On March 31, 1935, the Lebanese Arab inventor Kamel Sabbah died in the United States. He is the only Arab inventor whom the Arab lands have brought forth in several centuries, just as he is the only Arab who has contributed to modern inventions — cutting a new road before the sons of his people, and proving that we are no less gifted than the Westerners once the necessary practical means are available to us. And as we tell the readers today of the life of this genius, we perform a national duty, and convey to them one of the images of genius, which we hope will inspire in our youth resolve and ambition! "Al-Hayat"

Hasan Kamel al-Sabbah was born in Nabatieh (South Lebanon) in 1896, of a stock that traces its descent to Ya'qub ibn al-Sabbah, the famous mathematician-philoso-pher who lived in the early days of the Abbasid state. From his childhood he was devoted to arithmetic, poetry, and astronomy, studying algebra and geometry without a teacher's help before he had reached his fourteenth year.

Toward the end of his first year after entering the Sultaniyya

School in Beirut, he took to helping the fifth-year pupils solve algebraic problems of great intricacy. Within eight months he mastered the French language; he then moved to the American University of Beirut, where he learned English within six months. He then entered the engineering department, but had not finished the first year when, in 1916, he was called to military service and transferred to Istanbul.

There it was made possible for him to enter the wireless telegraph section, and he studied the German language. He was then appointed commander of the wireless telegraph detachment at Gallipoli, where he remained until the end of the war, when he came back to Damascus, and was appointed teacher of mathematics at the Sultaniyya School.

His emigration to America

In this stretch of time he arrived, in his private study, at the phi-losophy of mathematical analysis. In 1921 he returned to Beirut, where he was appointed instructor of mathematics at the American University of Beirut. He then left it, emigrating to the United

States to join the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the great-est engineering school in the world. When he presented himself for its entrance examination, it at once exempted him from all the math-ematical courses in its program, and exempted him likewise from the courses in physics. He did not remain long at this school before he left it for the University of Illinois; and he had not reached the end of the year at this university when its professor of natural phi-losophy submitted a proposal to the dean that Mr. Kamel be granted the degree of Master of Science.

Kamel plunges into the world of invention

Kamel left the life of study and entered the life of work, being appointed at the General Electric Motors company in Schenectady. And when his genius in invention began to show itself, the company opened for him a private laboratory and a private office, and placed several engineers at his disposal. After he had laid down a new engineering of electricity, testimo-nials began to pour in upon him from the presidents of universities and the great scientists of the West — such as the president of the electrical institution in Boston, Massachusetts, known as "M.I.T."; Professor "Castellofranch," profes-sor of electricity at the University of Milan in Italy; Professor Maurice Leblanc, the famous French scientist; and the presi-dent of the American University of Beirut.

Then the great companies sent him their testimonials and their acknowledgments of the sound-ness of his inventions —