When Nouri Jaffar, the well-known scholar, wrote a research, we high school students read it cautiously, despite the high standard of high school education at the time. And if we could understand it, it was only with profound difficulty. He did not write literary thoughts or political journalistic articles, but he put down science in such a way that blended several elements together. His written text would combine science with its facts, heritage with its evidence, and literature in its style. He would sail inside the human soul, brain, psychology, and the functions of the nervous system altogether. Functions that started from sensation heading toward thinking, and the way the feelings of love and hatred existed in that strange mechanism. Then he moved on to the search of how the language we spoke had originated, a matter that was not for the speakers of that language to look for, because that was the duty and occupation of the scholar. Such subjects were not touched upon within the Iraqi cultural milieu when they were first introduced to us, as if they meant nothing to us then. In fact, we avoided scrutinizing into them because of their difficulty and oddity at the time. I remember very well that Nouri Jaffar’s name compelled us to keep the issue of the magazine or newspaper that published his essay or research.

We might not remember well the details of what Nouri Jaffar wrote at that time, despite the fact that he was a well-trained researcher, especially after his obtaining his Ph.D. degree in 1949. But his field of specialization, namely the human psyche, remained etched in memory until we became capable of reading his work and looking forward to his writings. Those writings displayed how he commingled the study of the psyche and its depths with whatever evidence he could find in heritage of how the psyche was approached with psycho analysis.

Nouri Jaffar wrote in various fields, but he always related whatever he had written to his foremost and ultimate specialization. Thus, when he wrote about Al-Jahidh ( a major 9th C.A.D. encyclopaedic  Arab literary author), he spoke of his psychological influence, in his time, upon his society and the reflection of that influence on his own personality. He spoke of Al-Jahidh’s being a specimen of the psychology of his society right then, and he matched him to George Bernard Shaw and Nobel Prize. This was comprised in a book that had a rather strange title, that was published in the form of a booklet in a series entitled (The Mini-Encyclopaedia), a series of booklets published by The House of General Cultural Affairs in Baghdad in 1990. The booklet was entitled “Two Books Between Al-Jahidh, George Bernard Shaw and Nobel Prize”, and it had originally been a research written for a conference commemorating Al-Jahidh’s Millennium back in 1983. We do not even know if it was held indeed or if it was probably cancelled due to the war that had been flaring up over the palm trees of Basrah, the most important administrative extension of which was Al-Qurna, Jaffar’s birthplace. Eventually, Jaffar published his research on Al-Jahidh in a booklet that stands in front me now, no more than the size of a notebook; yet as you finish reading it, you feel as though you have read three bulky volumes in view of the amount of information, sources and ideas it offers.

In that book, and a few others, Nouri Jaffar was a heritage recorder, a historian and a scientist altogether; but he did not document events, for that was the task of the specialized historian. Instead, he analysed history on a philosophic basis, as his book “ History: Its Domain and Philosophy” illustrated. Such a book required a reading of history to grasp its meaning. It was obvious in that book that Jaffar walked into the domain of history and could never clear himself out of it. His books and essays always adopted a historical approach, although he imposed socio- and psycho- analyses on them. This brings to mind what happened with Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali [ an Islamic philosopher and sufist (b.505 A.H/ 1111 A.D.)], who read too many philosophy books with the intention of debating their writers, so much so that, he ended up extremely immersed in their philosophy. It was said of him: “Our master Abu Hamid got into the inside of the philosophers, and could never get out of it” ( Ibn Taimiyah’s “ Defending the People Who Followed the Prophet” ).

Accordingly, what else could have led Nouri Jaffar to write his “Psychological Aspects in Al-Jahidh’s Literature”, other than his inclination toward heritage, itself a feature that attracted us to him right from the beginning, as well as, his ample interest in that heritage and his close examination of the eloquence of the expressions of the forefathers. He adored Arabic and wrote for it “Aspects of Elegance and Beauty in Arabic”. Thus, he was a poet as well, although he did not divert to poetry as such, unless the situation and the overflowing of his emotions compelled him to.

