The contemporaries

Author's name: Muhammad Kurd Ali Publisher: Al-Rafidain for Publishing and Distribution Year of publication: 2025 Literary classification: History Brief about the book: An extensive record of the achievements of contemporary scholars of thinker Muhammad Kurd Ali, accompanied by their brilliant scientific biographies, as his center in the presidency of the Arab Linguistic Academy benefited from knowing them and their contemporaneity during critical periods. Among this elite: the scholar Mahmoud Shaker Al-Alousi, poet Ma'ruf Al-Rusafi, Father Anastas Al-Karmali, Sheikh Muhammad Rida Al-Shibibi, the scholar Taha Al-Rawi, princes Shakib and Adel Arslan, Amin and Iskander Al-Malouf, Prince Rihani, Louis Chikho, Philippe Tarazi, Badr Al-Din Al-Nassani, and Prince Faisal bin Hussein. His relations with orientalists were also close, headed by the Italian prince Cattani, Massignon, Goldziher, Houtsma, Hartmann, and Blachère. Kurd Ali dedicated fair chapters in the book to most of these figures, Arabs and Persians, but the lion's share was for his Egyptian contemporaries. What added value and uniqueness to this edition was the editing of its footnotes in a new style and their updating based on new writings that addressed all the issues Kurd Ali discussed, matching the text with the first edition issued by the Arab Language Academy in Damascus. It is a unique jewel in the fabric of the Al-Rafidain project, reviving the timeless heritage of one of the thinkers of the Arabic language and a maker of its intellectual renaissance, as well as a highly distinctive historical and intellectual document about men who shaped central roles in Arab and world history, in precious articles for every reader.