Ahmad Meshari Al-Adwani

Who was Ahmad Meshari Al-Adwani?

Ahmad Meshari Al-Adwani was a poet and teacher who wrote the lyrics of the national anthem of Kuwait, Al-Nasheed Al-Watani. In 1938, he graduated from the "al-Mubarakiyah" Secondary School, Kuwait. In 1939 he travelled to Cairo, Egypt, and was admitted into the College of Arabic Language Studies at the Al-Azhar University. In 1949 he graduated from the Al-Azhar University, with the title of "Sheikh". In 1950 Al-Adwani established the monthly magazine Al-Be'thah in Cairo, with his lifelong friend and companion, Dr. Abdulaziz Hussein. Due to lack of funding, however, the magazine was stopped after only three issues. In 1952 he helped establish the "Al-Ra'ed" magazine, published by the Kuwait Teachers Club. He went on to form many other magazines throughout his life.

Al-Adwani worked with many people; among them was his friend, Dr. Abdulaziz Hussein, who was at that time the Minister of Cabinet Affairs, as well as the President of the Kuwait National Council for Culture, Arts & Letters, to work on designing, founding and implementing various cultural and social programs that would later prove to transform Kuwait from a simple oil-producing sheikhdom in the middle of nowhere into a beacon of social, artistic and educational knowledge in the Arab World. Among these programs was the establishment of Fine Arts Gallery, the Department of Arabian culture and the Department of Musical Culture. He died in 1990 at 67, leaving a home library of literary gold and a stockpile of unpublished, unedited scripts and poems.