed to Bahaa very much, and asked him to write four of them every week for publication in the magazine.

The lines of poetry that gave birth to Jahin’s Quartets are:

-Despite Humans are made of mud.
-And Leave their houses everyday with closed eyes.
-You find some nice and some evil.

In Arabic, though, it rhymes quite well.

Jahin started writing and publishing the Quartets weekly in 1959 and appeared in a collection of poems for the first time in 1963. Although readers followed it periodically in the magazine, his quartets combined together made a surprise in the literature community in Egypt at the time.

Yehya Hakki referred to this in a lengthy study on the Quartets with his book (The scent of loved ones) saying “Jahine himself, and everyone else in the literarture segment of society were dazzled when the quartets was published in a book, not exceeding the size of a child’s palm”.

Jahin will always be remembered in the minds and hearts of Egyptians and the entire Arab World.