Ahmad Faris Shidyaq

Ahmad Faris Shidyaq
Ahmad Faris Shidyak
Born	1805 Ashqout, Lebanon
Died	20 September 1887 Kadıköy, Istanbul Vilayet, Ottoman Empire
Occupation	Linguist, Writer, Journalist, translator
Spouse(s)	Marie As-Souly
Children	Two sons: Salim (1826–1906) and Fayiz (1828–1856)
Parent(s)	Youssef Ash-Shidyaq, Marie Massaad

Ahmad Faris Shidyaq (1805 – 20 September 1887, known also as Fares Chidiac, Faris Al Chidiac, Arabic: أحمد فارس الشدياق ‎‎) was a scholar, writer and journalist who grew up in present-day Lebanon. A Maronite Christian by birth, he later lived in major cities of the Arabic-speaking world, where he had his career. He converted to Protestantism during the nearly two decades that he lived and worked in Cairo, present-day Egypt, from 1825 to 1848. He also spent time on the island of Malta. Participating in an Arabic translation of the Bible in Great Britain that was published in 1857, Faris lived and worked there for 7 years, becoming a British citizen. He next moved to Paris, France for two years in the early 1850s, where he wrote and published some of his most important work.

Later in the 1850s Faris moved to Tunisia, where in 1860 he converted to Islam, taking the first name Ahmad. Moving to Istanbul later that year to work as a translator at the request of the Ottoman government, Faris also founded an Arabic-language newspaper. It was supported by the Ottomans, Egypt and Tunisia, publishing until the late 1880s.

Faris continued to promote Arabic language and culture, resisting the 19th-century "Turkization" pushed by the Ottomans based in present-day Turkey. Shidyaq is considered to be one of the founding fathers of modern Arabic literature; he wrote most of his fiction in his younger years.

Mystery shrouds the life of Ahmad Faris Shidyaq. While he has numerous autobiographical references in his writings, scholars have found it difficult to distinguish between romanticizing and reality.

Ahmad Faris Shidyaq was born in 1804 in Ashqout, a mountain village of the Keserwan District in the modern Mount Lebanon Governorate. At birth, his given name was Faris. His father's name was Youssef. His mother was of the Massaad family, from Ashqout. His family traced its roots to the Maronite muqaddam Ra'ad bin Khatir from Hasroun. His family was very well educated and its members worked as secretaries for the governors of Mount Lebanon. In 1805, the family was forced to leave Ashqout following a conflict with a local governor; Butrus al-Shidyaq, the paternal grandfather of Faris, was killed because of the politics.