Author's note: I am grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Research Center in Egypt for grant support that made this essay possible.

¹ “Khalāṣ Rāyiḥ ʿalā al-Maydān,” al-Masāʾ 35 (9 11 1956), 3.Google Scholar

² On 12 December 1956, the editors announced a competition for poems on Port Said, but a number of these poems had already appeard, so the most popular subject focus for colloquial poetry in the magazine at this time was not entirely defined by that announcement.

³ On this feature and in general on colloquial Arabic as a literary language in Egypt, see Cachia, P. J. E., “The Use of the Colloquial in Modern Arabic Literature,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 87, 1 (01–02 1967): 12–22,CrossRefGoogle Scholar repr. in Pierre, Cachia, An Overview of Modern Arabic Literature, Islamic Surveys 17 (Edinburgh, 1990), 59–75.Google Scholar

⁴ For example, the colloquial poetry known as al-shiʿr al-nabaṯi in the Arabian peninsula, a descendant of the bedouin poetry that has become part of the canon of “high literature,” played an important role in tribal politics until early in this century. See Saad, Abdullah Sowayan, Nabaṯi Poetry: The Oral Poetry of Arabia (Berkeley, 1985).Google Scholar

⁵ On the origins and spread of zajal and the controversy over its identity, see Samuel, Stern, Hispano–Arabic Strophic Poetry (Oxford, 1974);Google ScholarʿAbd, al-ʾAzīz al-Ahwānī, al-Zajal fi al-Andalus (Cairo, 1957);Google ScholarGorton, T. J., “The Metre of lbn Quzmān: a ‘Classical’ Approach,” The Journal of Arabic Literature 6 (1975): 1–29;CrossRefGoogle ScholarGorton, T. J., “Zajal and MuwaṢṢaḥ: the Continuing Metrical Debate,” The Journal of Arabic Literature 9 (1978): 32–40;CrossRefGoogle ScholarCorriente, F., “Again on the Metrical System of MuwaṢṢaḥh and Zajal,” The Journal of Arabic Literature 17 (1986): 34–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a survey of colloquial poetry in the modern Arab world, see my “Poetry in the Vernacular,” in Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming) 4:463–82.Google Scholar

⁶ Martha, Vicinus, The Industrial Muse: A Study of Nineteenth Century British Working-Class Literature (London, 1974), chap. 5.Google Scholar See also Brian, Hollingsworth, ed., Songs of the People: Lancashire Dialect Poetry of the Industrial Revolution (Manchester, 1977), intro.;Google ScholarMarilyn, Booth, Bayram al-Tunisi's Egypt: Social Criticism and Narrative Strategies (Exeter, Eng., 1990), 134–35. Although it concerns a different linguistic situation (French vs. regional spoken languages of southern France), a similar phenomenon occurred in 19th-century Provençal, as educated individuals took up the cause of dialect poetry;Google Scholar see Emile, Ripert, La Renaissance Provençale,1800–1860, pt. 3 (Paris, 1918; reprint, Marseilles, 1978).Google Scholar

⁷ See Nigel, Cross, The Common Writer: Life in Nineteenth-Century Grub Street (Cambridge, 1985), 161–63.Google Scholar An example is also found in Gustav Klaus's discussion of 19th-century miner poets: see his The Literature of Labour (Brighton, 1985), 75–76.Google Scholar

⁸ An example is provided by the treatise of Ṣafi, al-Dīn al-Ḥillī, Die Vulgararabische Poetik al-Kitāb al-ʿāṯil al-Ḥālī wa-al-Muraḥḥas al-Ḥāli des Ḥaflyiddīn Hilit, ed. Wilhelm, Hoenerbach (Wiesbaden, 1956).Google Scholar

⁹ Peter, Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (London, 1978), 28.Google Scholar

¹⁰ “Muqaddima,” Dīwān Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Nabī (Cairo, nd.), 4.Google Scholar

