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{{Short description|Arabic expatriate literary movement at the turn of the 20th century}}
The '''Mahjar''' ({{langx|ar|المهجر|translit=al-mahjar}}, one of its more literal meanings being "the [[Arabs|Arab]] diaspora"<ref>{{cite book |author=Hans Weh. |author-link=Hans Wehr |title=[[Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic]] |edition=4th |page=1195}}</ref>) was a movement related to [[neo-romanticism|Romanticism]] [[migrant literature|migrant literary]] [[literary movement|movement]] started by Arabic-speaking writers who had emigrated to the [[Americas]] from [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]]-ruled Lebanon, Syria and Palestine at the turn of the 20th century and became a movement in the 1910s.<ref name="Badawi">{{cite book |surname=Badawi |given=M. M. |authorlink=Muhammad Mustafa Badawi |title=A Critical Introduction to Modern Arabic Poetry |pages=179–203 |year=1975 |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |url={{Google books|id=E4DbToJtTeUC|plainurl=y|page=|keywords=|text=}} |isbn=0-521-20699-5}}</ref><ref name="Jayyusi">{{cite book |surname=Jayyusi |given=Salma Khadra |authorlink=Salma Jayyusi |year=1977 |title=Trends and Movements in Modern Arabic Poetry |volume=2 |place=Leiden |publisher=E. J. Brill |page=362 |url={{Google books|id=8pI3AAAAIAAJ|plainurl=y|page=362|keywords=|text=}} |isbn=90-04-04920-7}}</ref><ref name="Feathers and the Horizon">{{cite book |title=Feathers and the Horizon |isbn = 9780949264565 |url={{Google books|id=ZtwNAAAAYAAJ|plainurl=y|page=|keywords=|text=}} |last = Fairbairn |first = Anne |year = 1989|publisher = Leros Press }}</ref><ref name="Archipel">{{cite book |language=fr |title=Archipel|year=2008|url={{Google books|id=h2kMAQAAMAAJ|plainurl=y|page=66|keywords=|text=}} |page=66 |quote=Les écrivains du Mahjar sont les écrivains de langue arabe ayant émigré en Amérique. Comme leurs aînés de la Nahda, ils sont stimulés par leur rencontre personnelle de l'Occident et participent largement au renouvellement de la littérature arabe.}}</ref> Like their predecessors in the [[Nahda]] movement (or the "Arab Renaissance"), writers of the Mahjar movement were stimulated by their personal encounter with the [[Western world]] and participated in the renewal of [[Arabic literature]],<ref name="Archipel"/> hence their proponents being sometimes referred to as writers of the "late Nahda".<ref>{{cite book |title=Arabic Thought beyond the Liberal Age |url={{Google books|id=8YM7DgAAQBAJ|plainurl=y|page=179|keywords=|text=}} |page=179 |isbn = 9781316654248 |last1 = Hanssen|first1 = Jens|last2 = Weiss|first2 = Max |year = 2016|publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref> These writers, in South America as well as the United States, contributed indeed to the development of the Nahda in the early 20th century.<ref>Somekh, "The Neo-Classical Poets" in M.M. Badawi (ed.) "Modern Arabic Literature", Cambridge University Press 1992, pp. 36-82.</ref> [[Kahlil Gibran]] is considered to have been the most influential of the "Mahjari poets".<ref name="Feathers and the Horizon"/><ref name="Jayyusi" />
== North America ==
=== First periodicals ===
[[File:Kawkab America.jpg|thumb|''[[Kawkab America]]'']]
As worded by David Levinson and [[Melvin Ember]], "the drive to sustain some Arab cultural identity among the immigrant communities in North America" was reinforced from the beginning when educated immigrants launched Arabic-language newspapers and literary societies in both the [[New York City|New York]] and [[Boston]] areas to encourage poetry and writing, with the aim of keeping alive and enriching the [[Arab culture|Arabic cultural heritage]]."<ref>{{cite book |title=American immigrant cultures: builders of a nation |url=https://archive.org/details/americanimmigran00davi/page/864 |url-access=registration |last=Levinson |first=David |author2=Ember, Elvin |year=1997 |publisher=[[Simon & Schuster Macmillan]] |isbn=978-0-02-897213-8 |page=[https://archive.org/details/americanimmigran00davi/page/864 864] }}</ref> Thus, in 1892, the first American Arabic-language newspaper, ''[[Kawkab America]]'', was founded in [[New York City|New York]] and continued until 1908, and the first Arabic-language magazine ''[[Al-Funoon]]'' was published by [[Nasib Arida]] in [[New York City|New York]] from 1913 to 1918. This magazine served as a mouthpiece for young Mahjari writers.