Many read “The Assemblies of Al-Hariri” (narrative poetry stanzas of 6th c. A.H) and many wrote about them, yet, none approached the description of Al-Hariri’s psychological mentality, or even ventured to say that “he had been liberal (“With Al-Hariri in His Assemblies” / “Afaq Arabiyah”, 1979) as Nouri Jaffar did. What I am saying is, who would dare to match Al-Jahidh to Bernard Shaw, and never fear being criticized for this match, other than someone who had psychologically penetrated the mentalities of both unique writers, yet perceived the difference between the two due to the time gap between them, a gap that could not prevent the existence of similarities that related them to each other. In other words, that needed someone who got into the inside of historians and philosophers and could never get out of this approach of authorship and thinking.

Nouri Jaffar had always objected to those who separated between language and thought.  Those were like the ones who isolated the sun from its light, for there is no existence for one without the other. Our scholar illustrated by example the fault of such an isolation that turned language to lifeless vocabulary which lacked any meaning. His illustration was that of water and its two components, oxygen and hydrogen. Truly they are gases while water is a liquid, and they ignite fire while water extinguishes it, and many other differences as well; still, the connection between them persists because water is formed of these two constituents. Similarly, language is made of the vocable and its meaning, with the latter’s being the task of thought; otherwise, we can never call it language. As such, can the sounds of a parrot be called language? They can never be, because they evolved as sounds and not language. That was what Nouri Jaffar discussed in his book “Language and Thought”.

Nouri Jaffar always related what he wrote about literature or heritage to his field of specialization, namely that of psychology, as in his book “The Psychological Aspects of Al-Jahidh’s Literature”, or what he wrote about Al-Mutanabbi (an Arab 10th c. A.D. poet). On the other hand, Jaffar made his writing purely psychological whenever he wrote or researched into his own specialization. Take for example his book “The Central Nervous System” and what he wrote about the physiology of the brain.

It is well known that it is not an easy task to read books and essays tackling psychology, especially because it is exclusively scientific and because it has won its rank among other sciences relatively late. Such works have difficult and rather complicated subjects, and this does not attract many people, unless the authors of these books are professional; which makes the task of comprehending them much easier. Professional in the sense that they have already attained superb writing abilities and an appealing style, facilitating as such the intricacies of psychology, particularly when they are written by a a unique author like Nouri Jaffar.

It is true that the question of love and its store has been, and will always be, a matter of controversy, trying to decide whether it is the heart or the brain. In fact, all the verses of Naseeb and Tashbeeb (speaking of women’s conduct in love and the act of courting them, with all the agony this courtship involved), and all the complaint of lovers and their sufferings, pertain to the heart not the brain. Nouri Jaffar answered this question and explained this controversy in a special book entitled “Love Between the Heart and the Brain”. As through, he wanted within this answer to refute those who called for the isolation between language and the brain, for in love there is no separation between the two. The heart is not only the organ that pumps blood. It also pumps love and emotions; messages that are born in the brain.

If science and literature were the basic foundations of Nouri Jaffar’s education, both general and occupational, it was scholarly journeying, where studies and teaching took him to several universities in different countries, east and west, to Arabic and English speaking nations, that represented another educational and cultural spring, and a source for increasing his expertise in the human psyche. One of these stopping stations was teaching in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where Nouri Jaffar and his colleagues were facing the ordeal of having one of their own fellow citizens trying to drive them away because of their dogmatic disagreements, even though they were prominent Iraqi academics. They were expelled from teaching in their homeland in a certain era (1963), and they tried to find refuge in a neighbouring country only to confront someone who made great efforts to drive them away merely because they were Islamists while Jaffar and his colleagues had leftist inclinations. These Islamists were taking advantage of Saudi Arabia’s being of a religious temper, and that it had a long lasting and deep hostility toward the left political wing in particular at the time. Nevertheless, Saudi Ministry of Education, represented by its minister Hassan Aal Al-Sheikh, and what he reported to King Faisal bin Abdulazziz concerning those scholars, the advice of that ill-intending adversary was never taken into consideration. The matter ended up with the King receiving those scholars to deliver to them the message that his country would not waste such academic figures like them. The Saudi minister of education even told that ill-intending adversary at the time what meant that those scholars were busy labouring in the niches of science and that the Saudis were intending to make use of their knowledge. That was probably why Nouri Jaffar called his daughter, born shortly after, “Nijood” (after Najd, the geographic centre of Saudi Arabia) and his grandson, later on, Faisal (after the Saudi King who received him along with his colleagues), in a gesture that showed his loyalty, and of which I spoke in detail somewhere else.

