Notable Figures from Nablus
Ibrahim Toukan
The poet Ibrahim Abd al-Fattah Toukan was born in 1905 in the city of Nablus.
He was the son of a prominent and wealthy Nablus family. He received his primary education at Al-Rashidiyya School in Jerusalem and completed his secondary education at Al-Matrān School at the English College in Jerusalem in 1919.
He then enrolled at the American University of Beirut in 1923 to study literature, and was active in the literary lectures department at the time. Between 1931 and 1933, he worked as an Arabic teacher at the American University of Beirut, then returned to Palestine to teach at Al-Rashidiyya School in Jerusalem for several months, after which he was appointed to the administration of the Water Authority in Nablus.
In 1936, he was appointed director of Arabic programs in the Arabic section of Radio Jerusalem, where he transformed the station into a national platform by presenting numerous literary programs and lectures on Palestinian national figures. He was forced to resign from his job in 1940 on charges of inciting the British Mandate authorities.
Following his dismissal from the radio station, he moved to Iraq and worked as a teacher in the Iraqi Ministry of Education. When he fell ill, he returned to Palestine, where he died in 1941. Ibrahim Toukan was awarded the Jerusalem Medal for Culture and Arts in 1990 in recognition of his literary efforts. Palestinian poet and researcher Mutawakkil Taha collected many of Ibrahim Toukan's articles, speeches, and letters in a special appendix to his master's thesis, which he later published under the title “Ibrahim Toukan: A Study of His Poetry.”
Ibrahim Toukan was a national inspiration through his poems, which incited the Palestinians to revolt at the height of the years 1929 and 1936.
One of his most famous patriotic poems is “The Red Tuesday,” in which he expresses the suffering and heroism of the martyrs of the Buraq Revolution, Ibrahim Hijazi, Muhammad Jamjoum, and Ata al-Zir, who were hanged by the Mandate authorities in Acre Prison.
The poem “My Homeland,” written by Tuqan, became a beacon sung by free Arabs for decades, and its words were turned into a national anthem in many Arab countries.
Ibrahim Toukan did not publish a collection of his poems in a book during his lifetime, but after his death, his followers collected his poems and published them several times (1955, 1965, 1975, 1988) under the title “Diwan Ibrahim Toukan.” The following books and research papers have been written about the poet Ibrahim Toukan:
1- Fadwa Toukan, “My Brother Ibrahim” – Al-Maktaba Al-Asriya, Jaffa, 1946.
2- Omar Al-Froukh, “Two Contemporary Poets, Toukan and Al-Shabi” – Al-Maktaba Al-Ilmiya, Beirut, 1954.
3- Zaki Al-Mahasni, “Ibrahim Toukan” – Dar Al-Fikr Al-Arabi, Cairo.
4- Abd al-Latif Sharara, Ibrahim Toukan, An Analytical Study – Dar Sadir, Beirut, 1964.