Faris Nimr
{{Short description|Lebanese journalist and intellectual (1856–1951)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2023}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Faris Nimr
| birth_date = 1856
| birth_place = Hasbaya, Ottoman Empire
| death_date = {{death year and age|1951|1856}}
| death_place = Cairo, Egypt
| nationality = Lebanese, Egyptian
| alma_mater = New York University
| occupation = Journalist
| known_for = Co-founder of Al Muqattam
}}
Faris Nimr ({{Langx|ar|فارِس نِمْر}}; 1856–1951), was a pioneer Lebanese journalist and intellectual. He cofounded Al Muqattam, an Arabic, Cairo-based newspaper.{{Cite web|author=Muhammad Shafiq Ghurbal|author-link=Muhammad Shafiq Ghurbal|year=1965|title=فارس نمر|url=http://encyc.reefnet.gov.sy/?page=entry&id=202347|access-date=20 May 2022|website=موسوعة شبكة المعرفة الريفية|publisher=Dar Al Qalam
|archive-date=25 December 2012|archive-url=https://archive.today/20121225031959/http://encyc.reefnet.gov.sy/?page=entry&id=202347|url-status=dead}}{{Cite web|author=Khayr al-Dīn al-Ziriklī|year=1980|title=الأعلام|trans-title=Who’s who
|url=http://encyc.reefnet.gov.sy/?page=entry&id=260246|website=encyc.reefnet.gov.sy|language=ar|access-date=2022-05-21|archive-date=2012-12-24|archive-url=https://archive.today/20121224202101/http://encyc.reefnet.gov.sy/?page=entry&id=260246|url-status=dead}}
Early life and education
|page=360}} in Hasbaya, Ottoman Empire. He hailed from a Protestant family.{{cite web
|title=Leading personalities in Egypt (British diplomatic document)|url=http://nasser.bibalex.org/Data/Docs/BritishDocumentsMerged/FO_371_53313-merged.pdf|publisher=Nasser Library|access-date=18 August 2022|date=8 October 1946|page=28}} His father was killed in the 1860 civil conflict in Mount Lebanon, and he moved with his mother to Beirut, then to Jerusalem. They returned to Hasbaya in 1868.
Nimr graduated from the Syrian College in Beirut in 1874,{{cite thesis|author=Donald M. Reid|title=Farah Antun: The life and times of a Syrian Christian journalist in Egypt|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/302477754|page=119|oclc=49371914|id={{ProQuest|302477754}}|location=Princeton University|degree=PhD|year=1969|isbn=9798658704937}} and worked at the newly created Lee Observatory under Doctor Cornelius Van Dyck, before becoming the observatory manager himself. In 1890 he graduated with a doctorate in philosophy from New York University.
Career and activities
Following his graduation Nimr worked at the American College in Beirut as a lecturer.{{cite journal |title=The Native Press of Egypt
|journal=The Muslim World|date=October 1917|volume=7|issue=4|page=415|doi=10.1111/j.1478-1913.1917.tb01575.x}} There he taught chemistry, and one of his pupils was Ilyas Matar.{{cite journal|author=Y. Choueiri|title=Two Histories of Syria and the Demise of Syrian Patriotism|journal=Middle Eastern Studies|year=1987|volume=23|issue=4|page=498|doi=10.1080/00263208708700722|jstor=4283206}} he was a member of the free mason organization. In 1876, he founded the monthly Arabic popular science magazine Al Muqtataf with Yaqub Sarruf in Beirut. They both moved to Cairo in late 1884 where they continued publishing Al-Muqtataf with great success. They managed to restart the magazine after they were permitted to resume its publication by the British authorities in Egypt.{{cite book|author=Fawaz Gerges|title=Making the Arab World: Nasser, Qutb, and the Clash That Shaped the Middle East|year=2018|publisher=Princeton University Press|location=Princeton, NJ; Oxford|isbn=9781400890071|page=43
|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/book/64675|author-link=Fawaz Gerges}}
In 1889, Nimr founded Al Muqattam, an Arabic, Cairo-based daily newspaper with Yaacoub Sarrouf and Shahin Makaryus. He became member of the Egyptian Senate. As of 1918 Nimr was a member of the Syrian Welfare Committee of which other members included Suleiman Nasif, Haqqi al-Azm, Rafiq al-Azm and Fawzi al-Bakri.{{cite journal|author=Eliezer Tauber|title=Jewish‐non‐Palestinian‐Arab negotiations: The first phase|journal=Israel Affairs|year=2000|volume=6|issue=3–4|page=170
|doi=10.1080/13537120008719577|s2cid=144487385}}
Personal life and death
One of Nimr's daughters, Katie, married George Antonius, an author and historian.{{cite book|author=Ann M. Lesch|editor=Philip Mattar
|title=Encyclopedia of the Palestinians|year=2005|publisher=Facts on File, Inc.|location=New York|page=22|chapter=Antonius, George|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GkbzYoZtaJMC&pg=PA22|isbn=978-0-8160-6986-6}} British diplomat Sir Walter Smart married his another daughter, Amy.{{cite book|author=Meir Zamir|title=The Secret Anglo-French War in the Middle East. Intelligence and Decolonization, 1940-1948 |year=2015|publisher=Routledge|location=London; New York|isbn=978-1-315-76542-6|page=39|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BVfqoAEACAAJ}} Nimr's sister, Maryam, married Shahin Makariyus who was a merchant and the founder of a magazine entitled Al Lataif.{{cite journal|author=Byron D. Cannon|title=Nineteenth-Century Arabic Writings on Women and Society: The Interim Role of the Masonic Press in Cairo - (al-Lataif, 1885-1895)|journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies|year=1985|volume=17|issue=4|pages=463–484|s2cid=154672274
|doi=10.1017/S0020743800029433}}
Nimr died in 1951.{{cite thesis|author=Katlyn Quenzer|title=Writing the Resistance: A Palestinian Intellectual History, 1967-1974|url=http://hdl.handle.net/1885/155195|location=Australian National University|degree=PhD|hdl=1885/155195|year=2019|page=49
|doi=10.25911/5d5149b41c470}}
References
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Category:Journalists from the Ottoman Empire
Category:Emigrants from the Ottoman Empire to Egypt
Category:American University of Beirut alumni
Category:New York University alumni