Hasan Sa'id Karmi (; 1905 – May 5, 2007) was a

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

linguist and broadcaster for the BBC Arabic Service.

Biography

Hasan Karmi was born in

Tulkarm Tulkarm or Tulkarem (, ''Ṭūlkarm'') is a Palestinians, Palestinian city in the West Bank, the capital of the Tulkarm Governorate of the State of Palestine. The Israeli city of Netanya is to the west, and the Palestinian territories, Palestinia ...

(then in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

). The son of a

sharia Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on Islamic holy books, scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran, Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' ...

court judge, Sheikh Sa'id al-Karmi, and the brother of the poet Abd al-Karim al-Karmi. Karmi studied in a local Qur'anic school in Tulkarm and later attended English College in Jerusalem. He joined the British mandate government's education department and won two scholarships, in 1939 and 1945, to study at the

Institute of Education The UCL Institute of Education (IOE) is the faculty of education and society of University College London (UCL). It specialises in postgraduate study and research in the field of education and is one of UCL's 11 constituent faculties. Prior t ...

in London.

Practical life

Karmi joined the BBC Arabic Service and worked as a broadcaster for nearly 40 years. He was the creator, writer, and presenter of a weekly literary program called ''Qawlun ala Qawl'' (Saying on a Saying) devoted to Arabic poetry and proverbs. For years he also wrote a column in ''Huna London ''(London Calling), which the embassy in Saudi Arabia used to distribute on behalf of the BBC Arabic Service. In 1969 Karmi was awarded an MBE for services to the BBC. Karmi was married to a

Syrian Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...

woman, Amina, had one son, Ziyad, and two daughters, Siham and Ghada Karmi. He returned to the Middle East, to Jordan, in 1989 and spent his remaining years working on eleven dictionaries, one Arabic-English, the rest English-Arabic.

Death

He died on 5 May 2007 in

Amman Amman ( , ; , ) is the capital and the largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of four million as of 2021, Amman is Jordan's primate city and is the largest city in the Levant ...

, Jordan.

Articles

* *Karmi, Ghada: ''In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story''

Verso ''Recto'' is the "right" or "front" side and ''verso'' is the "left" or "back" side when text is written or printed on a leaf of paper () in a bound item such as a codex, book, broadsheet, or pamphlet. In double-sided printing, each leaf h ...

2002 *Marwan Asmar
Remembering Hassan Al Karmi, the Intellectual I knew
Hackwriters.com

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Karmi, Hasan 1905 births 2007 deaths Alumni of the UCL Institute of Education BBC World Service people Palestinian men centenarians 20th-century Palestinian academics Centenarians from Mandatory Palestine

Hasan Hassan, Hasan, Hassane, Haasana, Hassaan, Asan, Hassun, Hasun, Hassen, Hasson or Hasani may refer to: People *Hassan (given name), Arabic given name and a list of people with that given name *Hassan (surname), Arabic, Jewish, Irish, and Scotti ...

People from Tulkarm Members of the Order of the British Empire Palestinian emigrants to the United Kingdom