Ma’ruf bin Abdul Ghani al-Rusafi (Arabic: معروف الرصافي; 1875 – 16 March 1945) was an Iraqi poet, educationist and literary scholar.[1][2] A political skeptic, al-Rusafi is regarded as a humanist, a social justice poet, and one of Iraq’s national poets. However, he is considered by many as a controversial figure in modern Iraqi literature[3] due to his advocacy of freedom and opposition to imperialism.[4] Because of this, he is known as the poet of freedom.[5] As well as being known as one of the big three neo-classical poets of Iraq alongside al-Jawahiri, and al-Zahawi