Appendix: Memorial Address by Professor Shaker al-Fahham, President of the Academy

The Addresses Delivered at the Memorial Ceremony for Dr. AbdulWahab Homad, May God Have Mercy on Him

President of the Arabic Language Academy

At the memorial ceremony for the late Dr. AbdulWahab Homad

This grievous loss has weighed heavily upon us, and we are filled with sorrow for our dear departed, Professor AbdulWahab Homad, who left us when he was dearer to us than ever. In him we have lost a loyal friend, a learned teacher and a virtuous man.

I was fortunate to know him and blessed with his friendship. I took comfort in his gracious character, and I was struck by the goodness of his ways, the purity of his heart and the generosity of his nature.

He was, may God grant him His abundant mercy and a dwelling in His spacious gardens, one of the great men of his age. He stood out for his enlightened mind, his abundant learning, his firm faith in his nation and his country, and his devotion to virtue and to the highest principles, from which he sought no change. He rendered great services to his country and his nation in every office he held and in every scholarly post whose burdens he carried.

The life of our departed friend, God's mercy be upon him, is rich in noble deeds, and the occasion requires me to be brief and to keep my words within bounds.

Professor AbdulWahab Homad was born in Aleppo in 1915 (though he himself believed he was born in 1913). After finishing primary school he continued his studies at al-Sultani, then the only secondary school in Aleppo, and earned the Teachers' College certificate (in 1933), which qualified him to be appointed a teacher in the countryside and then an assistant teacher at the Aleppo secondary school until 1938.

He obtained the first baccalaureate (in 1934) and then the second baccalaureate, in the philosophy section (in 1936). Fortune gave him, as his teacher at the Teachers' College, the master of Arabic, Sheikh Badr al-Din al-Na'sani, a man of rare learning and knowledge, who opened new horizons for him in the study of Arabic and its literature and gave him a love of memorizing parts of the Quran and as much poetry as he could. The diligent student threw himself into study and memorization, helped by a memory that forgot nothing. Memorizing became a habit he loved, and the treasures he committed to memory remained a store he returned to and drew on all his life. His writing was marked by a fine literary style, and a longing for literature tugged at him to the end of his days.

In 1937 Professor AbdulWahab enrolled at the Faculty of Law (the Institute of Law) in Damascus and passed into the second year, but he did not continue his studies there, because he left for France on a study mission.

He had passed a competition held in 1938 for the study of Arabic literature at the University of Paris, and he traveled to France to study. The declaration of the Second World War in 1939 took him by surprise and obliged him to stay in Paris for seven years, during which he was able to obtain a licence in Arabic literature in 1940 and a licence in law in 1941, and then the degree of doctor of law in 1944.

He returned home in August 1945, after the end of the Second World War, and was appointed teacher of Arabic literature at the Aleppo secondary school and the Teachers' College (1945-1946).

Then, in 1946, he was chosen to teach criminal law at the Faculty of Law in Damascus. He was appointed lecturer and devoted himself to the work with diligence and care, teaching at the Faculty until 1959. He rose to the rank of assistant professor and then to the chair of criminal law. His teaching was interrupted for a time when he was dismissed from the university on 12 March 1952 for refusing to take the oath under al-Shishakli's rule; he then practiced law in Aleppo, and in 1954 he returned to the university to resume teaching.

During this period Dr. Homad did not devote himself to teaching alone. He entered the arena of politics, choosing the opposition movement that Mr. Rushdi al-Kikhya led in Aleppo against the National Bloc. The opposition fought the election campaign of 1947 and then agreed to organize its political work, founding the People's Party at the end of 1948 on moderate foundations between right and left. The party's center of gravity was the city of Aleppo, and Dr. Homad was one of its leading men.

He was elected for the city of Aleppo in three consecutive parliamentary terms, which ran from 1947 until the union in 1958:

1. The elections of 7 July 1947;

2. The elections of 15 November 1949 for the Constituent Assembly, which was to draw up a new constitution for the country;

3. The elections of 10 September 1954.

Dr. Homad held a distinguished place in the Constituent Assembly, which chose him as general rapporteur of its constitutional committee. He did the work superbly, had a great hand in drafting the constitution, and defended it before the Constituent Assembly for several months, until, on the fifth of September 1950, it reached its historic decision and gave final approval to the first constitution enacted since independence.

