From oral poetry to written poetry

The population tends to be concentrated in the capital, Doha. However, the rest of the country has many villages - some of which have been abandoned for centuries but miraculously preserved by the sand - that should not be missed, such as Al Jassasiya where 874 rock engravings have been discovered, the first form of "writing", the oldest of which dates back to the Neolithic period. Another emblematic place - Al Khuwayr - recalls on the one hand the pearl fishing which was a flourishing activity until the beginning of the 20th century, and on the other hand the man who was born there and is considered as one of the first Qatari poets whose memory has been preserved in popular culture to the point of making him a quasi-mythical character, Qatari ibn al-Fuja'a. He is said to have died at the very end of the seventh century after having had a coin minted bearing the motto of the Kharidji Islam to which he belonged, leaving a rather warlike poetry glorifying martyrdom. In the same way, the story of the pirate Rahmah ibn Jabir Al Jahami (1760-1826) inspired the English journalist James Silk Buckingham (1786-1855) and became a real legend. This local folklore also included a number of tales often inspired by maritime activities. One of the best known is probably that of Gilan and May, the story of a wealthy man from Al Khor, owner of pearl boats (dhows) who saw, not without annoyance, a woman, May, start to encroach on his territory. During a pearl harvest in which they were once again in competition, Gilan, furious, observed a grasshopper whose wings he imagined imitating, thus inventing the sailboat that allowed him to never again be left behind. In another register, it is still told that Bu Daryā

, a water djinn from the Persian Gulf, likes to scare sailors.

Just like folklore, poetry -- known as Nabati and specific to the Arabian Peninsula -- has for a long time favored oral transmission. Practiced by the Bedouins, a nomadic people, it respected fixed forms (qasidas

) close to those used by pre-Islamic poets, and was declined in recurring themes, such as the "ritha", the lamentation practiced by women as funeral elegies. Indeed, poetry was not only used to transmit traditions or ancient stories, it was also used in everyday life, playing a social role that made community life more fluid, for example by resolving conflicts or, on the contrary, by serving as a declaration of war! In any case, the fact that a tribe could claim the presence of a poet in its midst was a source of great pride, and some of them became very famous. Nabati tended to fade away at the dawn of the 20th century, but it has been reborn with fervor for the past few decades in certain emirates close to Qatar. If some foreign poets had stayed in Qatar, to the point that we remember at least their passage - Abdul Jalil Al-Tabatabai or Mohammed bin Abdullah bin Uthaymin - one of the first natives is Majid Al-Khulaifi (ca. 1873-1907). His poems retained the versification of the Nabati and spoke as much of the war as of the death of his wife. They were included in the 1969 anthology From Qatari Poetry, which also featured Mohammed bin Jassîm al Fayhani (1907-1939), although he lived in Al Muharrig (Bahrain). This sailor, from a wealthy family, had a great love story, tragic and platonic, which inspired verses of such beauty that they were taken up in song.

From poetry to novel

With the growing literacy rate, literature began to be written in earnest in the mid-twentieth century. This ebullition coincided with another revolution, that of the emergence of an artistic scene in a country where, until then, figurative art was not taken for granted, as Islam refused the representation of beings. These changes benefited from several factors: Qatar enjoyed a new prosperity thanks to oil, the status of women improved and - it is noteworthy enough to mention it - they were just as involved as men in literature, independence was pressing and imposed in 1971, the University of Doha opened its doors two years later... Journalism also developed: 14 titles were created in the 1970s. Lastly, borders were porous: students went abroad more often and immigration movements opened up new cultures. Today, this state of affairs poses a problem as Arabic finds itself in competition with English, which has naturally become the language of communication - and the second language recognized as official - but the cultural services are trying to curb this phenomenon, for example with the creation of the Katara Prize, which since 2014 has rewarded Arabic-speaking authors (even non-Qatari).

Finally, prose found its place, first in the form of short texts: Yousef Ni'ma published two collections of short stories in 1970 (Bin Al-Khaleej: Daughter of the Gulf, and Liqa fi Beirut: An Encounter in Beirut), followed by that of Kattham Jaber in 1978, who thus became, with Ania wa Ghabat as-Samt wa at-Taraddud, the first woman to have a work more substantial than poems published in newspapers. She paved the way for the Khalifa sisters, novelists who published three titles in 1993: al-Ubur ila al-haqiqa (Passage to Truth) and Ahlam al-bahr al-qadima (Old Dreams of the Sea) written by Shu'a, Usturat al-Insan wa-l-buhayra

(The Myth of the Man and the Lake) written by Dalal. These novels do not hesitate to question society, its rapid evolution and the social problems that follow. Women, in any case, claim their place in this societal restructuring. They will have the right to vote and to stand for election on the same day as men, March 8, 1999, a symbolic date. If it is with a historical novel that Abdulaziz Al-Mahmoud becomes in 2011 the author of the first best-seller of the country(Al Qursan, translated into English under the title The Corsair), the literature - although still confidential - is willingly political through essays, autobiographies or psychological narratives, such as Ahmed Abul Malik's Ahdan al-manafi (The Embraces of Exile) in 2005, Jamal Fayiz's Mud Foam in 2013, or Hashim Al-Sayed's Roots of a Life translated into French by Érick Bonnier éditeur in 2017. This aspiration for freedom of tone sometimes creates sharp tensions with the authorities, as was the case in 2012 when Iben Al-Dhib (Mohamed Al-Ajami) was tried for undermining the symbols of the state and inciting the overthrow of power.