Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq (, ; born Faris ibn Yusuf al-Shidyaq; born 1805 or 1806; died 20 September 1887) was a scholar, writer and journalist who grew up in what is now present-day Lebanon. A Maronite Christian by birth, he later lived in major cities of the Arabic-speaking world, where he had his career. He converted to Protestantism during the nearly two decades that he lived and worked in Cairo, present-day Egypt, from 1825 to 1848. He also spent time on the island of Malta. In 1857, with Evangelist American missionaries, he participated in the publishing of a novel Protestant Arabic translation of the Bible in Great Britain where Faris lived and worked for 7 years, becoming a British citizen. He next moved to Paris, France, for two years in the early 1850s, where he wrote and published some of his most important work.
Later in the 1850s Faris moved to Tunisia, where in 1860 he converted to Islam, taking the first name Ahmad. Moving to Istanbul later that year to work as a translator at the request of the Ottoman government, Faris also founded an Arabic-language newspaper. It was supported by the Ottomans, Egypt and Tunisia, publishing until the late 1880s.
Faris continued to promote Arabic language and culture, resisting the 19th-century "Turkization" pushed by the Ottomans based in present-day Turkey. Shidyaq is considered to be one of the founding fathers of modern Arabic literature; he wrote most of his fiction in his younger years.
Biography
Mystery shrouds the life of Ahmad Faris Shidyaq. While he has numerous autobiographical references in his writings, scholars have found it difficult to distinguish between romanticizing and reality.
Early life
Ahmad Faris Shidyaq was born in 1804 in Ashqout, a mountain village of the Keserwan District in the modern Mount Lebanon Governorate. At birth, his given name was Faris. His father's name was Youssef. His mother was of the Massaad family, from Ashqout. His family traced its roots to the Maronite muqaddam Ra'ad bin Khatir from Hasroun. His family was very well educated and its members worked as secretaries for the governors of Mount Lebanon. In 1805, the family was forced to leave Ashqout following a conflict with a local governor; Butrus al-Shidyaq, the paternal grandfather of Faris, was killed because of the politics.
The family settled in Hadath, in the suburbs of Beirut, at the service of a Shihabi prince. Faris joined his brothers, Tannous (1791–1861) and Assaad (1797–1830), and his maternal cousin Boulos Massaad (1806–1890), in Ayn Warqa school, one of the most prestigious Maronite schools of the 19th century. Again, a family conflict, in which the Shidyaq were at odds with the Prince Bashir Shihab II, obliged their father Youssef Ash-Shidyaq to take refuge in Damascus, where he died in 1820.
Faris left school and continued his studies under his older brothers Assaad and Tannous. He joined his brother Tannous as a copyist at the service of the Prince Haydar Shihab; their brother Assaad worked as the secretary of the Sheikh Ali Al-Emad in Kfarnabrakh, in the Chouf District. His brother Assaad's life had a major influence on the life and career of Faris.
Conversion
Around 1820, Assaad Shidyaq encountered Jonas King, a Protestant missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions; eventually Assaad became Protestant. He was excommunicated under the automatic excommunication edict issued by the Maronite Patriarch Youssef Hobaish (1823–1845), who sought to prevent all dealings with the Protestant missionaries. Assaad was later detained for years in the Monastery of Qannoubine in the Qadisha valley, where he died in 1830.
By 1825, Faris had left Lebanon for Egypt, as he was tormented by his brother's ordeals. Assaad's death permanently affected the younger man's choices and his career. He never forgave his brother Tannous and his cousin Boulos Massaad (who later became the Maronite Patriarch (1854–1890)) for what he considered their role in the events that led to the death of Assaad.
In 1826, Faris married Marie As-Souly, daughter of a wealthy Christian family, who were originally from Syria. They had two sons: Faris (1826–1906) and Fayiz (1828–1856). From 1825 to 1848, Faris divided his time in living in Cairo and on the island of Malta. He was the editor-in-chief of an Egyptian newspaper, Al Waqa'eh Al Masriah. In Malta, he was the director of the printing press of American missionaries. He also studied Fiqh in Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Faris is believed to have converted to Protestantism during this period in Egypt, an extended time of relative solitude and study.