In December of 1869, the writer, writer and thinker Shakib Arslan was born, who was known by the title Amir al-Bayan for the abundance of his writings, and is considered one of the great thinkers and the most prominent advocate of Arab and Islamic unity.

He was fluent in Arabic, Turkish, French and German, and came from an ancient Druze family.

Shakib means in Persian: Saber, and Arslan means in Turkish and Persian: Lion.

In the same month after 77 years, Arslan died on the 9th of December 1946 in Beirut after a long journey in life and exile, at a time when the colonialists knocked on their doors for a long stay in the metropolises of the East, and with them the peoples of the nation began to examine their bitter reality and put up their dilemma. On the renaissance elite, why did they advance and be late?

The question that was shocking the owner of Al-Manar (Muhammad Rashid Rida) referred it in turn to the Emir of the Bayan Shakib Arslan, for he was a man who was branded with the satisfaction of prudence and length of experience, and he was not lacking in the preoccupation and clash with the dilemma of underdevelopment, and he was the one who was also given the title “Prince of the Bayan” to him, According to a previous report by Al-Jazeera Net published by Ahmed Al-Shoufi.

Over the past century, the formulas of the question have changed a little, and appeared under the headings, “The Ego and the Other,” “We” and “They.” However, the gap widened and the other became others. Countries.

Shakib Arslan worked hard in answering the dilemma question, and left, leaving behind a lump that is still in the throat of the nation, whose sons today go out into the squares and streets, clashing with one of the most important factors of backwardness, which is tyranny, perhaps in its demise, a more effective answer to the question.

Apart from the man’s diligence in answering the question, and the criticisms that touched the book, which included Arslan’s answer to it, and that it was a lengthy sermon, the question in and of itself was sufficient to provoke Britain and France’s ire and prevented the booklet from entering Arab countries that were at that time besetting the colonialists in a complex reality.

Complex scene

The scene in which Arslan's struggle consciousness unfolded was not clear-cut in what might be called in the world of politics the balance of power and alliances, but rather was extremely complex: a nation reeling under severe injustice, for a caliphate that shares the Arabs' religion, while it is growing backward, and its liberals pouring down the gallows for them in "Alia" and others at the hands of Jamal Pasha Al-Saffah, and a colonist whose two masters (Sykes and Picot) put their agreement to tear apart the land of Arabia.

Arslan sided at the beginning of his intellectual life and his political orientation towards the idea of ​​the Islamic University and the unity of Muslims under the banner of the Caliphate, influenced by the views of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. However, the Turks' perseverance in their oppression called him to join those calling for Arab unity and their right to their nation state, "it is the way to their unity and strength", taking He made a pledge to call for the unity of the nation and preach it, saying, "He will continue to preach this call throughout his life. If he follows his Lord, before it is completed, he is about to preach it while he is under the dirt."

Shakib called for the Islamic University under the Ottoman rule, and stood in the way of cooperation with the West, and was supporting the caliphate, but he finally resented the policy of Jamal Pasha Al-Saffah, and many advised him not to interfere in the interest of his life, so he immigrated from Syria to Istanbul in 1917. And he decided not to return to Syria and the beauty of its thug.

Fighter against the colonialist

During his long life (1869-1946) Arslan, who was born in "Choueifat" in Lebanon, was obsessed with the concerns of the nation and its liberation, and lived as a fighter on the front of the French colonialist, who was accused by his commissioner in Syria, "Monsieur Geoffel" of being an aide of the thug, but the accusation at the time was only An attempt to distort the image of the prince who was at the head of a battalion to resist the French colonialist.

And if the exile prevented the Emir of the Arab Manifesto from continuing the material struggle against the colonizer, this did not prevent him from fighting on the front of culture and thought, so he became active in authorship, systems and rhetoric, leaving behind him a legacy consisting of hundreds of letters, poems and many books.

False problem

In his early alignment between his Islam and his nationalism on the level of his intellectual affiliation, Arslan was very early on resolving the "false" problem between Arabism and Islam, a problem that then became fierce wars between the theorists on both sides, and beyond that the Druze prince seemed to be one of the models presented in its practices Life and politics is a symbol of rejection of sectarianism and sectarianism.

Two years before the departure of the Emir of the Arab Manifesto in 1946, the vow of the Nakba was looming, and at a time when it seemed that nothing could change the scene, he left his last will, "I recommend you to Palestine," although the will did not find someone to implement it and Palestine was lost, as was Andalusia that was One of Arslan's long stops on his journey around the world.

Arslan has passed away, whose memory is solved these days, and the problems have become more complicated, and his question has become questions, but the man does not soon attend any new attempt to penetrate the bitter reality and search for new answers.

Create a fighter's biography

Arslan memorized the Qur’an in childhood, studied Arabic sciences on Abdullah al-Bustani, studied Turkish and French, and joined the Royal School in Beirut in 1887.

He lived in Damascus and attended the lessons of Sheikh Muhammad Abdo, and he met Sheikh Jamal al-Din al-Afghani in Istanbul in 1892, and his stay in Europe allowed him to read what the West wrote about the Arabs, their civilization and culture, and spread the issues of Arabs and Muslims on European platforms with all frankness and clarity.

He met many thinkers and writers during his many travels, such as Ahmed Shawky and Ismail Sabry.

He made his famous trips from Lausanne, Switzerland, to Naples, in Italy, to Port Said, in Egypt, and crossed the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to Jeddah and then Mecca, and on this trip he recorded everything he saw and met.

He was one of the first advocates for the establishment of the Arab League. In the immediate aftermath of the First World War, he called for the establishment of an Arab League, and when it was established, he was very pleased with it.

He glorified the deeds of the Ottoman Empire, was proud of its sultans and praised its army, and saw in it the only hope to gather the diaspora of Muslims, preserve their strength and unity, and to confront the attempts to question the Ottomans ’eligibility for the Islamic Caliphate, and sided with the unionists before they left their deceptive faces, and he saw that the caliphate at that time was on Its weakness and disintegration is the only refuge for Muslims against the Crusader colonial greed, and he did not hesitate to declare war on the advocates of Turanism, and stood by the Muslims of the Balkans, supervised the organization of the conditions of immigrants from war zones, and called for volunteering with the Ottoman forces in the First World War, and warned against the intrigues The English to hit the Islamic University.

Shakib Arslan has published dozens of books between authoring, explanation and investigation, including his well-known book “Why are Muslims late? And why did others come forward?” And he wrote about his pilgrimage, “The Kind Drawings of the Pilgrim’s Mind to the Most Holy Place”, and “History of the Turk” commenting on the history of Ibn Khaldun. And "Al-Hilal Al-Sindusi in Al-Akhbar and Al-Andalusian Antiquities" in 3 parts, and it has a commentary on the present of the Islamic world of Al-Wathrop Studward in 4 parts.

He also wrote: “My Longing or Friendship for Forty Years”, and his collection of poems published “The Diwan of Prince Shakib Arslan” and “History of the Arab Invasions”.

He worked in journalism and published in Berlin in 1921 the newspaper “Liwaa al-Islam” which aimed to revive the call to the Islamic University after the collapse of the Ottoman Caliphate. He published in Geneva the magazine “The Arab Nation” between 1930 and 1938 in French, in cooperation with Ihssan Al-Jabri, and the number of its volumes reached 50 Volumes.