Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
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Khalil al-Sakakini (January 23, 1878 - August 13, 1953), a Palestinian Jerusalemite Christian writer and educator, and an Arab nationalist. Interested in the Arabic language and culture. He is considered one of the pioneers of modern education in the Arab world, which had a great impact on the education of several generations. He was a member of the Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo.
He published twelve books during his lifetime. He lived in successive periods in Palestine, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Syria and Egypt. He was arrested in Jerusalem during World War I and imprisoned in Damascus, but he managed to escape from his prison and joined the forces of the Arab revolution. On his way to join them, he wrote the anthem of the Arab revolution. He described Sakakini as "a great pioneer of the education movement in Palestine," and "one of the most prominent men of his time in the Arab world."
his biography
Khalil Raad, autographed photograph of Khalil Sakakini, Jerusalem, 1906
Khalil Sakakini was born into an Arab Christian family in Jerusalem on January 23, 1878. His father's name was Qustandi, and his mother's name was Maryam Harami. He had two sisters: Melia; Froso, and two brothers: Jacob; And Joseph.
He was educated in Jerusalem at a Greek Orthodox school, at the College of the Anglican Christian Missionary Society (CMS) founded by Bishop Blythe, at Zion School (Bishop Gobat School) and then joined the “Youth College” (English College) where he studied literature. After graduating in 1893, Khalil al-Sakakini practiced the profession of teaching, and in 1898 he joined the “Zahrat al-Adab Society.”
Later, Sakakini traveled to the United Kingdom and from there to the United States to join his brother Youssef, who was working as a peddler in Philadelphia. During his nine-month stay in America, Khalil Sakakini wrote for Arab literary magazines on the East Coast, and translated for Professor Richard Gothel at Columbia University. He supported himself financially by teaching Arabic and working in a factory in Maine. He also worked as a peddler like his brother, and then decided to return home a year before he came to America. Upon his return in 1908, Khalil al-Sakakini worked as a journalist for the Jerusalemite magazine “Al-Asma’i.” He also taught Arabic at the Salahiyeh School (Jerusalem), and also taught expatriates at the American Colony in Jerusalem. For a short period, after the July 1908 revolution in Istanbul, Sakakini joined the Union and Progress Association, and then was elected to the working body of the Ottoman Arab Brotherhood branch in Jerusalem.
Sakakini's wife, Sultana, died in October 1939 and was buried in the Greek Orthodox cemetery on Mount Zion. He mourned her for the rest of his days, and wrote poems about her. His son, Sari, completed a master's degree at the University of Michigan and returned to Jerusalem to work at the US Consulate.
During the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the Sakakini family was one of the last families to leave the Katamon neighborhood. A few days before the occupation of Jerusalem, the Sakakini family fled to Cairo. There, the Egyptian writer Taha Hussein Khalil al-Sakakini was nominated to join the Arabic Language Academy.
The sudden death of his son Sari al-Sakakini from a heart attack in 1953 at the age of 39 was a severe blow to his father. Khalil Sakakini died three months after the death of his son, on August 13, 1953. He was buried in St. George's Cemetery in Cairo. Sakakini's two daughters, Dolleh and Hala, lived together in Ramallah until their deaths in 2002 and 2003. Both sisters had long careers in education. Hala al-Sakakini edited her father's magazines published in 1955, and wrote two memoirs in English, Me and Jerusalem (translated into Arabic), and Twosome.
his educational career
A school photo of the Constitutional School in Jerusalem. Khalil Sakakini is seated second from left.
In 1909, Khalil al-Sakakini founded the Constitutional School or the National School, which was famous for its Arab nationalist approach, and gave it that name on the occasion of the adoption of the constitution of the new Ottoman Empire. Sakakini was a pioneer in progressive educational reform: there were no grades, prizes, or punishments for students, and the focus was on music, education, and physical education. He called for avoiding exams as a method of evaluating students, considering that exams are nothing more than a means that intimidates students and contributes to alienating them from learning. He also introduced new methods of teaching the Arabic language, and made it the primary language of instruction instead of Turkish, and as soon as he opened the school, it became famous.
