Ruhi al-Khalidi

Muhammad Ruhi al-Khalidi was born in Jerusalem into the illustrious Khalidi dynasty of Islamic jurists. He studied at the École des Hautes Études and the Sorbonne in Paris, lecturing in Arabic literature while serving as Ottoman Consul-General in Bordeaux, France, from 1898 to 1908.

Elected to the restored Ottoman Chamber of Deputies representing Jerusalem in 1908 and 1912, Khalidi was the first Arab parliamentarian to formally warn of early Zionist land acquisitions in Palestine. His landmark scholarly treatise, Tarikh Ilm al-Adab inda al-Ifranj wa-al-Arab (History of the Science of Literature Among Europeans and Arabs), was the first rigorous comparative study of Arabic and French literature.