Departures of note

Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, born Faris ibn Yusuf al-Shidyaq in 1805 or 1806 in Ashqout, Mount Lebanon, was a Maronite Christian who became a Protestant and later converted to Islam in 1860, taking the name Ahmad. His life was shaped by the death of his brother As'ad, who was detained for years in a Maronite monastery after converting to Protestantism and died there in 1830. Faris left Lebanon for Egypt in 1825, tormented by his brother's ordeal, and never forgave his brother Tannous and cousin Boulos Massaad for what he considered their roles in the events leading to As'ad's death.

From 1825 to 1848, Faris lived in Cairo and Malta, working as editor-in-chief of the Egyptian newspaper Al Waqa'eh Al Masriah and as director of the printing press of American missionaries in Malta. He studied Fiqh at Al-Azhar University and is believed to have converted to Protestantism during this period. In 1848, he was invited to Cambridge, England, by Orientalist Samuel Lee to participate in an Arabic translation of the Bible, which was published in 1857 and is still considered one of the best Arabic translations. He stayed in England for nearly seven years, becoming a British citizen, but failed to secure a teaching post.

Around 1855, Faris moved to Paris, where he wrote and published major works, including his novel 'Leg over Leg' (al-Sāq 'alā al-sāq), and became a Socialist. In Paris, he also argued that Shakespeare may have had an Arabic background, suggesting his original name was 'Shaykh Zubayr'. After his wife Marie died in 1857, he married an English woman named Safia, who had embraced Islam. In the late 1850s, they moved to Tunisia at the invitation of the Bey of Tunis, where Faris was appointed editor-in-chief of the newspaper Al Ra'ed and supervisor of the Education Directorate.

In 1860, Faris converted to Islam and took the name Ahmad. He then moved to Istanbul at the invitation of Ottoman Sultan Abdel Majid I, where he worked as an official translator and founded the Arabic newspaper Al Jawaib in 1861. The newspaper, supported financially by the Ottomans, Egypt, and Tunisia, was modeled on modern Western newspapers and continued publication until 1884. Ahmad Faris strongly defended the Arabic language and culture against the Turkization attempts of 19th-century Ottoman reformers, and he is considered one of the founding fathers of modern Arabic literature and journalism. He died on 20 September 1887 in Kadıköy, Istanbul, and was buried in Lebanon on 5 October 1887.