Abd al-Masih al-Antaki

Abd al-Masih bin Fath Allah al-Antaki (Arabic: عبد المسيح بن فتح الله الأنطاكي ALA-LC: ʻAbd al-Masīḥ bin Fatḥ Allāh al-Anṭākī; 1874^[1]–1923^[1]), also referred to as Abd al-Masih Antaki Bey al-Halabi^[a], was a Syrian intellectual, journalist and political activist^[2] of the late Nahda (Arab renaissance). He founded periodicals in Aleppo and in Cairo.

Abd al-Masih al-Antaki
عبد المسيح الأنطاكي
Antaki in 1907
Born	1874[1] Aleppo,[1] Ottoman Syria
Died	1923 (aged 48–49)[1] Kingdom of Egypt[1]
Occupation	journalist

Life

Abd al-Masih al-Antaki was born in Aleppo, Ottoman Syria,^[1] to a prominent middle-class Aleppine family.^[3] He was Eastern Orthodox.^[4] He went to university in France then returned to Aleppo.^[3]

In 1897, Antaki founded the magazine Ash-Shudhūr (الشذور 'The Fragments') in Aleppo.^[3] It appeared twenty years after an earlier Aleppine magazine, Ash-Shahbāʼ (الشهباء 'The Gray [nickname of Aleppo]').^[5] According to Reilly, "like al-Shahba its tone was didactic, but Antaki (unlike al-Shahba) saw modern Europe and particularly France as a model for an idealized concept of modernity – middle class, 'rational,' and largely free of internal contradictions and tensions.^[5] Quoting Keith David Watenpaugh, Antaki advocated in his essays "a 'scientific' approach to household management and encouraged the systematic education of women and girls in home economics."^[6] According to Watenpaugh, "a recurrent theme in al-Antaki's essays and those he digested from other Arabic publications and European literature is the clear valuation of things Western as inherently superior."^[6]

Quoting Philipp, Antaki was "involved in Damascus in the fight for the appointment of an Arabic-speaking Patriarch for the Greek Orthodox community there."^[7]

Antaki later relocated to Cairo, where journalists were less at risk of being censored.^[8] There, he started the periodical Al-ʻUmrān (العمران) in 1902.^[9]

Antaki revised and prefaced an edition of Francis Marrash's Ghabat al-haqq which was printed in Cairo in 1922.^[10]

Antaki died in Egypt.^[1]

Writings

• Nayl al-Amānī fī d-Dustūr al-ʻUthmānī (نيل الأماني في الدستور العثماني)
• An-Nahḍa sh-Sharqiyya (النهضة الشرقية 'The Eastern Renaissance')
• Dīwān ʻUrf al-Khizām fī Maʼāthir as-Sāda l-Kirām (ديوان عرف الخزام في مآثر السادة الكرام)
• Ad-Durar al-Ḥisān fī Manẓūmāt wa-Madāʼiḥ Mawlānā Muʻizz as-Salṭana Sardār Arfaʻ Sumuww ash-Shaykh (الدرر الحسان في منظومات ومدائح مولانا معز السلطنة سردار ارفع سمو الشيخ)
• (with Khazʻal Khān [amir of Muḥammara]): Manẓūmāt wa-madāʼih ash-Shaykh Khazʻal Khān (Cairo: Maṭbaʻat al-ʻArab, 1326 H. = 1908 M.)
• (with Karīm Khalīl Thābit and ʻAbd ar-Raḥmān al-Kawākibī): Nujūm az-zuhr fī rusūm aʻyān Miṣr (Maṭbaʻat Jarīdat Miṣr, 1905)
• Riḥlat as-Sulṭān fī riyāḍ al-Baḥrayn (Maṭbaʻat at-Tawfīq, 1916)
• Shahīd al-jaljala (Cairo: Idārat Jarīdat al-ʻUmrān, 1904)
• Tārīkh shiʻrī li-ṣadr al-Islām (Cairo: Maṭbaʻat Raʻmasīs, 1338 H. = 1920 M.)

Notes

1. Arabic: عبد المسيح أنطاكي بك الحلبي ALA-LC: ʻAbd al-Masīḥ Anṭākī Bak al-Ḥalabī