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The creation of a Foundation that focuses on Arabic poetry and celebrates the Arab poets was one of my dearest and most urging dreams. It all started the moment I realized the unique value of poetry in building nations in the past, present and future. It was God's will that this most dear of all the dreams was realized when I was able to launch The Foundation of Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain's Prize for Poetic Creativity in Cairo, the greater Arab cultural capital.
Establishing the Foundation was not a cultural luxury however, nor was it a demonstration of financial capabilities or a mere stubborn insistence on realizing a dream. Rather, it was a determination to reinstitute the role of poetry in the life of our nation, as poetry has always been one of the most distinguished Arabic literary forms. It is the Diwan of the Arabs and their reliable register in which the minutest details of their lives were recorded and preserved for thousands of years, given that the poet is a man of creativity, talent and insight.
Our passion for poetry, as Arabs, was not groundless, it emerged from what poetry has been -and always will be are a resentation of Arabic life itself. Poetry for the Arabs, is a means for satisfying the self, the soul and even the body. He inhales from poetry whatever pleases the self, elevates the soul and delights the ear.
Many questions have occurred in my mind regarding various established facts: Since Britain is so proud of Shakespeare, France of Bodlier and Hugo, since Russia cherishes Pushkin, Spain Lorca, and Pakistan considers Mohammed Iqbal one of its greatest founders who, through his poetry, heralded its very existence and Iran boasts of its poets Omar Al-Khayyam, Hafez and Sa'di Al- Shirazi. It is the right of the Arab nation, then, to feel proud of a golden galaxy of its great poets from Imro' Al-Qays, Zuhair, Al- Nabigha and Labeed, through, Al- Bohturi, Al- Mutanabbi, Al- Ma'ari, from Ahmed Shawqi, Al- Chabbi, Al- Akhtal Al-Sagheer and Al- Sayyab, a chain that has not been disrupted for more than fifteen centuries. Indisputably, the Arabs, have the largest number of poets.
Isn't it the right of Arabs today to put aside their sorrows and defeats for a while and enjoy reading the creative poetry of Antarah and Amr bin Kulthoum? Why should the creativity of Al- Motanabbi - who engaged the world and people, the philosophical poetry of Al-Ma'arri, the love poetry of the Platonics and Ibn Abi Rabi'a and the pre-Islamic Muallaqat, be confined only in the world of academics, researchers and some admirers?
Why don't we let the Arab ear taste that beautiful musicized art the same way it tastes poetry when sung by prominent singers?
We should think and act, and others should do the same as the project needs all the effort possible. Evidence to the credibility of what we say lies in the increasing number of institutions that attend to verse and prose in most Arab countries and initiate pioneering projects to authenticate, criticize and publish poetry, vocally and automatically, let alone publishing it in its first and foremost form; the book.
These queries and statements, added to my early wish, have enhanced my belief in the necessity of establishing the Foundation without delay or hesitation. Now, that the Foundation is celebrating its sixteenth anniversary, I feel very pleased with the successes it has attained through cooperation with our friends –admires of poetry all over the Arab world - a success for which I thank God the Almighty and commend all those who contributed to it in all forms.
Finally, I wish poets, critics, researchers and all those working in this exalted field all success. As well, I deem it my duty to highlight all efforts exerted by employees of counterpart establishments in general and of this Foundation in particular, to promote this most splendid Arab heritage.
This website comes in response to the desire of a great number of the Foundations’ friends as well as those who admire it and follow up its activities, with the hope that it would be useful. Gratitude should be paid to Allah the Almighty.
Abdul Aziz Saud Al-Babtain
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