Among the texts recorded by the French scholar Gilbert Boris in the 1940s is a poem about the Italian occupation of Tripolitania at the beginning of the colonial endeavor. Since Boris died in 1950, the collection of texts in which the present poem appears, Documents linguistiques et ethnographiques sur une région du Sud Tunisien (Nefzaoua) (Paris, 1951), was published posthumously.

The poem, which Boris calls a “chant de guerre” was authored by Muhammad bin Ṣōf, sheikh of the Maḥāmīd tribe. The Maḥāmīd were among the semi-nomadic tribes of Tripolitania (then referring to a larger region than today, including what is now the south of Tunisia) who fought in resistance to Italian troops during the so-called Italo-Turkish war of 1912-1913. His grandfather, moreover, was the famed Ghuma al-Mahmudi, a leader who together with ‘Abd al-Jalil Sayf al-Nasr rebelled against Ottoman rule of Tripolitania in the mid-1800s and became somewhat of a legendary figure associated with revolt against foreign rule.* Muhammad bin Ṣōf, who himself was probably a young man at that time, thus had a great deal of suspicion and dislike for certain figures—such as Hasuna Garamanli, the target of this poem—who were thought to have colluded with the Italian colonizers and to have helped them obtain control of Tripoli.

Hasuna Garamanli and Italian military personnel observe the hanging of Libyan resisters, Tripoli, 1911 (Archives of Gaston Chérau, published in Schill, Pierre, Réveiller l’archive d’une guerre coloniale. Photographies et écrits de Gaston Chérau, correspondant de guerre lors du conflit italo-turc pour la Libye (1911-1912), Créaphis, 2018)

Boris relates that the poem belongs to a certain genre in which, as the poet recites, two other people repeat the refrain immediately after each verse. This refrain contains the poem’s main punch: “without you, you dog Hasuna, [the Italians] wouldn’t have occupied the sands of Zara”. In other words, Tripolitania would have resisted the Italians if Hasuna hadn’t sold out, enabling them to make inroads and eventually win at ‘Ain Zara, site of a decisive victory for Italian forces against Ottoman/Libyan ones. Think of this as, then, something akin to a diss track, one where the main insult is repeated with every verse. Here’s my (probably pretty rough) translation:

Here it isn’t just that Muhammad bin Sof blames the loss of the positions at ‘Ain Zara and Bani Adam on Hasuna’s treachery. He also mentions several prominent tribes of the larger Tripolitanian region, who also seem opposed Hasuna’s capitulation and whose fighting he praises: Gharyan, Werfella, and ‘Akkara. He finishes with a little boasting: Muhammad, descendant of Ghuma, took care of the Italians!

Interestingly, the same theme occurs in another poem, recorded closer to the time of the events themselves but under totally different circumstances. During World War I, Germany operated a prisoner-of-war camp for the Muslim members of French and British enemy forces. Located just outside of Berlin, it was known as the Halbmondlager (“Half Moon Camp”) and its primary purpose was to indoctrinate the Muslim prisoners, primarily South Asians and North Africans, to commit acts of terrorism back in England and France.

But its prisoners also served as a captive audience for German linguists to use experimental techniques in sound recording. Thousands of shellac discs, the predecessor to vinyl records, were recorded in dozens of languages, by forcing prisoners to speak, recite, or sing in their native languages.** Some of these recordings were then published. A number of recordings in Arabic were published by Hubert Grimme, a scholar of Semitic languages, in a contribution entitled “Die Farbigen von Nordwestafrika” to the book Unter fremden Völkern: Eine neue Völkerkunde published in 1925.

South Asian POWs are recorded in the Half Moon Camp (Source: Lautarchiv, Humboldt University Berlin)

One text, presented only in German translation with no Arabic, was apparently recited by a female poet from Tripoli, who names herself in the poem as Fatima al-Kankusha. It too takes aim at Hasuna Garamanli. Though Grimme noted that “[the Libyans] disposition towards the Italians can easily be seen in the following poem which I recorded in the camp from a Tripolitanian female poet”, the poem actually only mentions the Italians obliquely (the “wild animals”) but directly addresses Hasuna, with insults, several times. Here’s the German with my translation:

The German translation is rhymed and metered quite nicely, so one should probably assume that it takes some license with the Arabic original. Still, the poet’s antagonism to Hasuna Garamanli is quite clear. If these two examples represent a more widespread sentiment, especially among the semi-nomadic groups of the Tripolitanian hinterlands, it stands to reason that a number of poems criticizing Hasuna circulated.

“Hasuna Basha, a great friend of Italy, mayor of Tripoli confirmed by the Italian authorities”. Postcard made by E. Biagio Giarmoleo, ~1912

There might be more preserved somewhere, especially in Arabic collections published in Libya, but I don’t know of any off the top of my head. And also, I would very much like to know more about the poet Fatima al-Kankusha. It’s possible that documentation of her would exist in Berlin, but so far I haven’t found any audio.

*You can find out more about Ghuma in Bradford G. Martin, “Ghuma bin Khalifa: a Libyan Rebel, 1795-1858”, in Studies in Ottoman Diplomatic History, ed. S. Derengil & S. Kuneralp (Istanbul, 1990), or Muhammad al-Tawir, الشيخ غومة المحمودي على العثمانيين (Tripoli, 1995), or even Orhan Koloğlu, “Libya, from the Ottoman Perspective (1835-1918),” Africa: Rivista Trimestrale Di Studi e Documentazione Dell’Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente (63/2, 2008), pp. 275–282.

**This is the subject of a great documentary, the Half Moon Files. The records all form part of the Lautarchiv collection at the Humboldt University, Berlin.