=== The Pen League ===
[[File:Algunos miembros de Al-Rabita al-Qalamiyya.jpg|thumb|Four members of the Pen League in 1920. Left to right: [[Nasib Arida]], [[Kahlil Gibran]], [[Abd al-Masih Haddad]], and [[Mikhail Naimy]]]]
The Pen League ({{langx|ar|الرابطة القلمية}} / {{ALA-LC|ar|al-rābiṭah al-qalamīyah}}) was the first<ref>{{cite book |title=La poésie arabe moderne entre l'Islam et l'Occident |last=Zéghidour |first=Slimane |year=1982 |publisher=KARTHALA Editions |isbn=978-2-86537-047-4 |page=142 }}</ref> Arabic-language [[literary society]] in North America, formed initially by [[Nasib Arida]] and [[Abd al-Masih Haddad]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.al-funun.org/penbond/index.html |title=Al-Rabitah al-Qalamiyah (1916, 1920-1931)|work=al-Funun|publisher=Nasib Aridah Organization |access-date=September 23, 2009 }}</ref> in 1915<ref>{{cite book |title=Arab-American almanac |last=Haiek |first=Joseph R. |year=1984 |publisher=News Circle Publishing House |isbn=978-0-915652-21-1 |page=27 }}</ref> or 1916,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Popp |first=Richard Alan |year=2001 |title=Al-Rābiṭah al-Qalamīyah, 1916 |journal=Journal of Arabic Literature |publisher=[[Brill Publishers|Brill]] |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=30–52 |jstor=4183426 |doi=10.1163/157006401X00123 }}</ref> and subsequently re-formed in 1920 by a larger group of Mahjari writers in [[New York City|New York]] led by [[Kahlil Gibran]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Arabic-speaking Americans |last=Katibah |first=Habib Ibrahim |author2=Farhat Jacob Ziadeh  |year=1946 |publisher=Institute of Arab American Affairs |oclc=2794438 |page=13 }}</ref> They had been working closely since 1911.<ref>{{cite book |chapter=Religious motifs and themes in North American Mahjar poetry |title=Representations of the divine in Arabic poetry |last=Nijland |first=Cornelis |editor=Gert Borg, Ed de Moor |year=2001 |publisher=[[Rodopi Publishers|Rodopi]] |isbn=978-90-420-1574-6 |page=161 }}</ref> The league dissolved following Gibran's death in 1931 and [[Mikhail Naimy]]'s return to [[Lebanon]] in 1932.<ref>{{cite book |title=Modern Arabic literature |url=https://archive.org/details/modernarabiclite00star |url-access=limited |last=Starkey |first=Paul |year=2006 |publisher=[[Edinburgh University Press]]|isbn=978-0-7486-1290-1|page=[https://archive.org/details/modernarabiclite00star/page/n72 62]}}</ref>
The primary goals of the Pen League were, in Naimy's words as Secretary, "to lift Arabic literature from the quagmire of stagnation and imitation, and to infuse a new life into its veins so as to make of it an active force in the building up of the Arab nations".<ref>{{cite book |title=Khalil [sic] Gibran |last=Naimy |first=Mikhail |year=1950 |page=50 }}, qtd. by Nadeem Naimy in ''The Lebanese Prophets of New York'', American University of Beirut, 1985, p. 18.</ref> As Naimy expressed in the by-laws he drew up for the group: <blockquote>The tendency to keep our language and literature within the narrow bounds of aping the ancients in form and substance is a most pernicious tendency; if left unopposed, it will soon lead to decay and disintegration... To imitate them is a deadly shame... We must be true to ourselves if we would be true to our ancestors.<ref>{{cite book |title=Kahlil [sic] Gibran |last=Naimy |first=Mikhail |year=1950 |page=156 }}, qtd. by Nadeem Naimy in ''The Lebanese Prophets of New York'', American University of Beirut, 1985, pp. 18-18.</ref></blockquote>
Literary historian Nadeem Naimy assesses the group's importance as having shifted the criteria of aesthetic merit in Arabic literature: <blockquote>Focusing on Man rather than on language, on the human rather than on the law and on the spirit rather than on the letter, the ''Mahjar'' (Arab emigrant) School is said to have ushered Arabic literature from its age old classicism into the modern era.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Lebanese Prophets of New York |last=Naimy |first=Nadeem |year=1985 |publisher=American University of Beirut |page=8 }}</ref></blockquote>