¹¹ See zajals reproduced by Ibn, Iyās in his Tārikh Miḥr al-Mashhūr bi-Badāʾiʿ al-Zuhūr fi Waqāʾiʿ al-Duhūr, 4 vols. (Cairo/Bulaq, AR. 1311 [AD. 1893]), 1:237–38, 247–48, 250–53, 259, by Khalaf al-Ghibāri.Google Scholar On medieval colloquial poetry in Egypt, see Aḥmad, Ṣadiq al-Jammāl, Al-Adab al-ʿāmmi fi Miṣr fi al-ʿAṣr al-Mamlūki (Cairo, 1966).Google Scholar

¹² Exemplified by Shaykh Ḥasan al-ālātī, who after finishing his education at al-Azhar became a well-known zajjāl and song composer. He drew a regular audience of litterateurs with his compositions and entertaining personality; his informal gatherings were institutionalized as al-Muḍḥik khāna al-Kubrā. He preserved the memory of these gatherings in Kitāb Tarwīḥ al-Nufūs wa-Muḍḥik al-ʿUbūs, 3 vols. (Cairo, 1889–1891).Google Scholar See al-ālātī, , 1:3–4.Google Scholar This title echoes the collection of the 15th-century Cairene colloquial poet, ʿAli b. Sudūn al-Bashbaghāwi, Nuzhat al-Nufūs wa-Muờḥik al-ʿUbūs. On al-Alati and his circle, see also Ḥusayn, Maẓlūm Riyāḍd and Muṣṭafā, MuḤammad al-Ṣabāḥīi, Tārīkh Adab al-Shaʿb: Nashʾatuhu, Taṭawwuruhu, Aʿlāmuhu (Cairo, 1936), 104–6;Google ScholarHeyworth-Dunne, J., “Society and Politics in Modern Egyptian Literature: a Bibliographic Survey”, Middle East Journal 2, 3 (07 1948): 313–14;Google ScholarAṇmad, Amāin, Qāamus al-ʿāAdāt wa-al-Taqālid wa-al-Taʿāabir al-Miṣsriyya (Cairo, 1958), 11–12, 218, 309–10, 374.Google Scholar

¹³ Afaf, Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, “The Cartoon in Egypt,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 13 (01 1971): 12.Google Scholar Vicinus makes a similar point about the orality of the dialect periodical for 19th- century England, although that was a situation characterized by a much higher literacy rate (Vicinus, , The Industrial Muse, 201);Google Scholar on this factor in the 18th century, see Klaus, , Literature of Labour, 9–10.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Beaman, A. H., CID, GHQ 2d Echelon, 28 02 1919. PRO FO 141/781/8915.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Police Report (Cairo), 31 July 1919. PRO FO 141/781/8915.

¹⁶ See the chapter on al-Nadim in RiyẤad, and al-ṢSabẤhi, , TẤarẤikh, 113–23.Google Scholar

¹⁷ See al-UstẤadh 1, 41(6 01 1893), 985–95.Google Scholar On al-Nadim's possible exaggeration of his own role, see Aṇhmad, Taymῡar, TarẤajim AʿyẤan al-Qarn al-ThẤalith ʿAshar wa-AwẤaʿil al-RẤabiʾ ʿAshar (Cairo, 1940), 15;Google Scholar and Naffựusah, Zakariyya SaʿẤd, ʿAbdallẤah Nadim bayna al-FuṣsṣhẤa wa-al-ʿẤAmmiyya (Cairo, 1966), 102, n. 2.Google Scholar

¹⁸ For the text see RiyẤaḍd, and al-ṢSabẤaṇhẤi, , TẤarẤikh, 119–23.Google Scholar For an earlier zajal by al-NadẤim on a similar theme, see al-TankẤit wa-al-TabkẤit 1, 9 (7 08 1881): 149–51.Google Scholar

¹⁹ For the text and translation of one of ṢSannựuʿ's poems, see my “Writing to be Heard: Colloquial Arabic Verse and the Press in Egypt (1877–1930),” ARCE Newsletter 140 (Winter 1987/1988): 3.Google Scholar

