page_title: Mustafa Wahbi Tal
section_title: Relationship with the Dom/Nawar community in Transjordan
hierarchical_section_title: Mustafa Wahbi Tal / Biography / Relationship with the Dom/Nawar community in Transjordan
caption_attribution_description: English: The poet Mustafa Wahbi Al-Tal in the first half of the 20th century
context_page_description: Mustafa Wahbi Tal, also known by his pen name Arar, was a Jordanian poet, writer, teacher and civil servant, widely regarded as Jordan's most prominent poet and among the best-known Jordanian poets among Arab readers.
  Born in Irbid in the Ottoman Empire on 25 May 1899, Tal completed his elementary education in his hometown, later leaving to complete his high school education in Damascus. His rebellious and stubborn temperament would appear as early as his high school years in Damascus, when he would be exiled several times by the Ottoman authorities for participating in school strikes against their policies in the region. In his adulthood, Tal would be imprisoned and exiled several times for democratic activism or for insulting high-ranking officials by the governments of the Arab Kingdom of Syria, and, after its downfall, by the government of the Emirate of Transjordan.
  His first job was in Karak, Transjordan, as an Arabic literature teacher. Later Tal would be appointed as Administrative Governor of Wadi Al-Seer and Shoubak in the 1920s.
context_section_description: Before leaving Shoubak, he began his long-lasting relationship with the nomadic Dom (gypsy) community in Transjordan, which are called Nawar in Arabic. This friendship deepened as spent his nights at their quarters between the areas of Madaba and Ajloun's Wadi Al-Yabis valley with the Nawar's donkeys, Rebabs, dancers and singers. He was so deeply affected by the time he spent with them that he named his only diwan (poetry collection), Ashiyyat Wadi Al-Yabis, which he gifted to a Nawari woman. Tal viewed the Kharabeesh, the tent-like structures where the Nawar people lived, to be places of safety and security where he found the justice and equality that he believed was lacking in Transjordan's cities. He found the Nawar to be marginalized, simple and generous, with no classism. He reflected these views in many of his poems, such as in the following verses:
  In another instance, he wrote a long poem titled Al-Oubodyeh Al-Kobra (The Great Slavery) chastising the Irbid Attorney General after he expelled the Nawari community leader Mohammad Al-Fahel (nicknamed Al-Haber) from the courthouse because of his torn and dirty clothes:
caption: Tal in late 1920s.
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