Butrus al-Bustani

Butrus al-Bustani was born into a Maronite Christian family in the Chouf region of Lebanon and became fluent in Arabic, Syriac, Latin, Italian, French, English, and Hebrew. In the wake of the 1860 sectarian civil conflict in Mount Lebanon, he founded the revolutionary patriotic newspaper Nafir Suriyya (The Clarion of Syria), coining the famous national motto 'Hubb al-watan min al-iman' (Love of the fatherland is an article of faith).

Bustani founded the secular National School (Al-Madrasa al-Wataniyya) in Beirut to educate Muslim, Christian, and Druze youth together. His monumental intellectual achievements include the first modern Arabic dictionary Muhit al-Muhit and the six-volume Da'irat al-Ma'arif, the earliest modern Arabic encyclopedia.