Mr. Abdullah Zakaria Al-Ansari

I had started in a previous article handling the matter of the pioneers of the intellectual and cultural movement who distinguished themselves and left an imprint that was immortalized in the cultural and intellectual history of Kuwait during the period of their fellowship in Cairo and their residence in the "House of Kuwait" that brought them together and united them intellectually and nationally. In this article, I will briefly shed light on an exceptional persona who has become one of the tributaries of literature in Kuwait and one of the landmarks of its culture, Mr. Abdullah Zakariya Al-Ansari. He was born in Kuwait in 1922 AD to a house surrounded by faith and piety, as his father was the imam of the "Al-Abdul Razzaq" mosque, who owned at that time a school to teach the Qur’an, reading, and writing. He learned at a young age at his father’s school, which was called "Al-Falah School." After that, Professor Abdullah Al-Ansari was affiliated with Al-Mubarakiya School, where he remained for seven consecutive years until 1936 AD. He was nominated for the fellowship sent to Egypt in 1939 AD, but his father’s illness prevented him from doing that. He continued his studies at his father’s school, then was chosen to teach at the Eastern School between 1940 and 1942 AD. He joined the diplomatic field. After that, he was chosen later by the Educational Council as the financial supervisor for the House of Kuwait in Cairo. As for his literary life, he began writing poetry when he was seventeen years old, and most of his poems were published in Syrian and Iraqi newspapers, in addition to Al-Baa’thah magazine in Cairo and Kuwaiti magazines. After the independence of Kuwait, the departments turned into ministries, so he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with Mr. Khaled Al-Adsani, who was appointed as an ambassador to Cairo. After which, he returned to his country, Kuwait, and took over the Department of Press and Culture at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Among the prominent stations in the biography of Mr. Abdullah Al-Ansari are his intellectual contributions to the Kuwaiti magazine "Al-Baa'thah" for which he assumed editor-in-chief when Mr. Abdulaziz Hussein left for London. He had several writings in Kazma Magazine, the first magazine to be published and printed in Kuwait, which was headed by Mr. Ahmed Al-Saqqaf, editor-in-chief. He also assumed the role of editor-in-chief of Al-Bayan magazine, and Mr. Al-Ansari left behind him a deep legacy in literature, poetry, and philosophy; for example, Fahd Al-Askar, his life and poetry with books and magazines; Arabic poetry between colloquial and standard Arabic; politicians, politics, and the lost unity between them; Saqr Al-Shabib, his philosophy in life; and many others. Through my research and reading of the Al-Baa'thah magazine and its cultural topics of high intellectual level, several poems that Mr. Al-Ansari had composed in the columns of that magazine caught my attention, some of which are nationalistic and some of which are predominantly social. Mr. Abdullah Zakaria Al-Ansari continued to enrich the Kuwaiti literary and intellectual treasury from a young age until he passed away in 2006 AD, and it was of my good luck that I had a meeting with him in the early nineties in an attempt to receive praise from him for my first book, "Afia’ Al-Aghsan of Diwan Al-Othman", as he has a close relationship with my father of friendship and lineage. I remember that meeting was in his divan in Al-Shamiya, and I remember at that time that he introduced me to his abundant library attached to his office, that rich library that is diverse in thought and culture. I saw one of the books of the writer "Mikhail Naima", and it was a coincidence at that time that I had read an article about him in which he touched on the possibility of his private affiliations, and sarcastically and without knowing or intending, I told him: "This book... in your library!" So, he was very upset with me and started muttering words that suggested his anger towards me, and he left me directly after that. Unfortunately, at that date I did not understand what a rich library meant, whose content was collected one book after another over decades by a writer and author of diverse cultures. I tried to apologise to him, but "it was in vain." I was dismissed from his divan without applauding my book. In conclusion, we ask Allah to have mercy on him, reward him, and dwell him in his spacious heavens. In the next article, we will talk about a new persona and a flag from the intellectual flags of Kuwait.

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