A Loss to Letters and Learning: Mr. Jamil Safadi

The Safadi family in Brazil and Lebanon has been bereaved by the death of Mr. Jamil Safadi. His loss was a painful one, falling heavily upon his kin and his friends and upon those laboring in the cause of Arabic letters in the Mahjar.

The departed passed away after long, arduous years of struggle, spent in higher studies and in the study of the principles of the Arabic language on a pure scientific basis. He entered the university after the age at which people ordinarily enter universities had gone by, and threw himself into higher learning with a devotion matched only by the devotion of ascetics. He obtained the licentiate degree in geography and history in 1947, and won the diploma of specialization in history in 1949; during his student days he also enrolled in branches of the social sciences, the Latin languages, and the Hebrew language. Before his death he had begun printing a precious work, the fruit of twenty-five years' study of the development of the Arabic language and the methods of teaching it. The "Jamil Safadi Foundation" completed the printing of the book after his death, and shortness of time prevented its being studied and some of its chapters translated into Arabic.

As for his work in the cause of teaching the Arabic language, it is one of those mighty labors undertaken by communities, not individuals. He seized the opportunity of his presence at the university and invited its students to the study of the Arabic language, Arabic literature, and the history of the Arab peoples. Thus he laid — God's mercies upon him — the cornerstone of the teaching of Arabic in the universities of the Mahjar, volunteered to teach classes he founded himself, and undertook to give the lessons in them during the holidays. And when a number of students had gathered around him, he spread the idea of creating a chair of the Arabic language at the University of São Paulo — and what he wanted came to pass.

His single care was to acquaint the Brazilian people with the culture of the Arab countries, and he spared neither health nor money nor effort in this cause.

God rest you, Jamil, and rest those lofty virtues, that refined breeding, and that genuine, modest culture of letters.