Wasef Jawhariyeh, best known for his memoirs about Jerusalem in the early 20th century, was a student of his at the Constitutional School. He praised Sakakini's method of teaching:
“Professor Sakakini taught us the Arabic language in a way that was very popular with the students. He used a method which, as far as I know, few teachers in the East like to use. He did not make the students memorize the grammar rules as most teachers used to do... His lessons included anecdotes which the students of this great master received with eagerness and excitement. They were able, by helping him, to quickly interpret what they had taken many hours to understand with the other teachers. He instilled in them patriotism and masculinity. ... Having chosen to name his school "the Constitutional" or the National School, Sakakini was the first to ban corporal punishment in education, and this wise stance extended to other schools. Whenever he noticed the slightest inappropriate behavior on the part of a student, especially on a moral level, despite his fatherly love for the student concerned, he would get very excited, and show his anger on his face, which frightens the student, for whom he has the utmost respect, and then he modifies his behavior Immediately." Wassef Jawhariyyah, The Storyteller of Jerusalem
Jawhariyyah also mentioned that Sakakini decided during his work in the “Constitutional School” to “teach all Christian students who wanted knowledge to read the Qur’an.” Kazem al-Husseini, who gave it to me, and it was an elegant copy printed in Astana.After you taught me the obligation to respect the Qur’an and maintain cleanliness when touching it, and in this way I learned the Qur’an from a dedicated professor called Sheikh Amin al-Ansari, who is famous in Jerusalem.” According to Jawhariyyah, the motive that prompted Sakakini to adopt this position was that: "The essence of the Arabic language, especially recitation, is to read the Qur'an in the authentic way."
Sakakini led a movement for reform and change in pursuit of a "more Arab approach" compared to what he considered the corruption of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem. Arabic language, wrote a pamphlet in 1913 entitled "The Orthodox Renaissance in Palestine", and founded the Orthodox Brotherhood, with which he challenged the Greek Patriarch, which led to his excommunication by the Orthodox Church.
Khalil believed in modernizing teaching aids and using visual aids, and wrote several books explaining his approach. He has also prepared and authored many textbooks in the field of the Arabic language. Among the most important of them was the Arabic language book for the first grade of primary school, which begins with studying the words (ras - rus) supported by pictures and explanation. Tens of thousands of students studied this book from the early twenties until several years after his death and into the mid-sixties.
He was arrested by the Ottoman authorities on the last day of Ottoman rule in Jerusalem in 1917, after he had given shelter to a Polish-American Jew and a Jerusalemite citizen, Alter Levin. Both of them were imprisoned in the “al-Jami’ al-Mu’allaq” prison in Bab al-Jabiya in Damascus. Levin had become an enemy of the Ottoman Empire when the United States joined the Allies in World War I. However, Alter Levin and Khalil Sakakini became close friends while incarcerated. Khalil al-Sakakini spent about two and a half months in prison, after which he was released on bail and later acquitted, but the British occupation of Palestine prevented his return, so he lived in Damascus for about 10 months until August 1918, when he left with a group of men to join the Arab revolution. Great in the Hijaz, and a thousand revolution anthem.
In 1919, Khalil al-Sakakini and his wife began working for the Education Authority in Jerusalem, and al-Sakakini was appointed director of the Teachers' House in Jerusalem. He later became Inspector of Education in Palestine, a post he held for 12 years, until his resignation in protest at the appointment of Herbert Samuel, a Jew known to be a Zionist sympathizer, as High Commissioner of the British Mandate for Palestine. After working as a school principal in Cairo, he returned to Palestine in 1926 and became a school inspector. This allowed him to spread his educational philosophy to rural villages. At the same time, he wrote political commentaries for Al-Muqtataf, Al-Hilal, and Al-Siyasah Al-Usubi' newspapers, composed patriotic poems, and spoke at political gatherings. In 1925 he founded the National School, and in 1938 he founded the Al-Nahda School in Jerusalem. In May 1934, Sakakini built a house in the Katamon neighborhood, which was completed in three years. At the "Seventh Palestinian Arab Conference", which was held in June 1928 in the city of Jerusalem, Sakakini confronted calls for religious segregation that were broadcast by British circles. In 1931, he held the position of Director of the Office of the Arab Executive Committee.
In 1932, his son Surrey was sent to Haverford College, in Pennsylvania. After Herbert Samuel left Palestine, he returned to work as inspector general of the Arabic language in Palestine.
His writings
Palestine after the Great War (Jerusalem in 1920)
Studies in Language and Literature (Jerusalem in 1925)
The sentence method of experience, Bayt al-Maqdis Press, 1933.
