AL-AILM MAGAZINE

The Beginning Of The Era Of Specialized Journalism In Iraq

Abstract

The winds of change witnessed by the Ottoman Empire after the constitutional coup in 1908 carried the breezes of freedom, writers and journalists were finally able to express themselves, this change was reflected on intellectual and cultural life and on freedom of publication and expression , perhaps the first thing that was affected by this change was the press, it entered a new phase in which it got rid of those restrictions and limitations imposed by the Ottoman Sultanate concerning the right to issue newspapers and freedom of publication. Iraq was the first to witness a new phase of press relief, before the constitutional coup, it was possible to count on the fingers of the hand how many newspapers were issued, that number doubled to dozens during the first months, a year later, almost 60 newspapers in different types and topics were issued, this period also witnessed the emergence of specialized newspapers. Despite the absence of the concept of specialization in the Iraqi press at that time, some newspapers’ owners chose to …, Some of them gave multiple descriptions and claimed more than a specialization; for some it can be : society, politics, philosophy or religion, and for others : literature, humour .. etc.

It seems that this general and varied description was aimed at promoting these newspapers and not to specify their subjects or restrict them by some kind of specialization, especially when these newspapers were issued in a known historical period during which society suffered from underdevelopment  in all its forms, it also struggled with illiteracy in a way that left no room for believing that the owners of these newspapers were actually addressing a specific public, as it is the case today according to the concept of specialization in the press and its modern levels. Hence our selection for AL-AILM magazine - the subject of our research - as the owner has described it as a religious, philosophical, political, scientific, and an industrial magazine, and this description identified it with specified topics, made us look through it to find out the most important trends for the owner of this magazine and the area of ​​specialization. We sought to achieve the goal of the research to subject all the issues of the magazine that we were able to obtain and were 12 issues, while we neglected the other issues for lack of availability or preservation, the research sample represented 50 percent of the total number of 24 issues distributed over two years as a monthly publication. We had to investigate the scientific topics to find how many there are, and what their percentage relative to the total topics published in the magazine, we were able to answer the questions that we asked before going into this research. Among them are:

1- What is the extent and the type of specialization in this magazine ?

2- Can this magazine be considered as the beginning of specialized journalism in    Iraq ?

3- What are the main scientific themes that the journal focused on ?

After determining the goal of the research and its main purpose, it was necessary to enter this magazine through an introduction to know the character who stood behind the issuance of this magazine, as he represents one of those who were first to issue a private newspaper, relying on himself, his abilities and his financial potential to come up with this project in a time where people thought to be a dangerous adventure. It was necessary to use some descriptive words as an introduction in order to point out the artistic and directive changes during the years of publication.

We concluded at the end of the research, with a number of clear results by careful follow-up of the general topics covered by the magazine in its mentioned issues.

It is clear from the above and through the study of the Journal of AL-AILM, and the analysis of its topics, that despite the diversity of interests between science and religion, philosophy, culture and society, but it has been predominantly scientific, while other topics came in other ranks. Perhaps this corresponds with the owner of the magazine in his well-known orientation and scientific interests, which were referred to in the talk about the life of Shahristani, it also corresponds to the name chosen for the magazine ((Science)).  If the dominance of scientific interest over other interests at the turn of the twentieth century can be singled out from the rest, it is nowadays a step towards a journalistic discipline that a century ago, was not able to find a clear place and a precise definition. The scientific-based topic was predominant with no doubt, it is mainly scientific before being religious, philosophical or otherwise, most importantly because we deal with the language of numbers while analyzing the topics and pointing out its interests. These numbers proved that scientific topics were ranked first amongst other concerns, which satisfies the ambitions and achieve the goals of the owner by sharing science and knowledge in a society dominated by illiteracy, ignorance, poverty and disease. However, the desire of a figure like Shahristani in the enlightenment was behind the support and continuation of the publication of this magazine, which kept being issued for two years based on the personal financial possibilities of its owner and supported by a scientific and a cognitive overflow, reduced by the mentality of the cleric and journalist who sacrificed everything for the press and its role in the enlightenment, education and teaching. Therefore, we find the magazine and over the years of its publication, fought a war against ignorance and for the sake of science, until it got hindered by obstacles and problems that led the owner to leave the country for being threatened, and stopped publishing after its second year.