Baghdad pays homage to nationalist poet who fled under Saddam Hussein
The Baghdad municipality has announced that it will turn the house of Arab poet Mahdi al-Jawahiri into a museum. It remains to be seen whether Iraq will also get his remains back from Syria, where Jawahiri lived after fleeing Iraq in 1980.
Baghdad will honor Muhammad Mahdi al-Jawahiri, one of the finest Arab poets of the 20th century, by turning his house, a building in southwestern Baghdad that dates from the 1970s, into a museum and cultural center carrying his name.
The municipality’s decision, announced May 20, is in homage to the poet who fled Iraq under Saddam Hussein in 1980, settled in Syria and died there in 1997. The museum is likely to be opened next year, which marks the 120th anniversary of Jawahiri’s birth. It also would be the first museum dedicated to a poet in Iraq.
