Salah Jahin

Muhammad Salah Eldin Bahgat Ahmad Helmy (, ), known as Salah Jaheen ( ; December 25, 1930 – April 21, 1986) was a leading Egyptian poet, lyricist, playwright and cartoonist.

Life and career Jaheen was born in Shobra district, Cairo in 1930 to a middle-class family. He studied law in Cairo University. In 1955, he started working for the Egyptian weekly magazine "Rose al-Yousef" as a cartoonist. A year later, he moved to the new magazine "Sabah el-Khair" for which he became the editor-in-chief, then he joined Al-Ahram.

Together with Fuad Haddad, Jaheen had a great role in development of Egyptian colloquial poetry. In fact, the term "shi'r al-ammiya" or "Arabic colloquial poetry" was only coined in 1961 by a group of young poets including Salah Jahin, Abd Al-Rahman Abnudi, Fuad Qaud and Sayyid Higab who called themselves "Jama't Ibn Arus". Before that, poetry in colloquial Egyptian Arabic was regarded as a folkloric and low art produced by and for the uneducated masses, while the term "Shi'r" (Arabic for poetry) was restricted to poetry written in Modern Standard Arabic (commonly known as "Fuṣḥā", meaning most eloquent). However, after Egypt's defeat in the 1967 war and Gamal Abdel Nasser death in 1970 he suffered from a severe depression. In one interview, he said that with the death of Nasser in 1970 and the sudden shift in political orientation he felt increasingly like Hamlet, with Sadat embodying the treacherous Claudius.

In addition to political poetry, Jahin's poems frequently contain metaphysical and philosophical themes, questioning the purpose of human life, the nature of good and evil, human and divine will and the limits of human pursuit of freedom and happiness. His drawings were a mainstay of Al-Ahram's daily editions form the 1960s until his death in 1986, and at least two volumes published collections of his work in 1986, and 2013. Jahin's original sketches have also been exhibited.

Trivia A Google Doodle on 25 December 2013 commemorated Jahin's 83rd birth anniversary.