He was born on July 26, 1899 in Najaf, a religious city that was known as the center of religious culture, with several book markets, cultural institutions, religious associations and political parties.
His father was one of the religious scholars of the city. He wanted his son (Jawahari) to be close to the meetings of scholars since childhood and tried to teach him to read the Holy Qur'an and memorise it.
He has given him several valuable books so that he can learn the gems, language, psychology and poetry of the literature of the Arab world. His father gave Jawaheri a pound as a reward every time he recited a classical poem. In just a few hours, he could recite a 450-line poem without making any linguistic mistakes. His father wanted to become a linguist or a writer, but his poetic inclinations and passion for poetry favoured writing poetry.
His father died in 1917. After this great suffering, Mohammad Mahdi Jawaheri turned to reading books on philosophy and classical and modern poetry.
In 1920, he participated in the 20th Revolution. During the reign of King Faisal of Iraq, he wore the turban and took several positions. He then stopped wearing the turban and started working as a journalist. He left Najaf and moved to Baghdad. He published several newspapers there, including the newspaper (Euphrates and Coup d'etat) and the newspaper (Public Opinion). He was elected president of the Iraqi Writers Union several times.
In 1921, he published his first collection of poems, Halba al-Adab. In 1927, he was employed as a teacher in the Kazmiya Education Department in Baghdad. In 1928, he published another collection of poems, Between Consciousness and Forgiveness.
In 1919, he revived the newspaper Furat and published 20 more issues.
In 1935, he published his third collection of poems, Diwani Jawaheri. In 1936, he published the newspaper Kudata, when Bakr Sadiqi carried out a military coup, but he was very opposed to the coup. He was arrested for three months for writing articles against the coup groups and the newspaper was shut down.
In 1941, he expressed his support for the March Movement, but the movement soon failed and Jawahir went to Iran with the leaders of the March Movement. In the same year, he returned to Iraq and launched the newspaper Public Opinion.
In 1944, he participated in the Abu Ala al-Mu'ari Festival in Damascus. In 1949 and 1950, he published the first and second parts of his newly published book. He was known as a well-known poet. In the same year, he participated in the Cultural Congress of the Arab League in Alexandria and was appointed as the deputy of Iraqi journalists and president of the Iraqi Writers Union.
In 1961, he was forced to leave Iraq for Lebanon, where he moved to Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia. He stayed in Prague for seven years and in 1965 published a collection of poems entitled The Post of Strangeness.
In 1971, the Iraqi Ministry of Information published a new collection of his poems. In the same year, he led an Iraqi delegation to the Congress of Arab Writers in Damascus. In the same year, the Ministry of Information published a collection of poems entitled Khaljat.
In 1973, he accompanied a delegation of Iraqi writers to Tunisia and participated in the Ninth Congress of Arab Writers. Then he went abroad and left Iraq. Many countries offered him residence, but he chose Syria to continue his artistic activities until his passing on 27-07-1997.
Jawaheri was a nationalist man who never joined any political party. He believed that poets and writers should write for the country, not for one party. He said (But I am the one who will live to serve the culture of my nation until my last breath. I believe in equality and brotherhood of all nations of the world, everywhere. I will never spend my pen serving dictators, fascists and oppressors.)
Iraq was always in Jawaheri's conscience. Iraqis, including Kurds, Arabs and all ethnic minorities, were his brothers. He was always at the forefront of the strugglers and revolutionaries of his country against their oppressors.
He was a close friend of the Kurdish people and believed in the Kurdish national issue. He wrote many poems for the Kurds and the Kurdish struggle.[1]