Nāṣīf bin ʻAbd Allāh bin Nāṣīf bin Janbulāṭ bin Saʻd al-Yāzijī (; March 25, 1800 – February 8, 1871) was a Lebanese author at the times of the Ottoman Empire and father of Ibrahim al-Yaziji. He was one of the leading figures in the

Nahda The Nahda ( ar, النهضة, translit=an-nahḍa, meaning "the Awakening"), also referred to as the Arab Awakening or Enlightenment, was a cultural movement that flourished in Arabic-speaking regions of the Ottoman Empire, notably in Egypt, Leb ...

movement. Like several of the principal players of the Arab Awakening (Nahda), Nasif al-Yaziji migrated from a

Mount Lebanon Mount Lebanon ( ar, جَبَل لُبْنَان, ''jabal lubnān'', ; syr, ܛܘܪ ܠܒ݂ܢܢ, ', , ''ṭūr lewnōn'' french: Mont Liban) is a mountain range in Lebanon. It averages above in elevation, with its peak at . Geography The Mount Le ...

ravaged by discord and revolt, to

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

at a time when the city was undergoing rapid development and establishing itself as a centre of academia and journalism. A

Greek Catholic The term Greek Catholic Church can refer to a number of Eastern Catholic Churches following the Byzantine (Greek) liturgy, considered collectively or individually. The terms Greek Catholic, Greek Catholic church or Byzantine Catholic, Byzantine C ...

,Moosa, 1997, p
124
/ref> he began his career as a private secretary (mudabbir) - a common way for Christians to attain social mobility under the restrictive

iqta' An iqta ( ar, اقطاع, iqṭāʿ) and occasionally iqtaʿa ( ar, اقطاعة) was an Islamic practice of tax farming that became common in Muslim Asia during the Buyid dynasty. Iqta has been defined in Nizam-al-Mulk's Siyasatnama. Administrat ...

system by which Mount Lebanon, which he described as "a country of tribes", was governed. First employed by Prince Haydar al-Shihabi, he went on to work for

Bashir Shihab II Emir Bashir Shihab II () (also spelled "Bachir Chehab II"; 2 January 1767–1850) was a Lebanese emir who ruled Ottoman Lebanon in the first half of the 19th century. Born to a branch of the Shihab family which had converted from Sunni Islam, th ...

, whose brutal repression of his opponents earned him the title the "Red Emir". When Yaziji moved to Beirut in 1840, he became an Arabic tutor and it was in this role that he came into contact with American and British Protestant missionaries. He would help fulfil one of the greatest ambitions of the missionaries – the translation of the Bible into Arabic – when he corrected a translation that

Eli Smith Eli Smith (born September 13, 1801, in Northford, Connecticut, to Eli and Polly (Whitney) Smith, and died January 11, 1857, in Beirut, Lebanon) was an American Protestant missionary and scholar. He graduated from Yale College in 1821 and from And ...

, an American missionary, and

Butrus al-Bustani Butrus al-Bustani ( ar, بطرس البستاني, ; 1819–1883) was a writer and scholar from present day Lebanon. He was a major figure in the Nahda, which began in Egypt in the late 19th century and spread to the Middle East. He is cons ...

started in 1847. After that, he taught at the Syrian Protestant College (later renamed the

American University of Beirut The American University of Beirut (AUB) ( ar, الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, aut ...

) and wrote on poetry, rhetoric, grammar and philosophy. It was for his attempts to emulate the style of classical Arab writers, thereby rediscovering the literary heritage of the Arabs, that he is best known. Among his works are a treatise on the muqata 'ji system. Used by the Ottomans to govern the emirate of Mount Lebanon, this involved

tax-farming Farming or tax-farming is a technique of financial management in which the management of a variable revenue stream is assigned by legal contract to a third party and the holder of the revenue stream receives fixed periodic rents from the contrac ...

or iqta' rights being given to leading local families. These families enjoyed a degree of autonomy in the running of their region, controlled the land, collected taxes and benefitted from tax exemptions and benefits in exchange for providing the central authorities in Istanbul with revenue and armed men.Salibi, 2003, p
110
/ref> With Bustani and

Mikhail Mishaqa Mikhail Mishaqa or Michael Mishaka (March 20, 1800 – July 19, 1888; ar, ميخائيل مشاقة, gr, Μιχαήλ Μισάκα), also known as Doctor Mishaqa, was born in Rashmayyā, Lebanon, and is reputed to be "the first historian of mo ...

, al-Yaziji formed the Syrian Association for the Sciences and Arts – the Arab world's first literary society – in 1847. The circle tackled and published its deliberations on themes such as women's rights, history and their fight against superstition.Johnson, 2001, p
138
/ref> It was dissolved in 1852 but its inner circle went on to establish the Syrian Scientific Association a few years later. This became a much larger, multi-sectarian society of intellectuals who pushed for Arab independence from the Ottomans.

References

Bibliography

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Yaziji, Nasif 19th-century writers from the Ottoman Empire 1800 births 1871 deaths Lebanese Melkite Greek Catholics Arabs from the Ottoman Empire