²⁰ A reader's zajal compares Tawfiq to al-Nadim: “If al-Nadim and his unique merit left us/Your thought would remind us of al-NadẤim's words.” Muṇhammad Effendi ImẤam, [Untitled Poem], ḥHimẤaral Munyati 1, 15 (14 Muḥharram 1316 [4 06 1898]), 236.Google Scholar

²¹ On the police: for example, “BẤulẤiṣiyyat Ibn SamsẤun,” ḥHimẤarat MunyatẤi 2, 10(11 DhẤi'l-ḥHijja 1316 [22 04 1899]), 157–59;Google Scholar“MawwẤal Aḥhmar, wa-al-ḥHidiq liẤa ẤAkhirihi,” ḥHimẤarai MunyatẤi 2, 4 (29 ShawwẤl 1316 [9 03 1899]), 60–61.Google Scholar On subscribers: “Kull Sana wa-Antum bi-Khayr,” ḥHimẤarat MunyatẤi 2, 10(11 DhẤu'I-ḥHijja 1316 [22 04 1899]), 160.Google Scholar

²² “Mawāʿiẖ Karbūni wa-Istiʿārāt Ashmūni,” Ḥimārat Munyati 1, 2 (11 Shawwāl 1315 [5 03 1898]), 2425. The idiom “puffing on a torn waterskin” is equivalent to “flogging a dead horse.”Google Scholar

²³ For example, an untitled zajal appearing in Ḥimārat Munyati 1, 22 (5 Rabiʿ 1 1316 [24 07 1898]), 341–43;Google Scholar“Zajal Halafāhwi, ʿArabi ʿalā Faransāwi,” Ḥimārat Munyati 2, 35 (18 Jumādā II 1317 [24 10 1899]), 554–57.Google Scholar

²⁴ I have found no zajals signed by women in this periodical, or in other periodicals of the turn of the century.

²⁵ For the text and translation of most of this long zajal, see Booth, , “Writing to Be Heard,“” 4.Google Scholar

²⁶ The urban Egyptian in these poems is labeled as ibn al-balad, a term comprising a complex set of identities marking an urban traditional Muslim populace. See Sawsan, El-Messiri, Ibn al-Balad: A Concept of Egyptian Identity (Leiden, 1978). On the ibn al-balad image in Bayram al-Tunisi's poetry, see Booth, Bayram al-Tunisi's Egypt, chap. 2. The term khawāga (Turkish khoja) referred initially to Turkish and then to Arab Christian schoolteachers particularly in the countryside, or more generally to teachers of nonreligious subjects. By this time it had come to refer to foreigners in general, and it is usually with this meaning that the word appears in the colloquial poetry of this period.Google Scholar

²⁷ Riyāḍd, and al-ṢabāḤi, , Tārikh, 149.Google Scholar

²⁸ This of course, has been an impetus for the use by some authors of colloquial Arabic in novels and short stories as well as for its widespread use in the theater; see Cachia, , ‘The Use of the Colloquial,” 67–70.Google Scholar

²⁹ On this strategy in one popular corpus of the time, see Booth, , Bayram al-Tunisi's Egypt, 252–57.Google Scholar Another who used this strategy effectively in zajal was Badiʿ Khayrī, especially in conjunction with first person narrative. Examples are his “Sāʿit Mā Taqdīsh Migānsa,” Aif ṣanf 1, 13 (16 02 1926), 19 (also published in al-Sayf in 1922);Google Scholar “Hubb Ṣaʿidi,” al-Sayf (1922); “Sirjū iṣṢundūq Yā Muḥammad,” Alf Ṣanf 1, 6 (29 12 1925), 6 (also published in al-Sayf, 1922).Google Scholar

