Khayr al-Din al-Asadi

Khayr al-Din al-Asadi was a prominent Syrian historian and a recipient of the Order of Civil Merit of the Syrian Arab Republic; First Class. He was born in 1900 in Aleppo, Syria, and died there in 1971. His father, Sheikh Omar Al Asadi, was a professor of morphology and Arabic at the Ottoman school located at Bab al-Nasr and Khusruwiyah school located near the entrance of the Citadel of Aleppo. He was first educated at Shams al-Ma'arif school, where he learned some of the languages taught there such as Turkish, Persian, French and English, as well as Arabic. He is one of the founders of Al Adeyat Archaeological Society. He was a teacher of Arabic at Farukia School and Haigazian School and he was always on the move. In 1946, he visited Palestine, Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. He was interested in collecting antiquities, artifacts, pictures and music recordings, since, in 1951, he began working on his encyclopedia and finished it in 1956, where he continued his scientific expeditions visiting Yugoslavia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Austria. He was a member of the Arab Writers Union and Al Adeyat Archaeological Society. He wrote many books and articles on the history and culture of Aleppo and Syria, such as Comparative Encyclopedia of Aleppo, The History of Aleppo, The History of Syria, The History of the Arabs, and The History of the Islamic Civilization. He also translated some works from French and Turkish into Arabic, such as The History of the Ottoman Empire and The History of the French Revolution. He was a patriotic and reform-minded intellectual who opposed the French colonization of Syria. He directed the play Independence in 1923 to cultivate patriotism among students and form a resistance against the French occupation. During the play, a piece of gunpowder exploded in his hand and that led to the amputation of his hand. He quit Farukia School to teach Arabic at Haigazian School. He also quit his position as a teacher at the Arab-French Institute during the Suez Crisis against Egypt in 1956. He was a devout Muslim who was influenced by Sufi books such as, Abu al-Najib Suhrawardi, Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi, Ibn Arabi and Al-Hallaj. He was also interested in philosophy, literature, poetry, music, and art. He had a huge library that contained thousands of books and manuscripts, which he donated to the National Library of Aleppo. He died in 1971 in a nursing home in Aleppo and was buried there. He was honored by the Syrian government with the Order of Civil Merit; First Class. He is considered one of the most influential and respected historians of Syria and the Arab world.