Rusafi, Maruf ibn Abd al-Ghani al-

Born 1875 in Baghdad; died Apr. 16, 1945. Iraqi Arab poet and literary scholar.

After graduating from a religious school in 1899, al-Rusafi taught Arabic literature in Istanbul, Damascus, and Jerusalem. In his poetry he strove to depict realistically the life of the poverty-stricken and cruelly exploited working people. After the Iraqi Rebellion of 1920, he wrote poems attacking imperialism and adovcating national liberation. His narrative poems We and the International Situation (1942) and Letter to al-Javahiri (1944) are patriotic in theme. Al-Rusafi was the founder of the social school in modern Arabic poetry. His writings on the history of Arabic literature were published in 1928 and 1932.