Mamdouh Bisharat, The Jordan Times

Hundreds of people in Jordan are feeling the loss of a great man: Ali Maher.

This fountain of human energy dried up, suddenly, last Monday, and I know I speak for many when I say he had a great effect on my life.

I first had the good fortune to work with Ali in 1998 when Suha Shoman, of the Darat al Funun Shoman Foundation, invited me to exhibit my private collection of artwork in her gallery. She called it “Vision and identity” and Ali was director of the gallery at the time. I had met him a little before that, but this collaboration was the foundation of our friendship.

Ali helped me put the exhibition together, and for many nights we stayed up until the early hours, transporting sculptures and pictures from my house to the gallery and deciding how they would be best exhibited.

It was not a small undertaking, but there was never a moment of tension. He proved to be a practical, creative and hugely passionate person who loved people and life.

Having studied architecture in Russia, he was a skilled draftsman, but could also build, and for the exhibition, he recreated a stone alcove I have in my farm in Um Al Kundum. His energy and enthusiasm, I’m sure, were responsible in a large part for the success of the exhibition, which was extended from three weeks to two months. We subsequently became very close friends.

My creative world, and Ali’s creative world were very much linked. Our working style was similar, since we both had full lives that required the mental agility to spring from one activity or idea to another during the course of a day.

We worked a lot together, and there were very few days we did not check on each other in the last 15 years.

When I look back, I realise that many things that happened in my life were due to him. Everything seemed to connect serendipitously when he was around — from filmmaking and art to contacts and our common passion for the preservation of Arab and Jordanian culture.

Time spent with Ali was a constant flow of different ideas that always bore a creative and constructive result.

Thanks to his involvement in my life, there was always a stream of dynamic, talented and positive young people who sought in me a source of guidance and support, and in turn, rewarded me with a brighter hope that our beautiful culture might be preserved for years to come.

He was the bridge between the new generations and me. I had always wanted to invest in young people, because I believe they are the future of our world, so in this way, Ali connected me to the future.

When I look around my house, his imprint is everywhere. When most artists sketch, it is a preparatory drawing or to sell. But Ali would sketch things continually and give them away.

He was not materialistic, but generous. He was a natural artist and performer.

At a party, he was usually the centerpiece; if he was not drawing, he was talking; if he was not talking, he was singing; if he was not singing, he was eating or drinking, or planning his next creative dream with a new friend he had made that evening.

And all his ideas were almost immediately, if not simultaneously, followed up by actions.

Ali was attracted to, and helped, everyone: architects, musicians, painters and creative people from every walk of life. He was a natural networker, and he taught me that if you are silent in the 21st century, people will not know you are there. He helped me understand the power of the media.

Since Ali died on Monday, my telephone has been ringing many times a day, with people wanting to talk to me about him and their memories. It seems that he was for all of us the epitome of a public spirit deeply imbued with the qualities of his Circassian ancestors: loyalty, honesty, courage and generosity of spirit.

Anecdotes abound. The way he extended his arm and introduced himself as “the sheikh of Amman”. To any newcomer, his motto was: “Anything you need. Anything. You just ask me.”

And he meant it.

Though he lived from hand to mouth, and on his wits for most of his life, anyone who had that business card planted in their hand could be guaranteed his promise of hospitality, help or vital connection with one of the vast network of people he knew so well.

His was a certain, and loveable, naiveté.

He was usually hungry when coming to visit me.

“When are we having dinner,” he used to roar, unashamed, on my threshold.

His appetite matched the gusto he had for life — and he would pull it off like few could.

Many people have told me that he was the invisible support or springboard for their transition or success, and never for his own gain.

Indeed, it seemed to many of us that he considered others much more important than himself. And no class of person was below his good-natured networking and promoting.

Giving, to him, seemed as natural as breathing.

Sometimes, I fear, this was at the expense of looking after himself. And perhaps Ali’s great strength, namely his generosity, was at times his weakness.

Ali changed the lives of everyone who came across him, and following his generous example, we should allow that generosity of spirit to live on.

He has left a huge gap in our lives, but will always be remembered for the helping hand he extended to each of us who had the chance to know him.

The secret of eternal life is in giving. May his soul rest in peace!