The Lithuanian American filmmaker, poet, and artist Jonas Mekas once reflected, “In the very end, civilizations perish because they listen to their politicians and not to their poets.” Shaped by war, exile, and political upheaval in 20th Century Europe, Mekas was noted for his commentary on how political power can dominate public life, while artistic voices that question, imagine, and warn are too often viewed as threats rather than safeguards. Such artists, he posited, exist to act as civilization’s moral memory, preserving the deeper conscience of a society in their work. However, long before Mekas extolled these truths to the Western world, tribal Arabia already knew that poetic insights were essential to their collective well-being.[1]
In pre-Islamic times, tribal poets across Arabia were believed to be accompanied by a jinn[2] who gave them knowledge beyond ordinary human reach. In fact, sha’ir, the Arabic word for poet, is derived from the same root as shu’ur—the word for feeling, perception, and awareness. This implies that poets are gifted with a special sense that allows them to perceive what others cannot. Centuries later, the Yemeni poet Abdullah Al Baradouni, a descendent of those who first plied this ancient craft and a contemporary of Mekas, is lauded a prime example of just such a gift.[3]
Known popularly as the prophet poet, Al Baradouni was frequently at odds with the various politicians and agents of power that administrated Yemen throughout his lifetime. This sometimes landed him in prison, however the artistic conscience he provided continues to pass timely judgments on the power centers dominating Yemen’s political scene in 2026. Adel,[4] a Yemeni businessman in his 40s who was displaced from Taiz to Aden during Yemen’s current protracted conflict, cited the poem Invasion from Within as an example of Al Baradouni’s works that seems to foreshadow the realities in which he and other Yemenis now live. Rife with satirical invective, the poem Adel refers to describes a “secret colonizer” that is not a foreign army but rather modernity, dependency, corruption, and self-betrayal. It includes bitter references to Yemen’s legendary Queen Arwa and ancient hero Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan, who is remembered for expelling foreign invaders. In alluding to them, Al Baradouni invokes Yemen’s proud history of autonomy in contrast to a contemporary surrender to oil-rich patrons. “The poet describes the situation of Yemen in his time,” says Adel, “but when we read his poem now, you feel as though he were living among us.”
Born in 1929 and raised in Yemen’s Dhamar province, Al Baradouni was blinded at age six by smallpox. Thereby deprived of his sense of sight, he could still memorize, and he is recognized for learning the Qur’an by heart before he turned eight. By age 13 he had developed an interest in poetry and was particularly influenced by the pre-Islamic poet Al HuTay’ah, as well as ibn Al-Rumi, Al Khuza’a, and ibn Sukkarah—all popular poets in the time of Islam’s Abbasid Caliphate.[5] Later, in 1949, when Al Baradouni was 20, he moved from Dhamar to Sana’a where he joined some halaqat—seminar style sessions that were held in the Grand Mosque in Sana’a’s old city. Northern Yemen was then ruled by a Zaydi cleric called Imam Ahmed, and Al Baradouni’s outspoken commentary in those sessions drew a swift reaction from those threatened by his observations. Accused of agnosticism, the young Al Baradouni was promptly sent to prison back in Dhamar.[6]
A seeing author, denied paper, pen, and even light in a dark cell might have felt cut off from their art—but not Al Baradouni. Rather in those conditions, he composed a poem entitled, From a Knowledge Seeker to Imam Ahmed. It was so well crafted, that Al Baradouni’s jailers wrote it down and sent it to the Imam on his behalf. Moreover, upon receiving the poem, Imam Ahmad was so fascinated by it that he traveled all the way to Dhamar to meet the imprisoned poet in person. Afterwards, he ordered Al Baradouni’s release and the blind poet headed to Sana’a once again, having served only 11 months of his sentence.
On his return to the capital, Al Baradouni joined Dar Al Uloum, a higher college for Arabic language and religious sciences. He graduated in 1953, and by 1954 found himself back in prison for his daringly critical views and satirical poems. During his second interim behind bars, Al Baradouni’s cell became another workshop and he composed 25 poems, entirely in his mind, which were not written up in full until his release. In the years that followed, Al Baradouni would serve several more prison terms under both the Zaydi Imams and the Republican regime that toppled their theocratic governance. Fueled by his leftist views, Al Baradouni composed prolifically during each of his confinements until the 1970s when at last Yemen’s political establishment realized that his intervals of incarceration were only elevating his work and gave up their efforts to silence him.[7]
Today, Al Baradouni’s body of work is recognized for its rich symbolism and binary oppositions, which he used to weave enchanting narratives that reflected people’s worries, distresses, and the harsh conditions in which they lived. When he died in 1999, The Guardian eulogized him for embodying the contradictions that live on in the creative tensions of his poetry, calling him “a political radical who cherished ancient traditions; a universalist who adored his native land; a popular hero of the written word, in a country where half remain illiterate; a blind man who saw the truth and was never afraid to express his opinions.”[8]
In the end, it is perhaps Al Baradouni’s dogged allegiance to the truth, to Yemen’s ancient moral memory and social conscience, that continues to endear him to Yemenis and oppressed populations across the Arab world—at least those who still heed their poets rather than politicians from the east or from the west. However, the refrain of Invasion from Within, Al Baradouni’s poem cited by Adel, also indicates that the poet’s insight came with a heavy cost. There, his burden is cast as the greater of two terrors: Terrible is not knowing what passes, and more terrible still to know.
Al Baradouni, it seems, was willing to pay the price of knowing—no matter how terrible the truth—since he also knew that was the path to freedom from the prisons of the human mind. Although he could not see the contours of the mountains and wadis his people inhabited, by mastering Arabic, he learned the contours of their hearts more intimately than many who saw their faces. He knew how they saw the world, and he knew that the words that shaped their minds held the power to blind or grant sight.
Indeed, this power of language, wielded by a blind poet, is lost on many who have the good fortune of living with sighted eyes. They lack insight into how the very language that they speak shapes how they see the world and their collective conscience—and perhaps, that is in part why many make the mistake of thinking that they have been formed by a superior worldview. Thus, the legacies of Al Baradouni and poets like him stand today as an invitation to know, to threaten cherished worldviews and the powers they may serve, even when it comes at a heavy cost. For some, this may represent a challenge to take up another language and view the world through its lens—perhaps even one with a moral memory as old as Al Baradouni’s Arabic. Who knows what prisons its rhythms may free us from, or whether we will find that it has already shaped us in ways of which we were not aware.
[1] https://archive.org/details/moviejournalrise0002edmeka_s4x8/page/n1/mode/2up?q=civilizations
[2] Jinn are supernatural beings in the Islamic and pre-Islamic Arabian tradition, created from smokeless fire, and distinct from both humans and angels.
[3] https://www.britannica.com/art/shair
[4] Names changed to protect vulnerable Yemenis.
[5] The Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258 CE) was the third Islamic caliphate, and ruled from Baghdad. Renowned for the cultural and scientific flourishing of the Islamic Golden Age, it ended with the Mongol destruction of Baghdad in 1258 — an event that marks, for many historians, the close of classical Islamic civilization.
[6] https://www.ibnulyemenarabic.com/arabic-culture/abdullah-al-baradouni/
[7] https://web.facebook.com/yemenusedtobe/videos/%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%87-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%AF%D9%88%D9%86%D9%8A-abdullah-al-baradouni/304600430834328/?_rdc=1&_rdr#
[8] https://www.theguardian.com/news/1999/sep/09/guardianobituaries1
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