The government of Dr. Nazim al-Qudsi granted the Constituent Assembly's wish that Dr. Homad be honored for the effort he had given to drafting the constitution and seeing it through debate: it awarded him the Syrian Order of Merit of the Excellent Class on 5 April 1955 and appointed him chairman of the State Laws Committee.

Dr. Homad held various ministerial posts and left his good mark on each of them. The first was the Ministry of Education (10 August 1951 to 28 November 1951). He then held the Ministry of Finance (15 September 1955 to 14 June 1956), followed by the Ministry of Education (15 June 1956 to 31 December 1956).

When the union between Syria and Egypt came about in 1958, Dr. Homad was among its strongest supporters; he backed it and defended it. Under the union he held the Ministry of Justice for seven months (7 March 1958 to 8 October 1958), then the Ministry of the Treasury (8 October 1958 to 16 August 1961), then the Ministry of Planning (17 August 1961 to 28 September 1961) in the central government in Cairo, until the secession that took place on 28 September 1961.

Dr. Homad's loyalty to the union endured after the secession, and he suffered harm for its sake. He did not return to the university, and practiced law instead.

He then took a contract with the University of Rabat in Morocco, where he taught criminal law subjects at the licence and postgraduate levels (1964-1968).

After that he took a contract with Kuwait University and taught there for fifteen years (1968-1983), at the end of which he chose to return to Damascus and asked Kuwait University not to renew his contract.

At all three universities, Damascus, Rabat and Kuwait, Dr. Homad was professor and head of the department of criminal law.

In Damascus Dr. Homad went back to research and writing, and kept up his activity in composing articles and giving lectures.

Then the Arabic Language Academy in Damascus elected him a full member, and the presidential decree appointing him was issued (decree no. 205, dated 27 May 1991). He took part in the work of the Academy and its committees with ability and skill, the most prominent of them being the Committee for Manuscripts and the Revival of Heritage, the Committee for the Journal and Publications, and the Committee on Foundations. The literary and linguistic feeling that had been with him since his youth now found a wider and more fertile field. At his reception, where he spoke about his predecessor, the late Professor Shukri Faisal, as Academy custom requires, he said that he had read Dr. Shukri's literary works and his abundant research and had been struck by their depth, and he added: "At that moment I felt the weight of the burden and the heaviness of the responsibility. But what tempted me not to turn back was a deep-seated feeling that I am not altogether a stranger to this literary world, in whose embrace I lived for a time, before the rigor of the law, and the stern features of its intractable articles, which do not always spread warmth in the soul, tore me away from its shady gardens and its tender melodies" (the Academy's journal, vol. 67, p. 63).

Love of Arabic possessed him. He let no occasion pass without speaking of the standing of the Arabic language and of our duty to work for its advancement and flourishing and to make the ways of teaching it easier.

Here I should mention an article of his titled "A Call to Simplify Arabic Grammar." At the start he recalls that when he was sent to Paris on a study mission in 1938, he saw that the French and foreign students, men and women, who enrolled in the Arabic department in that first year numbered about eighty. Then he adds: "But with every star that set and every dawn that rose, their number dwindled, and I believe that only the Orientalist Nikita Elisseeff graduated with us... This phenomenon was, and still is, a cause of astonishment to us" (the Academy's journal, vol. 71, p. 201).

The phenomenon gave him pause. He traced it to the difficulty of the rules of grammar and morphology, and concluded that the teaching of Arabic grammar and morphology must be made easier (the Academy's journal, vol. 71, p. 202).

I still remember the positions he took in the Academy's committees, especially the Committee on Foundations. He never tired of repeating our need to simplify the rules of grammar, citing the course taken by living nations that kept reviewing their rules of grammar and morphology, moving from one simplification to the next until they settled on clear foundations, easy to grasp and within reach (the Academy's journal, vol. 71, pp. 202-203).