Nijood Nouri Jaffar contacted me nearly two years before the issuance of this site, “The Library of Nouri Jaffar, the Scholar”, and she proposed many ideas concerning republishing her father’s bookcase of his authorship, let alone hundreds of research papers and essays, all of which consist a priceless educational and cultural legacy. Whatever Nouri Jaffar, as the pioneer of psychology in Iraq and one of its most renowned guides in the region and the whole world, wrote flows into the stream of cultural development. It has the remedy to the underdevelopment calamities we witness because education is considered the economy of economism in the progress of countries, and the most important investment that political regimes utilized if they truly cared for their people. This same education would damage society under the rule of repressive regimes because it taught oppression, tyranny and slavery when implemented by certain doctrines that abolished any knowledge from the minds. That was what he wrote in 1962 in an article that was published in “Al-Ma’rifah” (Knowledge) Syrian magazine in 1963, when the editorial office of the magazine apologized for postponing its publication with the intention of publishing it in their special issue of that year on account of its importance. The late scholar entrusted us literature and art with the wisdom of an enlightened mind which recognized that progress required wings. Others, on the other hand, believed that science should have no partner. For that particular reason, Nouri Jaffar wrote two of his books: “Authenticity in Al-Mutanabbi’s Poetry” and “Authenticity in the Fields of Science and Art”.

I have already stated that Nijood, the scholar’s daughter, proposed a number of ideas, and it was decided that issuing a special website would be the best choice; a website where Nouri Jaffar’s works, whether they are books or articles, are compiled, in addition to everything related to his legacy, all of which consist “The Library of Nouri Jaffar, the Psychology Scholar”. I see in this accomplishment a magnificent service to researchers, academics, students and readers of the fields of psychology, nerve physiology, sociology and linguistics altogether; for language is the production of the human brain, not only concerning its morphology, syntax and lexicons, but also concerning those who seek to bridge literature and psychology; or even the way the psychologist approaches the theme of history as many of its figures still occupy our present. Even the child was not overlooked in Jaffar’s works; rather, a considerable amount of them was dedicated to the upbringing, development and entity of the child. Among those was his “Science Fiction in Children’s Literature”.

I find it necessary to mention, in closing, that the false account of the cause behind Nouri Jaffar’s decease is not odd or even unusual. Whoever looks into history with the eye of the critic and the determination of the researcher, will find piles of fabrications. It is true that the late scholar died in Libya in 1991, but it is a truth from which a fabrication was extracted. He died because of a common flu, not, as it was alleged, because he was assassinated by a taxi driver on his way to the airport, leaving to Iraq. That was the story that spread on the internet until it almost became the truth. Regrettably, some well-known writers were involved in that fabrication, a thing that annoyed his family.

Nouri Jaffar was a true genius in everything he thought or wrote. This genius of his, for me, manifested itself in his pairing science with heritage as in his book “Arab Heritage in the Fields of Education and Psychology as Found in the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity”.  Yet, and despite the importance of this book, it had never been mentioned by those who tackled the Brethren of Purity and their epistles for several reasons. Among these is the imperceptiveness of those authors themselves, including myself in the first printed edition of my book “The Wronged Brethren of Purity: Admiration and Astonishment”; a sin of which I managed to absolve myself in the new edition of the book.

I would like to say, that the most well-spoken words about the departure of such a genius in his field, like Nouri Jaffar, are the ones uttered by Al-Jawahiri (an Iraqi 20th c. eminent poet) in praise of Ma’rouf Al-Rasafi (another early 20th c. Iraqi poet) concerning the eternal enigma of the exchange of life an death, back in 1959:

The enigma of life, the bewilderment of the mind,

That thought merely becomes dust.

That the bright heart becomes a wilderness,

Barren expect for a flash of a mirage.

Add to that what the poet wishes for the one he is lamenting, and what we wish for a figure like our late scholar concerning his intellectual legacy here:

Would God the sky were the earth, its orbit

Has a meteor for the genius,

Beckoned to and spoken of its yonder beam,

Not mere tidings or mere books.