''Al Nafais Al Asriyyah'' ⁨(), simply ''Al Nafais'', was a literary and political magazine which was published between 1908 and 1923 with an interruption during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. It was founded, published and edited by the Palestinian writer

Khalil Beidas Khalil Beidas (, also transliterated Khalil Bedas, Khalil Baydas, Khalil Beydas) (1874–1949) was a Palestinian scholar, educator, translator and novelist. Beidas was the father of Palestinian Lebanese banker Yousef Beidas and was a cousin of ...

and was the most read literary periodical published in Palestine under the Ottomans. Its subtitle was ''Majalla adabiyya tarikhiyya fukahiyya'' (Arabic: ''A recreational and historical literary magazine'').

History and profile

''Al Nafais Al Asriyyah'' was launched by Khalil Beidas in 1908. The magazine was headquartered in

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

, but it was moved to Jerusalem in 1910. It was modeled on other Arabic magazines, including '' Al Muqtataf'' and '' Al Hilal'', but Beidas also designed ''Al Nafais'' using the features of the Russian literary journals such as ''

Sovremennik ''Sovremennik'' ( rus, «Современник», p=səvrʲɪˈmʲenʲːɪk, a=Ru-современник.ogg, "The Contemporary") was a Russian literary, social and political magazine, published in Saint Petersburg in 1836–1866. It came out f ...

'' and '' Russkii Vestnik''. Throughout its lifetime the publication frequency of ''Al Nafais'' changed from weekly to biweekly and then to monthly. In the early years it was a literary magazine which covered the translations of Russian literary works into Arabic. Beidas and Iskandar Al Khuri Al Beitjali translated these texts which were published in the magazine. The texts translated by Beidas included the stories by the Russian author

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...

in which there was a clear opposition against the Orthodox church establishment. In 1919 Beidas also published his only novel entitled ''Al Warith'' (Arabic: ''The Heir'') in ''Al Nafais''. In addition, the magazine supported the novice literary genres and attempted to relate them with the Arab culture. Palestinian poet Khalil Al Sakakini and Isaf Al Nashashibi were among its regular contributors. ''Al Nafais'' temporarily ceased publication in 1914 when World War I broke out and was restarted in Jerusalem on 26 July 1919. In this second phase it began to contain political materials partly due to the

Russian revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

. It also contained articles on

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

and history. The magazine folded in 1923 after producing 117 issues. Its successor was ''Al Ikha'' which was established by Salim Qub'ayn in Cairo.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nafais Asriyyah 1908 establishments in the Ottoman Empire 1923 disestablishments in Mandatory Palestine Biweekly magazines Defunct Arabic-language magazines Defunct literary magazines Defunct political magazines Magazines established in 1908 Magazines disestablished in 1923 Magazines published in Jerusalem Magazines published in the Ottoman Empire Literary translation magazines Mass media in Haifa Weekly magazines Monthly magazines