³⁰ “Al-Umūr al-Makhfiyya ft al-Maḥākim aI-Sharʿiyya,” al-Mʿānī 1, 4 (15 02 1904), 121–25.Google Scholar This poem exemplifies a curious form of zajal found in newspapers of the time, characterized by an alternation of stanzas, wherein a dawr ʿʿāqil (rational stanza) is followed by a dawr majnūn (insane stanza), or a dawr jadd (stanza of seriousness) precedes either a dawr hazl (stanza of jesting) or, as in this poem, a dawr mujūn (stanza of buffoonery or shamelessness). The story is told in the “serious stanzas” and punctuated by the nonsense material of the “clowning stanzas.” But here the latter bear their own serious message, through the surrealistic description of human actions and familiar scenes wrenched out of context as they are performed by animals and inanimate objects. It seems to me that the situation of social disorder narrated in the stanzas of seriousness is echoed in the utter suspension of reality of the clowning stanzas. For another example of “rational-insane” verse see Pierre, Cachia, “An Uncommon Use of Nonsense Verse in Colloquial Arabic,” The Journal of Arabic Literature 14 (1983): 60–66. In the turn-of-the-century satirical press this practice was not uncommon.Google Scholar

³¹ The zajjāl Khalil Nazir, one of the attendants at al-Najjar's café sessions, acknowledges his debt in a zajal laced with puns: “I take my craft from the carpenter [i.e., al-Najjar]/ And my drink came from his seas [i.e., poetic meters]” (“Hizz al-Halāl YʾʿAbūʿʾāl,” al-Masāmir, 17 08 1919).Google Scholar Other important zajjāls of the early 20th century who are said to have attended al-Najjar's sessions are Imām al-ʿAbd Ḥusayn al-Ḥalabī, ʿ;ʿīsā Ṣabrī, ʾ;ʿzzat Ṣaqr, and Yūnus al-Qāḍī. See Riyāḍ, and al-Ṣabāḥi, , Tārikh, 124. But al-Najjar's sessions were not the only ones which an aspiring zajjāl could frequent; on the formation of a young poet in this café; culture,Google Scholar see Ismāʿil, Ḥusayn, “Tarjamat Ḥayāt al-Marḍūm al-Ustādh Muḍammad ʿlzzat Ṣaqr,” in Dīwān Amīr Fann al-Zajal al-Marḥūm ʿIzzat ṣaqr (Cairo, 1933), 1213.Google Scholar

³² Muḥammad, al-Najjār, Majmūʿat Azjāl (Cairo, A.H. 1318 [A.D. 1900–1901]), 2. This preamble is written in the rhymed (classical) prose still characteristic of much learned discourse at the time, just as many colloquial poems in the press of the 1920s and later are given titles in fuṣḥā.Google Scholar

³³ Muḥhammad, al-Najjār, ‘Fann al-Zajal,” al-Arghūl 1, 2 (15 09 1894), 32–33;Google ScholarIbid., 1, 3 (1 October 1894), 5860.

³⁴ A1-Arghūl, 1, 1 (1 09 1894), 3. A1-Najjar goes on to criticize political journalists for taking advantage of events in Egypt in order to sell their publications.Google Scholar

³⁵ For example, “Zajal al-Arghūl fi Tahniʾʾat Sumuww al-Khudaywī bi-ʾʿİd al-Ju;lūs wa-ʿİd al-Fiṭr,” al-Arghūl 6, 8 (A.H. 1319 [no month given] [A.D. 1900–1902]), 13133; “Ḥiml Zajal: Tahnʾa bi-Wilā-dat Bint ʿAzīZ Miṣrinā wa-Khidiwinā ʿAbbās Bāshā II al-Afkhar,” in al-Najjār, , Majmūʿat Azjāl, 7172.Google Scholar

³⁶ A1-Najjār, “Fann al-Zajal,” 3233.

³⁷ O. M. Tweedy, Political Summary, 8 April 1919. PRO FO 141/781/8915.

³⁸ C1D Intelligence Summary, 24 May 1919. PRO FO 141/781/8915. An unsigned colloquial poem from 1919 was obtained by British officials and is preserved in FO 371/3714; 1 am grateful to Ellis Goldberg for alerting me to it and providing me with a copy.

³⁹ See Booth, Bayram al-Tunisi's Egypt, chap. 1.

