Anastas Al-Karmali

Anastas Al-Karmali (Arabic:أنستاس الكرملي), literally Anastas the Carmelite (b. 5 Aug 1866-d. 1947 Jan 7) was a christian priest, most famed for his contributions to the field of Arabic linguistics.

Life

His father Jibra'il Yousef 'awwad was a Lebanese who moved to Baghdad where he married Mariam Maragharitta. They had five sons and four daughters, one of whom -then called Butrus- would become later Father Anstas. Aanastas studied in Madrasat Al-Aaba' Al-Karmaliyin (The school of the Carmelite fathers) and then studies in Madrasat Al-Ittifaq Al-Kathuliki from which he graduated in 1882. He started his life as an Arabic Language teacher in Madrastat Al-Aba' Al-Karmaliyin, the school he previously attended. He started publishing articles in well-known news papers at the age of 16. He left Baghdad at the age of 20 (1886) to Beirut where he worked as a teacher in Kulliat Al-Aba' Alyasu'iyun (The College of Jesuit Fathers) and in the same time continued his Arabic studies and learned Latin, Greek and French languages, as well as French literature. He then traveled to Belgium in 1887 to continue his studies, and Joined a monastery near Liege where he became celibate and was named Anastas Mari Al-Karmali. He later traveled to Montpelier in France in 1889 to study philosophy, theology, Biblical exgesis and the history of christianity, and he stayed there until he became a priest in 1894. He then left France to Spain and stayed a while there visiting its Islamic monuments. He finally went back to Iraq to become responsible Madrasat Al-Aaba' Al-Karmaliyin.ar icon [http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=ArticleA_C&cid=1182774637195&pagename=Zone-Arabic-ArtCulture%2FACALayout Anastas Al-Karmali in the Temple of Arabic-أنستاس الكرملي.. في معبد العربية] ." Accessed 2008-June-16".]

His contributions to Arabic language studies

He realized that traditional Arabic language dictionaries did not list all the Arabic terms as mentioned by the poets and authors of antiquity. So he embarked on authoring a dictionary in 1883 to cover for this lack. He first called his dictionary "The Tail to Lisan Al-Arab" then changed the title to "Al-Musa'id" "The Helper".

References