Secret (Jerusalem in 1935)
A footnote to the report of the Committee for Facilitating the Grammar of the Arabic Language (Jerusalem 1938)
To Your Memory (Jerusalem 1940)
And upon him is a priest (Jerusalem in 1943)
What is facilitated - two parts (Jerusalem in 1943, 1946)
Arabic Letters, Bayt Al-Maqdis Press, 1946.
New in Arabic reading - four parts (Jerusalem between 1924 and 1933). (See the new modified article in Arabic reading in this encyclopedia).
Fundamentals in Teaching Arabic Language - Evidence One and Evidence Two (Jerusalem 1934,1936)
So I Am, Dunya: The Diaries of Khalil Sakakini
Khalil Sakakini's Diaries: Diaries, Letters, Reflections: Book One: New York. Sultana, Jerusalem 1907-1912.
The Diaries of Khalil Sakakini: Book Two, The Orthodox Renaissance, The Great War, Exile to Damascus 1914-1918 / Diaries, Letters, Reflections, 2004.
Khalil Sakakini's Diaries: Journals, Letters and Reflections. Book 3. “The Test” of Mandate and Questions of Identity, 1919-1922
Khalil Sakakini's Diaries: Journals, Letters and Reflections. Book Four, Between Father and Son, Part Two, Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center; Institute for Jerusalem Studies, 2006.
Khalil Sakakini's Diaries: Journals, Letters and Reflections. Book 5. Between Father and Son, Khalil Sakakini's Letters to Secret in America. c. 2. 1933-1934
Khalil Sakakini's Diaries: Journals, Letters and Reflections. Book 6. Between Father and Son, Khalil Sakakini's Letters to Secret in America. c. 3. 1935-1937.
Khalil Sakakini's Diaries: Journals, Letters and Reflections. Book 7. Sultana's Death, 1939-1941
Khalil Sakakini's Diaries: Diaries, Letters, Reflections. c. 8. Exodus from Katamon, 1942-1952
bibliography
Haddad, Youssef Ayoub. Khalil al-Sakakini: His Life, Positions and Effects, General Union of Palestinian Writers and Journalists, 1980.
Jaber, Walid Ahmed. Khalil Sakakini: His Life and Works, 1980.
Al-Husseini, Isaac Musa. Khalil al-Sakakini: The Renewed Writer, Dar al-Tifl Foundation, Jerusalem, 1989.
Naouri, Issa. Khalil al-Sakakini: writer and educator, Dar al-Karmel, Amman, Jordan, 1985.
Zalloum, Hamouda. Khalil Sakakini: Educator, Writer, Human, 1972.
Al-Shanti, Essam Mohamed. Khalil al-Sakakini, the linguist, League of Arab States, Institute for Arab Research and Studies, 1967.
Al-Asaad, Fawzi Hassan. Khalil al-Sakakini: 1878-1947 AD, Scientific Society Library.
Hamed, Ahmed Hassan. Al-Sakakini: On Contemporary Intellectual Renaissance, Khalid Bin Al-Walid Library, 1997.
Abdul Hassan, Nawaf. Khalil Sakakini: Between Loyalty and Remembrance, Arab Heritage Research Center, Jerusalem, 1991.
Saleh, Jihad. Khalil Sakakini: 1878-1953, the pioneer of intellectual and literary renewal in Palestine, the General Union of Palestinian Writers and Writers.
Sabri, Bahgat, “Khalil al-Sakakini, Historian.” In Nawaf Abdel Hassan (preparation). Khalil al-Sakakini between loyalty and remembrance. Al-Taybeh [Palestine]: Center for the Revival of Arab Heritage, 1991, pp. 94-111.
Returns, Jacob. “One of the most prominent figures of thought and literature in Palestine.” Amman: Dr. N, 1976.
Lubani, Hussein Ali. "Dictionary of Palestinian Flags in Science, Arts and Literature". Beirut: Lebanon Library Publishers, 2012.
Deccan-Wasef, Sarah. A Dictionary of Palestinian Writers. Paris: Institute of the Arab World, 1999.
Shaheen, Ahmed Omar. Encyclopedia of Palestinian Writers in the Twentieth Century, Part One. Damascus: The National Center for Studies and Documentation, 1992.
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