He believed in his nation, may God have mercy on him, and cared for its foundations, and he dedicated himself to every effort to set it on the upward road, the road of renewal. He called for Arab unity, holding that the Arabs' entry into the history of civilization begins with setting Arab unity in motion, and he demanded care for the Arabic language, because it is a fundamental pillar of the nation: it gathers its people together, unites what is scattered and carries it forward on the road of progress and advancement.

How many proposals he put forward in this regard! Among the last things he said: "My thoughts turn to the creation of a 'unified Arab academy' that would care for the language of the Arabs, nurture it and develop it, so that it can meet their scientific and cultural needs with ease and gentleness, while preserving their identity and heritage" (the Academy's journal, vol. 71, p. 212).

Professor Homad left more than ten works on law, models of mastery and precision, which enriched the Arabic library with their originality and depth. Among them:

1. "Political Crime" (1st edition, Lebanon, 1963; 2nd edition, revised and enlarged, 2001):

It is originally a translation of his doctoral thesis, from which the author removed some chapters and to which he added others, because of the development of ideas in criminal law after the end of the Second World War and the fall of the dictatorships in Germany and Italy.

2. "Principles of Criminal Procedure" (4th edition, Damascus, 1987):

A large reference work of 1,200 pages, it explains the theories of procedure, supported by the rulings of Syrian and comparative case law.

3. "Advanced Studies in Comparative Criminal Jurisprudence" (2nd edition, Damascus, 1987)

It runs to 832 pages and contains 17 chapters devoted to fine points of criminal legislation.

Legal scholars have praised it generously.

Professor Hassan Sadiq al-Marsafawi, dean of the Faculty of Law at Alexandria University, reviewed these advanced studies and said: "They are a reference whose like is rarely found in Arabic, and they contain knowledge whose light will last for generations upon generations."

The head of the criminal law department at Ain Shams University, and the vice dean of its Faculty of Law, said much the same.

4. "A Detailed Commentary on the Penal Code: The General Part," Damascus, 1990.

A large reference work of 1,152 pages, it explains the general theories contained in the Penal Code, supported by the rulings of Syrian and comparative case law, especially French and Egyptian.

5. "International Crime" (Kuwait University edition, 1978).

It explains the international crimes that have recently taken legal shape, above all at the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. These are the crimes committed by war criminals against peace, against humanity and against the customs of war. Dr. AbdulWahab Homad says: "I know of no other Arabic book on its subject."

6. "Moroccan Criminal Law: The Special Part" (Rabat, 1968).

7. "Moroccan Criminal Procedure" (Rabat, 1968).

8. "Al-Wasit: A Commentary on Kuwaiti Penal Law" (4th edition, Kuwait University, 1987).

9. "Al-Wasit: A Commentary on Kuwaiti Criminal Procedure" (4th edition, Kuwait University, 1987).

Professor Homad also wrote a series of political, legal and literary articles, published in the Syrian press and magazines and in the two Kuwaiti magazines "Alam al-Fikr" and "al-Arabi," and he gave a series of lectures on law in Damascus and in several Arab countries.

Professor Homad took part in legal, political and literary conferences, among them:

1. The Arab Writers' Conference held at Bloudan in 1956, which Professor Homad chaired, because he was Minister of Education of the host country (Syria).

2. The international conference on combating crime, held at the invitation of the United Nations in Geneva in 1955, at which Professor Homad headed the Syrian delegation.

3. The Arab League conference held in Cairo in 1955, at which the state of Sudan was admitted to membership.

4. The meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund held in Washington in 1959.

5. The World Congress (on Medical Law) held in the Belgian city of Ghent (Gand) on 19-23 August 1979, which Dr. Homad attended as the representative of Kuwait University.

6. The conference on "Human Rights in Islam."

This conference was convened in 1982 by Kuwait University in cooperation with the Arab Lawyers Union and the International Union of Jurists.

May God have mercy on you, Abu Ghassan, and grant you a home in His spacious gardens, among those whom God has blessed: the prophets, the truthful, the martyrs and the righteous. And how excellent they are as companions!

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