Ahmed Aref El-Zein

Who was Ahmed Aref El-Zein?

Sheikh Ahmed Aref El-Zein was a Shi’a intellectual from the Jabal Amil area of South Lebanon. He was a reformist scholar who engaged in the modernist intellectual debates that resonated across Arab and Muslim societies in the early 20th century. Disappointed by the lack of education and prosperity of his community under the Ottoman rule, he collaborated with other local scholars on interaction with reform movements underway in Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo. By founding the monthly magazine Al-Irfan, he is credited with bringing literary edification and news of scientific innovations to his community and others across the Arab-speaking world. He published a weekly paper Jabal Amil for a year, wrote several books and established the first printing press in South Lebanon. He promoted education for both sexes in his conservative society and helped female authors by publishing their material under their real names or pseudonyms. He was a pillar in the national Syrian-Arab movement against the Ottoman rule in the later years of the Sultanate and resisted the French mandate by advocating independence for Lebanon. He sought educational reforms and the reconciliation of Islamic values with Western ideas of liberty and democracy.