⁴⁰ Riyāḍ Effendi Muḥammad Amīn, [Untitled Poem], al-Laṭāʾ if al-Muṣawwara, 7,334(4 07 1921), 12.Google Scholar

⁴¹ “Sāʿidnā fi al-Masʾala Dī, Rabbinā Yikhallik,” al-Laṭāʾ if al-Muṣawwara, 7, 308 (3 01 1921), 2.Google Scholar

⁴² Colloquial poetry's status is tellingly illustrated in the way dīwāns of fuṣḥā poets who also wrote zajal are structured. The zajals come at the end, as in the dīwāns of Abū al-Wafāʾ and Hifnī Nāṣif Bey. Or, as in the case of Aḥhmad Shawqī, they are left out of the official dīwān altogether.

⁴³ Few women published zajals in these publications—but there were a few, becoming slightly more numerous in the 1940s and 1950s in magazines such as al-Radyū wa-al-Baʿkūka, al-Bahlūl, and Iḍḥak. There are a number of women now publishing colloquial poetry in Egypt—both in periodicals and in dīwāns of their own—but their number remains small compared to the number of men colloquial poets publishing their work. There are also examples from the earlier period of female pseudonyms, such as Fatat al-ʿArab who published two poems in al-Laṭāʾ if al-Muṣawwara in 1921; one is subtitled “Zajalun bi-Qalami Sayyidatin Misriyya” for those who might have missed that point. It is likely, however, that some female pseudonyms were used by men poets for particular effects. I am carrying out further research on women colloquial poets and the use of female pseudonyms in zajal.

⁴⁴ See Booth, , Bayram al-Tunisi's Egypt, 87.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ For a possible exception, see Booth, , “Writing to be Heard,” 5.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Of course, between al-Najjār's al-Arghūl and the 1920s, similar publications were founded by zajjāls, such as ʿİsā Ṣabri's al-Rassām (founded 1903), Fatḥī Muḥammad's al-ʿAṣr al-ʿAbbāsī (founded 1903), Aḥmad al-Qūṣī's al-Sabʾʾa wa-Dhimmituhā (founded 1907), but it was after World War I, and as part of a general upsurge in journalistic activity, that such periodicals became numerous. Much work remains to be done on networks of zajjāls, patronage, and the ways in which these informal structures both built on and furthered the fortunes of zajal in the periodical press. This is a focus of my continuing research on zajal.

⁴⁷ Badīʿ, Khayrī, “ʿUqba1 al-Tālta,” Alf Ṣanf 53 (23 11 1926). 4. The use of colloquial in the title of an editorial is unusual, even in the popular press. The article begins in a colloquial mode and shifts to a simple standard Arabic.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ “Tayyir Yā Abū Qirdān,” Abū Qirdān 1, 1(21 September 1924), 3.

⁴⁹ Bayram al-Tūnīsī and Badiʿ Khayrī were especially skilled at this. On al-Tūnisī's narrative poems, see Booth, Bayram al-Tunisi's Egypt, chap. 2.

⁵⁰ For the text of this poem, see Riyāḍ, and al-Ṣabāḥī, , Tārikh, 248–50.Google Scholar Nazīr also notes—following al-Najjār—that the aspiring colloquial poet must study the compositions of his predecessors; and he discusses the requirements of different thematic spheres. In love poetry (ghazal), he says, it is impolite to mention buttocks; in satire, the fun should not reach the point of invective or the poet may find himself silenced. These guidelines were not followed by the poets themselves: buttocks appear frequently in Bayram al-Tūnisī's poems (but in satires rather than love poetry!), while Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Nabī's zajals are so full of pointed invective that he is said to have lost most of his poet friends (Ibid.., 284–85). Naẓīr alludes to his careful attitude in another zajal on the writing process, when he says that “I put my words through a sieve/ That is, what I say is clean.” (“Hizz al-Halāl Y'Abū al-ʿāl,” al-Masāmīr, 17 08 1919.)Google Scholar

⁵¹ See Joel, Beinin and Zachary, Lockman, Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam, and the Egyptian Working Class, 1882–1954 (Princeton, N. J., 1987), 19091.Google Scholar

⁵² Zachary, Lockman, “Class and Nation: The Emergence of the Egyptian Workers' Movement” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1983), 452–57. I am indebted to Zachary Lockman for information on the labor press of the 1920s and 1930s.Google Scholar

⁵³ “ʿArḍ Ḥāl,” al-ʿāmil; al-Miṣsrī 1, 1 (10 02 1930), 13.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Beinin, and Lockman, , Workers on the Nile, 190.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Ibid., 318. One of al-Maghribī's poems is partially translated on p. 319.

