Adib Ishaq

Adib Ishaq (Arabic: اديب اسحق, ALA-LC: Adīb Isḥāq; 21 January 1856 – 12 June 1885)^[1] was an important Syrian literary figure of nineteenth-century Arab Nahda.^[2]

Adib Ishaq
Born	21 January 1856 Damascus, Ottoman Syria
Died	12 June 1884 (aged 28) al-Hadath
Occupation	Journalist

Born in Damascus (then a city of the Ottoman Empire, and the present-day capital of Syria), he was enrolled at a Lazarists' school, where he studied Arabic and French.^[3] He left school before he was even twelve years old to meet his family's needs by working at the customs house.^[4] This experience would make him proficient in Turkish as well.^[4] At the age of fifteen, Ishaq joined his father in Beirut to work for the postal office.^[4] He later found work in the Beirut customs house, but his passion for writing pushed him towards journalism; he contributed to Al-Taqaddum (Progress).^[4] He moved to Egypt in 1876.^[4] He became a disciple of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani after meeting him in Cairo.^[4]

In 1879, he founded the Parisian journal Misr al-Qahira (Egypt the Victorious) with the help of Abdallah Marrash.^[5]

He died at his summer estate in al-Hadath^[6] (in present-day Lebanon). A collection of his works in Arabic was published under the title Al-Durar (The Pearls) by Jirjis Mikha'il Nahhas in Alexandria in 1886; another edition of Al-Durar, edited by Adib's brother Awni, was published in Beirut in 1909.