- ArchivalJM_RC_KhalidiR
- Person
- 1864-1913-08-06
Ruhi al-Khalidi was a writer, teacher, activist and politician in the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the 20th century.
He joined the Sultanic School in Istanbul in 1893, went on to teach in Jerusalem and held a number of administrative posts under Ottoman rule. He studied the philosophy of Islamic sciences and oriental literature at the Sorbonne University in Paris and was appointed professor at the Société des publications en langues étrangères (foreign language publications society) and Consul-General of the Ottoman Empire in Bordeaux (France) from 1898 to 1908.
In 1908, Ruhi al-Khalidi was one of three delegates elected to represent Jerusalem in the new Ottoman Parliament. He became Vice-President of the Parliament in 1911 and representative of the National Assembly of Jerusalem. He raised the issue of Zionism on several occasions during parliamentary sessions, warning of the potentially negative consequences of Jewish immigration and the continued sale of land that represented his homeland.
In particular, he was one of the pioneers in writing manuscripts on Zionism ("Le sionisme ou la question sioniste").”).
He also published other writings on a variety of themes that reflect his subjects of study: An Introduction to the Eastern Question (1897), Victor Hugoand A Comparative Study of Arabic and French Literature (first published in Arabic in 1904; republished in 1912), Chemistry Among the Arabs (Arabic, 1953).