Maqalat fi Kalimat
- Author died
- 1420 AH
- Editions
- Dar al-Manarah li-l-Nashr wa-al-Tawzi'
Maqalat fi Kalimat (Articles in Words) is a collection of concise literary and social essays by the Syrian scholar and author Ali al-Tantawi (1327–1420 AH / 1909–1999 CE), originally published as short newspaper columns and later compiled into book form .
Origin and Composition
The material for the work originated in 1949 when Wadi' al-Saydawi, the proprietor of the Damascus newspaper al-Nasr, requested al-Tantawi to contribute a daily column titled Kulla yawm kalimah saghirah ("Every Day a Short Word") . Al-Tantawi wrote this column for a period before transferring it to the newspaper al-Ayyam, owned by Nasuh Babil, where he continued writing it for several years, producing hundreds of brief articles .
A publishing committee formed by Dr. Mustafa al-Barudi and other young contemporaries later requested material from al-Tantawi, selecting a portion of these columns to publish in a small booklet titled Kalimat ("Words") . Al-Tantawi subsequently prepared a broader collection from the columns, publishing it under the title Maqalat fi Kalimat in 1959 . In his introductions to the 1959 first edition and the 1990 re-edition, he noted that while many of the original newspaper pieces dealt with ephemeral daily events that lost relevance with time, he selected for the book only those essays whose themes remained readable across all periods .
Structure of the Second Volume
A second volume (al-Majmu'ah al-Thaniyah) was compiled by al-Tantawi's grandson, Mujahid Mamun Dayraniyah, and published by Dar al-Manarah in 1421 AH / 2000 CE from manuscripts and archives that had remained unpublished . The second volume is arranged into three distinct sections:
- Section One: The largest portion of the volume, containing selected short columns originally published in al-Nasr and al-Ayyam, mostly between 1949 and 1951, that were omitted from the first volume .
- Section Two: Seven early articles composed by al-Tantawi at the beginning of his literary career in his early twenties .
- Section Three: Essays transcribed from handwritten scripts that had been broadcast on Saudi radio and television approximately a third of a century earlier but had never appeared in print .
The editor supplied titles for pieces that had originally appeared without individual headings under the general daily column name, corrected obvious print errors in consultation with al-Tantawi's standard vocabulary, and added occasional explanatory footnotes differentiated under his own name .
Themes and Method
The essays are characterized by brevity and focus on social reform, everyday ethics, language, civic honesty, and contemporary ideological catchwords—such as his critique of the ambiguous use of terms like "progressivism" and "reactionary" . Al-Tantawi employed an accessible, direct prose style intended for daily newspaper readers while anchoring his observations in religious ethics and social critique .
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