One hundred years from life . |
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Collection title
A creator’s Itinerary.
First broadcast date
2002
Abstract
The program traces the life of the great writer Rocks Ben Zaid El Azizi. Many intellectual and cultural personalities are invited to talk about this writer.
The writer Roks Ben Zaid El Azizi is considered as one of the most important writers in Jordan in the twentieth century.
His many works in the field of heritage and thought played an important role in enriching the intellectual and literary movements in Jordan.
Through the interviews with people who have been affected by his literature and his writings, we can measure the greatness and richness of his heritage which is considered as a reference to an in-depth study to understand its meanings.
Production companies
-
Television - Own production
Broadcaster
JRTV - Jordan Television
Audiovisual form
Documentary
Primary theme
Human and social sciences
Secondary themes
- Art, Culture and Knowledge / Writing, graphic culture
- Art, Culture and Knowledge / Media
Credits / Cast
- Kaissi Yahia - Author of original work
- Zoughbi Faycal - Director
Map locations
- Jordan - Transjordan Plateau - Amman
Additional information
Snapshots of the life of the author and the writer
Context
Rocks bin Za’id al-‘Ayzayzi
Norig Neveu
Produced in 2002, this documentary is about Rocks bin Za'id al-Ayzayzi, an important writer and expert in Jordanian folklore, using interviews with the intellectuals who knew him
.
Rocks Za'id bin al-Ayzayzi was born in 1903 in the town of Madaba in a Latin Rite Catholic family. When he was five, his parents turned down the offer of sending him to a little seminary in Beit Jala to become a priest. In 1918, when he had completed his schooling, he was appointed professor of Arabic and French at Madaba's Catholic Monastery. In the school theatre, he produced the first play performed on the eastern side of the river Jordan. A devout Catholic, he spent his whole career teaching in Latin Rite Catholic schools. In 1942 he became a teacher in Jerusalem, and in 1948 a large part of his library was destroyed. Among the books destroyed were a large part of his own work which had not been published and which he then tried to re-write over the following years. He left Jerusalem and went to teach in various towns of Transjordan.
A man without any political ambition, Rocks Za'id bin al-Ayzayzi was one of the most prolific experts in Jordanian folklore, publishing about eighty books on various subjects. His first book, published in 1973 and consisting of three volumes, was a dictionary of Jordanian customs. His most important work is in five volumes and about Jordan's heritage, in which he describes the all the traditional and heritage items of the different regions of the country (customs, songs, monuments, food). He is also known for his interest in the culture of Jordanian badiya. His History of the Badiya, published in 1990, is a transcription of stories belonging to the oral tradition. He wrote scripts for Bedouin television series which were a great success in the 1980s and wrote many articles in national newspapers. In 1956, he became involved in the fight for human rights.
The work of Rocks Za'id bin al-Ayzayzi has profoundly influenced the cultural life of Jordan. It is imbued with his Arabist ideals and his desire to present himself as being a descendant of the Ghassanids. In Jordan the Ghassanids are the Christian tribe of preference since they are considered natives, unlike the Byzantines who are perceived as foreign. Rocks refused to write the history of his lineage in order to maintain his function as tribal genealogist and mediator. He was thus sought after by lineages of different faiths and different regions of the country (Chatelard, 2004). Decorated several times for his work (Honorary President of the Academy of the Arabic Language in Jordan, the Khalil Gibran Prize), this Jordanian intellectual died in 2004.
Bibliographie :
Rocks bin Za'id al-‘Azayzi, Ma'lamah lil-turath al-'urduni, Amman, Da'irat ath-thaqafah wal-funun, 1984.
Rocks bin Za'id al-‘Azayzi, Hikâyyât al-badiyya, Beyrouth, Dar al-Hamra’, 1990.
Géraldine Chatelard, Briser la mosaïque : Les tribus chrétiennes de Madaba, Jordanie, XIXe-XXe siècle, Paris, Édition CNRS, 2004.