Jurji Zaydan

Jurji Zaydan (, ; December 14, 1861 – July 21, 1914) was a prolific Lebanese novelist, journalist, editor and teacher, most noted for his creation of the magazine Al-Hilal, which he used to serialize his twenty three historical novels.

His primary goal, as a writer and intellectual during the Nahda, was to make the common Arabic population know their own history through the entertaining medium of the novel. He has enjoyed a widespread popularity. He is also considered to have been one of the first thinkers to help formulate the theory of Arab nationalism.

Early life Jurji Zaydan was born on December 14, 1861, in Beirut to an Eastern Orthodox Christian family of limited means that had probably originated in the Hauran region. His father owned a restaurant and, being illiterate and uneducated himself, placed little importance on education. Zaydan dropped out of school after he completed an elementary education to help his father run the business.

However, he maintained a desire to educate himself by attending night classes in English until, in 1881, at the age of 20, he was admitted to the Syrian Protestant College as a medical student. He developed an interest in concepts of individualism such as laissez-faire economics, the Freemason belief in a universal enlightenment, and social Darwinism. Furthermore, the book's focus on individualism and the self, a relatively new theme in Arab intellectual thought, would be a common theme in Zaydan's later historical novels.

He attended the university around the same time as Yaqub Sarruf (1852–1927), who first translated Self-Help into Arabic and would later found the magazine Al-Muqtataf (The Elite, 1876) with whom he shared ideals of modernizing the Arab world and emphasis on individual success through hard work.

Cornelius Van Dyck, an American professor of pathology at the Syrian Protestant College known for his translation of the Bible into Arabic in 1847, first encouraged Sarruf to translate Self-Help. He also influenced Zaydan's worldview, leading him to adopt the idea that education was the most important factor for the progress and development of a people. The Freemason belief that universal knowledge existed and should be available to every person appealed to intellectuals like Zaydan as well as their quest to tap into this knowledge.

In 1890, he published al-Ta'rikh al-'Alamm (History of the World), a rather thin history of Asia and of Africa with a focus on the Middle East. Still, it is cited as one of the first non-Islamic histories to be written in Arabic, marking a turning point in the development of modern Arab education. Before, the entirety of Arab history had been recorded by the ulama, the religious scholars of the Caliphate. It was the first attempt at recording a nonreligious version of Middle Eastern history.

He then taught Arabic and opened a publishing house that he named Dar al-Hilal (House of the Crescent). His professional and personal life took a turn in 1891, with his marriage to Maryam Matar and the publication of his first historical novel, al-Mamluk al-Shariid (The Fleeing Mamluk). It originally contained five sections: a history of the most famous men and events; articles by him or other writers, serialization of his historical novels, monthly events and world news of Egypt and Syria, and eulogies and criticism about mostly contemporary literature. The entertainment aspect came in with a love story between fictitious characters and a mystery of some sort to maintain reader interest. His plots were often weak, relying mostly on convenient coincidences between characters to drive the love story and mystery, with almost all of his novels ending in a happy ending. The Zaidan Foundation, set up by his grandson dr. George Zaidan to promote Arab culture, has commissioned translations of five of his twenty-two historical novels. The work began in 2009, and the books were released in 2011 and 2012.

The Conquest of Andalusia (Fath al-Andalus). Translation by Professor Roger Allen (UPenn). October 2011. The Battle of Poitiers (or Charles Martel and 'Abd al- Rahman). Translated by Professor William Granara (Harvard). December 2011. The Caliph's Sister – Harun al-Rashid and the Fall of the Persians (al-Abbasa Ukht al-Rashid). Translated by Professor Issa J. Boullata (McGill). February 2012. The Caliph's Heirs – Brothers at War: the Fall of Baghdad (al-Amin wal-Ma'mun). Translated by Professor Michael Cooperson (UCLA). February 2012. Saladin and the Assassins (Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi). Translated by Professor Paul Starkey (Durham University). April 2012.

Also in 2011, the translator Samah Selim translated Zaydan's novel Shajarat al-Durr into English. It won the Arkansas Arabic Translation Award.