Shakib Arslan was born into the princely Druse Arslan family of Mount Lebanon. A prolific essayist, poet, and orator, he earned the title Amir al-Bayan — 'Prince of Eloquence' — for his command of Arabic prose.
Active first within the late Ottoman political world, he became after the First World War a leading voice for Arab independence and pan-Islamic solidarity. Based for years in Geneva, he lobbied European powers and the League of Nations on behalf of Arab causes and edited influential journals that circulated across the Arab and Muslim world.
His writing on why the Muslim world had fallen behind, and how it might revive, shaped a generation of nationalist and reformist thinkers. He embodied the role some Druse figures played as bridges between the Levant and the wider world of ideas and diplomacy.
Sources & further reading
- Encyclopædia Britannica — Shakib Arslan
- William Cleveland, Islam against the West: Shakib Arslan
Aggregated from public sources. Spotted an error? Let us know.