‘In the Byzantines’ cage’: a Transjordanian poem about Qadr al-Majali, leader of the 1910 Karak revolt – analysis of a version documented in the Negev

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article aims to cultivate an in-depth understanding of one version of a Transjordanian poem authored in Karak towards the end of World War I, in which the narrator laments the fate of Qadr al-Majali, leader of an anti-Ottoman uprising in 1910. This version was documented in the Negev half a century ago, and at least one person in the Negev remembers it fully by heart to this day, more than a century after its verses were first uttered. In seeking to appreciate the depth of emotion and the outlook expressed in the poem, which also encapsulates the Karak people’s suffering under Ottoman rule during the empire’s final years, the analysis of this poem draws on research into Transjordanian history and the Bedouin culture whose concepts informed the poem. The analysis takes the form of a ‘thick description’ of the poem’s main symbolic expressions, thereby facilitating our understanding of the sorrow, glory, pessimism, and bitter criticism voiced in its verses.