Nazik al-Mala'ika Lectures in Beirut

On Saturday, April 10, the Islamic Makassed College in Beirut gave the invitation to the third lecture in the series "Toward a Better Arab World." The Iraqi poetess Miss Nazik al-Mala'ika treated the subject from its social aspect, and the place was packed as the hall of the Ministry of Education had never known before.

Dr. Suhayl Idris introduced the lecturer,

preparing the fitting atmosphere by setting forth Miss Nazik al-Mala'ika's merits and the aspects of her excellence in thought and in poetry.

She began the lecture by defining Arab society. Then she analyzed the causes of its unrest in a philosophical and psychological analysis, and she charged our society with destructiveness and fragmentation, and with being no longer fit to protect the community, because of its inclination toward conservatism and rigidity, and its bondage to worn-out traditions that paralyze the mind and hold it back from creation, renewal, and flexibility — which are among the requirements of survival and of life in society.

Then she pointed out that this fragmentation has isolated woman in her own private world and denied her her intellectual capacities, claiming that she needs emotion and nothing more. This fragmentary view has driven woman away from the concerns of public life and made her lose — with time — her intellectual confidence in herself, since for long ages she was given over to simple manual tasks; and it has left her, in consequence, prey to a negative inner struggle, to hesitation, and to doubt. Hence dissolution has grown rampant in society, and the disease of fragmentation has penetrated to the very core of our life, producing women without ideas and men without feelings — for in young societies, which are marked by vitality and growth, woman shares with man in the various walks of life, and neither of them is confined to one sphere to the exclusion of the other...

As for Miss Nazik al-Mala'ika's solution for this abnormal state of affairs, it lies by way of undivided unity, and by demanding an upright social order in which creative human energy may breathe forth a better society to which it looks forward.

The Iraqi poetess's lecture stirred a tremendous echo of appreciation and admiration, and institutions and literary circles hastened to invite her; she gave a poetry evening at the invitation of the Cénacle Libanais, and public and private banquets were held in her honor to pay her tribute and to become acquainted with her singular personality.

The conclusion of these festivities was the one to which the Young Muslim Women's Club gave the invitation. There, in a homelike literary atmosphere and amid storms of applause, Miss al-Mala'ika recited a bouquet of her latest poems; then Dr. Salim Haidar rose to thank the poetess and himself recited two poems from the choicest of his verse; and the company departed, thanking Mrs. Habiba Shaaban Yakan and the members of the Young Muslim Women for their zeal in calling this delightful gathering...

And Miss Nazik al-Mala'ika said shortly before leaving Lebanon: I return to Iraq with my soul laden with sweet memories of the warmth, love, and enthusiasm I met with among my Lebanese brethren...