Anastase-Marie al-Karmali

Butrus Mikha'il 'Awwad al-Marini, better known as Anastase-Marie al-Karmali or by his original religious name Anastase-Marie de Saint Élie, 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, 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, of which two volumes were published posthumously. He is considered to have been "one of the artisans of the Nahda".

Life

Background and studies

Butrus's father, Mikha'il al-Marini, son of 'Awwad al-Marini, came from Bhersaf, and moved to Baghdad to work as an interpreter. In Baghdad, Mikha'il married Butrus's mother, an Iraqi woman named Maryam Jubran, daughter of the Chaldean Augustin Jubran from Baghdad, descending from an old Iraqi Christian family. Butrus was born in Baghdad, and was the fourth son of Mikha'il and Maryam.
Butrus received his primary education from the in Baghdad. For his secondary education, he went to the, also in Baghdad. While still a pupil, at the age of 12, he showed such ability in Arabic that he started to give private lessons. He graduated from the in 1882, at the age of 15, and was then appointed as teacher of the Arabic language at the Carmelite residence in Basra by the superior of the Carmelite mission. Around that time, al-Marini's articles began to be published by the Jesuit Beiruti periodical Al-Bashir.
The death in 1883 of Butrus al-Bustani, author of the Arabic dictionary Muhit al-Muhit, inspired al-Marini to start writing an Arabic dictionary of his own, which would however remain unfinished by the time of his death. Al-Marini initially titled his projected dictionary Dhayl Lisan al-'Arab before choosing the title Al-Musa'id.
In 1886, al-Marini went to the College of the Jesuit Fathers in Beirut to study Arabic, Latin, Greek and French literature. On 5 May 1888 he entered the Carmelite monastery in Chèvremont, near Liège, Belgium. He then went to Montpellier, France, to study philosophy and theology. He took his simple vow in June 1889 and his solemn vow in 1892. He was ordained a priest on 22 October 1894, and took the name Anastase-Marie de Saint Élie. He would become known in Arabic as "al-Karmali", meaning 'the Carmelite'.

Early years as a priest

In the period following his ordination, al-Karmali toured Spain before returning to Baghdad. As principal of the, he taught Arabic and French, preached and counselled. At the same time, his articles were published in the magazines of Egypt, Syria and Iraq. Some of these articles were about the different communities of Iraq. In 1900 and 1901, al-Karmali published two articles about the Mandaeans, a community with which he would become "deeply involved". However, his description of the Shabak people in an article of 1902 "has been the source of much misunderstanding and biased secondary literature."
In June 1908, al-Karmali was asked to escort Louis Massignon from Baghdad to Beirut after Massignon's captivity. Al-Karmali eventually accompanied him all the way to Brittany, where he met Massignon's parents, before returning to Baghdad. Al-Karmali and Louis Massignon would maintain a correspondence until 1936.
In 1911, al-Karmali got involved in the academic debates which followed the discoveries of forged manuscripts of the Yazidi Book of Revelation and the Yazidi Black Book.
Also in 1911, al-Karmali founded Lughat al-Arab, a "literary, scientific historical monthly magazine". The magazine's publication would be interrupted by World War I, before resuming for six more years between 1926 and 1931. The discovery of the lost text of the first Arabic dictionary, the Kitab al-'Ayn, was announced in 1914 in this journal.

World War I and later years

In 1914, as World War I had started, the Ottomans accused al-Karmali of being a spy and exiled him to Kayseri in Central Anatolia, where he was retained until 1916. Upon his release, al-Karmali returned to Baghdad in July 1916. During his absence, his library had been destroyed in great part. Al-Karmali would however rebuild his collection, which would number 15,000 volumes and 2,500 manuscripts in the mid-1930s.
Around 1920, al-Karmali became the first librarian of the in Baghdad, and introduced a system of modern management. He helped develop the Library's collection, donating printed materials from his private collection, when other collections in foreign languages remained in the monastery library. The Peace Library would later be renamed the Baghdad Public Library, and in 1961 would become the basis for the establishment of the Iraq National Library.
In the 1930s, al-Karmali played an instrumental role in defending the Mandaean community against accusations of astrolatry, by taking part in the case filed by the Mandaean high priest Dakhil Aidan against the Iraqi historian 'Abd al-Razzaq al-Hasani.
On 8 October 1933, al-Karmali was appointed as a member of the Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo by Fuad I of Egypt. He took part in it from its inaugural session of 1934 onwards.
Shortly before his death, al-Karmali donated 2,500 books and 1,500 manuscripts from his personal library to the Iraq Museum Library. Al-Karmali died in Baghdad on 7 January 1947.

Writings

As of 2010, many of al-Karmali's writings were unpublished or lost.

Books

;In Arabic
;In French
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Articles