- He is Muhammad Suleiman al-Ahmad, born at the turn of the twentieth century between 1900-1904 AD in the village of Diffa near Al-Haffa in Latakia governorate.
- His father, Sheikh Suleiman al-Ahmad, was a linguist and religious scholar who was also a member of the religious council in Damascus, and his mother, Raajah Ajeeb, was from the village of al-Qweiqa, neighboring the village of Diffa, where the Badawi al-Jabal family settled for 15 years.
- He studied Arabic with his father and attended elementary school in Al-Jabal and preparatory school in Latakia, then enrolled in the Maktab Anbar School and began organizing poetry.
- His great-grandfather, the poet-philosopher prince Al-Hassan Al-Makzoon Al-Sanjari, whose lineage goes back to the kings of Yemen.
- He took lessons in memorizing the Holy Quran, Hadith and classical Arabic poetry from a young age at the request of his father, Sheikh.
- Following the French occupation of Syria after the First World War, he became involved in politics and resistance despite his young age.
- Due to colonial persecution, he was forced to move between different Arab countries such as Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon.
- Upon his return to Syria in 1936, he was arrested for his anti-French occupation practices.
- When Badawi al-Jabal was surprised that his poem was called Badawi al-Jabal, Yusuf told him that people read well-known poets and you are not one of them, and this title will force people to read your poetry to know its owner.
- His father made him and his siblings speak only in classical Arabic and was very keen to familiarize them with religion, literature and reading books.
- The French occupation authorities put his name on the wanted list because of his many actions in the Syrian resistance and inflicting great losses on the French, and arrested him many times between 1920-1921, but they released him due to his young age.
- He was opposed to the military rule that prevailed after Adib Shishakli’s coup in 1951-1954.
- He opposed the socialism that prevailed between Egypt and Syria, describing it as an “evil” system used to increase power and money.
- He criticized the Syrian-Egyptian unity in 1958, which, according to him, limited the democratic system in Syria.
- After the French occupation of Syria, Badawi al-Jabal, despite his young age, joined Sheikh Saleh al-Ali’s revolution, which was based in the mountains of the Syrian coast, and fought alongside Saleh al-Ali himself, as well as acting as a mediator between him and the then King Faisal I of Syria.
- In 1925, he participated in the Great Syrian Revolution, where he led a group of revolutionaries dedicated to attacking French checkpoints
- After being pursued by the French, he left for Iraq, where he worked as an Arabic teacher at a high school in Baghdad.
- After returning to Syria, he soon resumed his struggle against the occupation and was detained by French forces for a year, then returned to Baghdad to resume his teaching career.
- He became a teacher at Baghdad University, where he was an early supporter of Rashid Ali al-Kilani’s revolution against the British occupation.
- Upon his return to Syria in 1943, he joined the National Bloc, which demanded the unity and independence of the Syrian territories.
- In the same year, he was elected as a member of the People’s Assembly, the Syrian parliament.
- After independence, he was elected twice, in 1947 and 1949.
- He was one of the supporters of the establishment of the National Party, which was founded in 1948, which called for renewal and non-involvement in the Hashemite rule that prevailed in Jordan and Iraq.
- In March 1954, he was appointed Minister of Health during the presidency of Hashim Atassi.
- He was elected Minister of Propaganda and News between 1955 and 1956.
- After the establishment of the Syrian-Egyptian unity and because of his views on socialism and Baathism and his political conflict with the then government, he moved to Lebanon, Tunisia, Turkey, and then settled in Switzerland.
- A few months after the separation of Syria and Egypt, he returned to Syria but decided to stay away from politics and devote himself to writing poetry.
- He was able to enrich Arabic literature with a type of classical poetry through which he was able to achieve a balance between imagination and idea. His poetry contained various colors, including satire, lamentation and ghazal, some of which carried a mystical character, and most of the poems he presented carried a political character that resisted French colonialism
- One of his most important poetic works: The poem “I Gloat at the Mighty”, written in Iraq, which reflects the state of the country after the June setback and his attitude towards what happened. The poem “I love the Levant”, in which he sang about the beauty of the Levant and his love for it. The poem “Lebanon and the Two Ghoutans” in which he praised Lebanon and the memory of the days he lived there. The poem “Khalqa,” which was sung by the great artist Fayrouz. The poem “For Childhood,” which was included in school curricula and is essentially part of the poem “The Strange Bulbul,” in which he spoke about his estrangement and its painful effects, which he dedicated to his grandson Muhammad, and the poem “Kaaba Zahra,” which carried a Sufi color and described a spiritual and existential pilgrimage. And the famous epic of evacuation, in which he sang of independence and its heroes.
- He published a poem called “Inspired by Defeat” shortly after the 1967 defeat, which became as famous as “I Gloat at the Mighty”, in which he exposed the symbols of defeat, both in Syria and Egypt.
- In response to these stances, some unknown masked men attempted to assassinate him in 1968 while he was practicing his morning exercise and then kidnapped him for several days.
- Hafez al-Assad, who was defense minister, intervened with the kidnappers to release him, confirming suspicions about his relationship with them and issuing an ultimatum to the kidnappers.
- He was found on a street in Damascus, and other sources say he was found in a hospital.
- He died on August 18, 1981 after suffering from illnesses caused by an assassination attempt on his life in 1968.
He was taken to the village of Salata in the Qardaha region, Latakia governorate, and buried in the presence of his father, Imam Sheikh Suleiman al-Ahmad.
We at Syrian Future Movement, as we recall the memory of the founding statesmen of Syria, we recall one of Syria’s influential men, and one of the symbols of the flags of the first Syrian state that contributed to influencing its structure, the poet and nationalist activist “Badawi al-Jabal Muhammad Suleiman al-Ahmad” within a sequential file that we present to you to include the symbols and flags of the Syrian state, in order to link our contemporary revolutionary present to a solid past and historical stations, hoping to revive in our people the need to build and create statesmen par excellence, learn from their experiences, overcome their negatives, and build on their history We hope to link our contemporary revolutionary present with a solid past and historical stations, hoping to revive in our people the need to build and create statesmen par excellence, learn from their experiences, overcome their negatives, build on their history, preserve the homeland, safeguard the gains, and restore the Syrian state to its glory after years of oppression, tyranny, and corruption.
