Anastase-Marie al-Karmali

Life & Legacy

Butrus Mikha'il 'Awwad al-Marini (Arabic: بطرس ميخائيل عواد الماريني / ALA-LC: Buṭrus Mīkhāʼīl ʻAwwād al-Mārīnī; 5 August 1866 – 7 January 1947), better known as Anastase-Marie al-Karmali (Arabic: أنستاس ماري الكرملي / ALA-LC: Anastās Mārī al-Karmalī, lit. 'Anastasius-Maria the Carmelite') or by his original religious name Anastase-Marie de Saint Élie (lit. 'Anastasius-Maria of Saint Elijah'), was an Iraqi Catholic priest and Discalced Carmelite friar of Lebanese and Iraqi origins, best known for his contributions to Arabic lexicology and lexicography and to Arabic philology, as well as for editing the Lughat al-Arab (Arabic: لغة العرب / ALA-LC: Lughat al-ʻArab, lit. 'The Language of the Arabs'), a "literary, scientific and historical" periodical issued from 1911 to 1914 and from 1926 to 1931. He was also a founding member of the Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo. Among his most famous works is an unfinished dictionary, Al-Musa'id (Arabic: المساعد / ALA-LC: Al-Musāʻid, lit. 'The Assistant'), of which two volumes were published posthumously. He is considered to have been "one of the artisans of the Nahda" (the Arab renaissance of the late 19th – early 20th century).