Professor Younis As-Samarra'i as One of the Pioneers of the School of Editing Iraqi Poetic Diwans
Ramadan Saleh Abbad
College of Education for Girls _Department of Arabic Language_ Tikrit University
DOI: https://doi.org/10.25130/jls.4.2.15
Keywords: Poetic Diwans, Journals and periodicals, Manuscrips, Indexes
Abstract
Professor Younis Ahmad As-Samarra'i is one of the outstanding professors of Arabic, Abbasid literature at Baghdad University since the beginning of 1970s as a teacher, scholar, editor and author till his death in 2005 in Baghdad. He was concerned with human and intellectual heritage, researching in it, editing and publishing poetry of those poets whose manuscripts have not reached to us like many poets whose works were not collected because their manuscripts were lost., and like many treasures of the Arabian civilization which were lost because of wars, natural catastrophes, political upheavals and other reasons. There was an urgent need, therefore, to collect the uncollected scattered poetry, of outstanding figures who had influenced human thought, from its sources and introduce it to the reading public and to students, scholars and researchers. Such work needs great efforts, knowledge and patience to collect, edit, document, compare, knowledge of the historical background as well as experience in editing the heritage. All this is begun earlier by Professor Younis As-Samara'i after getting his PhD till his death. He has published and participated with many other Arab researchers in producing and publishing classical collections of Arabic poetry. The Iraqi school of editing poetry collections is characterized by effective participation in this regard by publishing hundreds of volumes. Professor Younis alone edited the works of more than twenty poets which accounts as more than twenty per cent of the poetry and prose productions of the Abbasid Period and published them in the outstanding journals and periodical and in separate volumes to enrich the Arabic library in general and the Abbasid library in particular and this will be the concern of this paper.