⁵⁶ Ibid., 318, 280.

⁵⁷ “Al-ʿāmiI fī al-ʿīd,” in Fatḥi, al-Maghribī, Anā al-ʿāmil: Majmūʿat Azjāl Shaʿbiyya (Cairo, n.d. [1946?]), 11. For Bayram al-Tūnīsī's poem,Google Scholar see Al-Aʿmāl al-Kāmila li-Bayram al-Tūnisī, vol. 3, Bayram wa-al-Nās (Cairo, 1976), 16061.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ The twelfth number of this series' second year was a collection of zajals that the editors proudly proclaimed was the first issue to be authored by a peasant. Encouraging peasant authorship, continued the preface by Yahyā Ahmad, secretary of the Majlis al-lʿlām al-Rīfī who sponsored the series, had been one of the goals behind the series' inception. See ʿAbd, al-Qādir Aḥmad al-Sālūs, Fallāh… wa-Aqūlu al-Zajal, Ikhtarnā li-aI-Fallāh 2, 12 (06 1968).Google Scholar A volume of colloquial poetry by the well-known Samīr ʿAbd al-Bāqī had already appeared in the series, and at least five more volumes of colloquial poetry (including only two by peasants) had been published by the time the series was five years old.

⁵⁹ Joel, Beinin, “Labor, Capital and the State in Nasserist Egypt, 1952–1961,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 21, 1 (02 1989): 87.Google Scholar The poem is that of Darwīsh, Muḥhammad al-Mīhī, “Hikāyat Awwal Māyū,” al-Masāʾ, 225 (21 05 1957), 7.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Zakariyya, Muḥammad ʿİsā “ʿİd Māyū!” al-Masāʾ, 206 (30 04 1957), 7.Google Scholar On al-Masāʾ and the term iḍrāb, see Beinin, , “Labour, Capital,” 86.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Ibid., 83.

⁶² The literary editors' interest in colloquial poetry is suggested in other ways. Twice there appear profiles of colloquial poets: Ḥāmid, al-Aṭmas in al-Masāʾ, 155 (9 03 1957), 8;Google Scholar and Shafīq, Khālid, an itinerant peddler, in al-Masāʾ, 116 (29 01 1957), 8.Google Scholar There are numerous articles on folk literature and articles on both Ṣannūʿ and al-Nadīm; finally, an article on diglossia in Arabic challenges the notion that “local languages” pose any threat to Arab unity. See al-Masāʾ, 427 (11 12 1957), 8.Google Scholar

⁶³ There are critiques by Fatḥī Ghānim, Anwar ʿAbd al-Mālik, Ṣalāḥ ʿAbd al-Ṣabūr, Nuʿmān ʿāshūr ʿAlī al-Rāʿī, and Luṭfī al-Kholī.

⁶⁴ Ḥāmid, al-Aṭmas, Ṣunnâʿ al-Rabîʿ (Cairo, 1959[?]);Google Scholaridem, Tarnīmat al-ʿUbur: Azjāl Ḥāmid al-Aṭmas (Cairo, 1976).Google Scholar

⁶⁵ This presence was often limited, however, to compositions by a few individuals, continuing the tradition of featuring a single “žajjāl columnist.” Bayram al-Tūnīsī's regular commentary in verse on the rapidly unfolding political events of the 1950s in al-Jumhūriyya is a good example. This venue was constricted in the 1970s; ṣabāḥ al-Khayr is the only remaining mass-circulation magazine which regularly publishes colloquial poetry. More experimental colloquial poetry appears in the opposition press centered around the Tagammuʿ party (Adab wa-Naqd, al-Ahāli) and in the deliberately non-elitist al-Thaqāfa al-Jadīda, published by the government's Department of Mass Culture.