Members of the Pen League included: [[Nasib Arida]], [[Rashid Ayyub]], [[Wadi Bahout]], [[William Catzeflis]] (or Katsiflis), [[Kahlil Gibran]] (Chairman), [[Abd al-Masih Haddad]], [[Nadra Haddad]], [[Elia Abu Madi]], [[Mikhail Naimy]] (Secretary), and [[Ameen Rihani]].<ref>{{cite book |title=A community of many worlds: Arab Americans in New York City |last=Benson |first=Kathleen |author2=Philip M. Kayal |year=2002 |publisher=[[Syracuse University Press]] |isbn=978-0-8156-0739-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/communityofmanyw00bens/page/36 36] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/communityofmanyw00bens/page/36 }}</ref> Eight out of ten members were [[Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch|Greek Orthodox]] and two were [[Maronite Church|Maronite]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Moreh|first=Shmuel|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G7Q3AAAAIAAJ&dq=mahjar+orthodox&pg=PA85|title=Modern Arabic Poetry: 1800 - 1970 ; the Development of Its Forms and Themes Under the Influence of Western Literature|date=1976-01-01|publisher=Brill Archive|isbn=978-90-04-04795-2|language=en}}</ref> Musicians such as [[Russell Bunai]] were also associated with the group.<ref>{{cite book |title=Images of enchantment: visual and performing arts of the Middle East |last=Zuhur |first=Sherifa |year=1998 |publisher=[[American University in Cairo|American University in Cairo Press]] |isbn=978-977-424-467-4 |page=143 }}</ref>
== South America ==
The first Arabic-language newspaper in [[Brazil]], ''[[Al-Faiáh]]'' ({{langx|ar|الفيحاء}} / {{ALA-LC|ar|al-fayḥāʾ}}), appeared in [[Campinas]] in November 1895, followed by ''[[Al-Brasil]]'' ({{langx|ar|البرازيل}} / {{ALA-LC|ar|al-brāzīl}}) in [[Santos, São Paulo|Santos]] less than six months later.<ref name="Negotiating National Identity">{{Cite book|author=Jeff Lesser|title=Negotiating national identity: immigrants, minorities, and the struggle for ethnicity in Brazil|year=1999|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LHYYAAAAYAAJ|page=53|publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=9780822322603}}</ref> The two merged a year later in [[São Paulo]].<ref name="Negotiating National Identity"/> The first Arabic-language literary circle in South America, ''[[Riwaq al-Ma'arri]]'', was founded in 1900<ref>{{Cite book|author=Paul Starkey|title=Modern Arabic Literature|date=20 July 2006|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AJckDQAAQBAJ|page=62|isbn=9780748627240}}</ref> by [[Sa'id Abu Hamza]], who was also settled in São Paulo.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Cultures|year = 1980|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hHnWAAAAMAAJ|page=155}}</ref> ''[[Al-Rabita Al-Adabia]]'' would be founded in [[Buenos Aires]] 49 years later, but newspapers and magazines in Arabic were active in Argentina already also in the 1900s.
Shafiq al-Ma'luf "led the major grouping of South American Mahjar poets".<ref>{{cite book |title=Feathers and the Horizon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZtwNAAAAYAAJ |page=216 |isbn = 9780949264565 |last = Fairbairn |first = Anne |year = 1989| publisher=Leros Press }}</ref> Other poets include [[Fawzi Maalouf]], al-Qarawi and Farhat.{{sfn|Badawi|1975|pp=196–202}}<ref name="Jayyusi" /> In contrast with the North Mahjari, southern authors much more were related with a national theme and nostalgia for homeland.<ref name="Jayyusi" />
== Principles ==
[[Mikhail Naimy]]'s book of literary criticism ''Al-Ghirbal'' (published in 1923) contains the main principles of the Mahjar movement.<ref>{{cite book |author=Badawi, M. M. |authorlink=Muhammad Mustafa Badawi |title=An Anthology of Modern Arabic Verse |url={{Google books|id=pwgsAAAAMAAJ|plainurl=y|page=|keywords=|text=}} |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1970 |isbn=978-0-19-920032-0}}</ref>
== See also ==
* [[Nahda]]
== References ==
{{Reflist}}
{{Mahjar}}
[[Category:Mahjar| ]]
[[Category:Lebanese literature]]
[[Category:Syrian literature]]
[[Category:Arab-American literature]]
[[Category:Literary movements]]
[[Category:20th-century American literature]]
[[Category:20th-century Brazilian literature]]
[[Category:Argentine literature]]
[[Category:Migrant literature]]