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| death_place = Cairo, Egypt | occupation = Writer, novelist, journalist, editor and teacher | parents = | genre = | movement = | signature = }} Jurji Zaydan (1861–1914, in Arabic script جُرْجي زَيْدان also transliterated Jorge Zaydân, Georgie Zeidan, or Jirjî Zaydan) was a prolific Lebanese novelist, journalist, editor and teacher most noted for his creation of the magazine ''al-Hilal'', which he used to serialize his 23 historical novels. His primary goal as a writer and intellectual during the Nahda was to imbue the common Arabic population with knowledge of their own history through the entertaining medium of the novel and enjoyed a widespread popularity that remains today. ==Early life== Zaydan was born on December 14, 1861 in Beirut to an Orthodox Christian family of limited means. His father owned a restaurant and, being illiterate and uneducated himself, placed little importance on education. Because of this, Zaydan dropped out of school after completing an elementary education to help his father run the business.〔http://zaidanfoundation.org/ZF_Website_AboutJurjiZaidan.html〕 However he maintained a desire to educate himself by attending night classes in English until, in 1881, at the age of 20, he was admitted to the Syrian Protestant College as a medical student. Here, he developed an interest in concepts of individualism such as ''laissez-faire'' economics, the Freemason belief in a universal enlightenment, and social Darwinism.〔 He was particularly influenced by Samuel Smile's book, ''Self-Help'' (published in 1859), which he felt he could relate to due to its emphasis on a rags-to-riches success story built upon hard work and perseverance. Furthermore, the book's focus on individualism and the self, a relatively new concept in Arab intellectual thought, would be a common theme in Zaydan's later historical novels. He attended the university around the same time as Ya'qub Sarrouf (1852–1927), who first translated ''Self-Help'' into Arabic and would later found the magazine ''al-Muqtataf'' (1876), with whom he shared ideals of modernizing the Arab world and emphasis on individual success through hard work. Cornelius Van Dyck (1818–1895), an American professor of pathology at the Syrian Protestant College known for his translation of the Bible into Arabic in 1847, first encouraged Sarrouf to translate ''Self-Help''A. He also influenced Zaydan's worldview, leading him to adopt the idea that education was the most important factor for the progress and development of a people.〔 Such widespread education could only be reached by widespread internal reform and modernization of all aspects of Arab government and daily life. Zaydan therefore became critical of contemporaries such as Egyptian Moustafa Kamal Pascha Atatürk and Ahmed Orabi, who were concerned solely with gaining independence from Western influence. Zaydan argued that reform must precede independence in order to ensure success. In 1882, professor E. Lewis was fired from the Syrian Protestant College for lightly praising Charles Darwin in a speech he made to students of the college. Because the concept of Darwinism was highly controversial amongst the Protestant Church at the time, it had forbidden its inclusion in any curriculum. This led to mass protests amongst the students, many of whom left or were expelled for rebelling.〔 Additionally, many of the European pastors running the college were beginning to favour English over Arabic as the language of education. Zaydan was among those who left Syria for Cairo, where many Lebanese intellectuals and members of the Nahda had already relocated as a reaction to increased Ottoman suppression. After a short stint in the Medical School of 'Ain Shams' and a military expedition with the British army to the Sudan, he turned his focus to developing his writing career.〔 Ya'qub Sarrouf began publishing ''al-Muqtataf'' in 1876 with help from Cornelius Van Dyck and his Syrian Protestant College classmates Faris Namir and Shahin Makarius. The magazine was primarily concerned covering modern scientific advancements, the first to do so in the Arab world, and is particularly known for its controversial coverage of the theory of evolution and Darwinism in the early 1880s. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jurji Zaydan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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