Hassan Ajami, a philosopher in the Medina
By Edgar Davidian
A philosopher in a medina with monoliths on the seaside, feet in the water and front to the clouds…A megalopolis medina, a wild, eruptive, cosmopolitan, hysterical medina, just like Beirut, the city that is paralyzed by endless construction yards and inextricable traffic jams. A city that is always shaken, interpellated, polluted, overwhelmed by horns…A city that shuts itself away between insolent opulence and pathetic misery. A city cradled by water but hard to live in peacefully, despite its perpetually clear sky. A unique city where ignorance succeeds, just like culture, which is considered as a conspicuous ornament or a harmless amusement
In a city, boiling as in a cauldron, which heats till bursting, a philosopher might help to see more clearly. He probes the pain that erodes and examines, with wisdom or detachment, a society choking with wishes, and attempts to heal and dress the wounds of an agonizing country
All we need in the capital of the Levant is a Diogenes who holds his lantern in the middle of the day. This capital is lead, with impunity and anarchy, by the opposite wind of the sea. How to place philosophy and poetry in these frontiers with contemporary shrills, frontiers devastated by anger flames, taboo sclerosis, inflexibility of radicalisms of lies, refusal of decontamination, and rejection of self-criticism
Hassan Ajami has his own techniques, resources, and inspiration to raise his “philosopher and poet” voice in this deafening chaos. Juggling in a heavy narrow Arabic, with ideas, concepts, meditation, thoughts, and muses eluding Parnassus, Hassan Ajami is concerned about everyone and everything. Nothing that marks the life of the city seems indifferent to him
Originally from Abbasiyyeh, Hassan Ajami is a 37-year-old man who holds a Master’s degree in Philosophy from Colombia University (USA) and a BA from AUB. This southern man has an inexhaustible ability of speaking when it comes to important matters, in other words, according to him, when it comes to culture, poetry, society, politics, and philosophy. He has already eight books in his assets, among which: “Al super Hadatha: discovering possible ideas” (the super-modernism) and “Al super moustakbalia: the universe, the reason, and the language the super-futurism
Those books are authentic arms open to others, bridges for a fair sharing of the art of harmonious living, despite their obvious hermetism and their haughty and castigating Arabic. A meeting in a café in Acharfieh with an intellectual person who swallows his Nespresso just as we swallow candies…The most recent of his writings on the table: “Al super Oussoulia” the super fundamentalism and the poetry selection “Al chiir Al ilmi” the scientific poetry
« I write for philosophy specialists, university students, or writers”, says Hassan Ajami while explaining his books, considered hard and tough for lay people. And with a malicious smile he adds, “Yes, I write for philosophy specialists without precisely thinking about them…In addition, philosophy can indeed be facilitated
But the way wasn’t that straight and direct, since the beginning of my literary enterprise in the world of ideas…Poetry was the first step towards my intellectual quest. Why poetry? For me, there is no difference between poetry and philosophy because it’s about exploring and interviewing the humanity field. I write to show and confirm my humanity…And my humanity is the other…Everything overlaps
There are lots of approaches in poetry: romantic, Sufi, philosophical. I intend to write something new, and this is scientific poetry. It exists abroad, but it is new for the Arab world, and it was refused by poets. What is scientific poetry? A text about scientific theories, directly or indirectly, like the photon, the cell, and the neurons… In Arab poetry for instance, we are always dealing with the symbols of the saber, the desert, the spears, and the misleading heroisms…The Arab poetry is always in the past
Poetry in which the rigor of the metric and the prose are used at the same time, along with the free rimes and the flights of an absurd universe where nonexistence is on the lookout, with titles that ring just like philosophical or semiotic treaties. Poetry inspired by the atom as well as by the stellar constellations. Listen to them spreading in the air, those titles with particular resonances: the mirrors of the reason”, “the linguistic inspiration
It is absolutely natural, for this experienced intellectual, to move from poetry to literature and philosophy, because, as he says, “My references always remain scientific. Nowadays, with the super-modernism notion (a term that Ajami presents as an invention that applies to our environment), it is about trespassing modernism and post-modernism and finding something new. This is called the study of the possible worlds, a wide and varied study. In my book on super-futurism, I do not give the truth, but I search for it. The truth blinds us because it is too evident. We, Arab people, are out of the civilization history because we refuse reason and knowledge. I am a traditionalist and not a revolutionary because I believe in reason and knowledge. And we should admit that we will become the slaves of our masters if we don’t adhere to those two key-elements. As for the super-futurism, the essence of things is defined by the future. Speaking of a tree in Philosophy, adds Ajami while looking at the olive tree on the sidewalk through the glass bay, is speaking of its becoming, its leaves, its fruit…As for reason, we define it by its functions, because the future is far and it gradually turns into reality. That’s why I believe that history begins with the future. As for the language, it is heard that the meaning of the sentences is defined in time, while others say that they are undefined notions. The futurism settles the dilemma by asserting that sentences are defined in the future. Man is a being from the future. It is time for the Arabs to take care of the future instead of dying by holding on to the past. Nobody accepts the ideas of others, and that is why we have rejected the West. By refusing the other, we are refusing “ourselves”, and our heritage. “I” certainly do, but the others also do. If the others are hell...Then we should admit that the others are me
Fervent reader of Ghayabi, Avicenne, and Ibn Taymia, Hassan Ajami has already closed the book he was leafing through from time to time during the interview. Who are his readers? “Journalists, poets, and writers”, he said, a little bit amused and surprised by the fact that we thought about the readers. “In Tunisia and at the Bahrain University for example, they gave a lot of attention to my writings. Many debates were organized with epistolary relations and democratic applications. It is evident that there are readers who have the same preoccupations as mine. People who cannot publish their books and not those whose immediate preoccupations are to trade or to become ministers and deputies
And what about Hassan Ajami’s preparations for the near future, without playing on the word future? “I continue with my philosophical throw, he answers without batting an eyelid, Religious Philosophy and Philosophical literature. Above all, I would like to express philosophical ideas through my literary writing
This is Hassan Ajami, a hardworking man and an understanding, strong, honest, and simple erudite
