Al-Hayat
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| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner(s) | Khalid bin Sultan; Dar al-Hayat |
| Editor | Ghassan Charbel |
| Founded | 1946 |
| Headquarters | London |
| Circulation | 150,000 (2009) |
| ISSN | 0967-5590 |
| Website | alhayat.com |
Al-Hayat (Arabic: الحياة meaning "The life") is one of the leading daily pan-Arab newspapers, with a circulation estimated over 200,000. It is the newspaper of record for the Arab diaspora and the preferred venue for liberal intellectuals who wish to express themselves to a large public.
Though rather pro-West and pro-Saudi with respect to articles concerning the Arabian peninsula, it is quite open to various opinions concerning other regional questions. Al-Hayat prints in London, New York, Frankfurt, Dubai, Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Beirut and Cairo. The newspaper has offices in London, Paris, Washington, New York, Moscow, Riyadh, Jeddah, Beirut, Cairo, Baghdad, Dubai, Amman, and Damascus, among others.
The newspaper "is regarded as by far and away the best and most intensely read Arab newspaper", according to a 1997 article in The New York Times. A 2005 article in the same paper described Al-Hayat as a "decidedly Arab nationalist paper". The newspaper is distributed in most Arab countries, and most of its editors are from Lebanon, where Al-Hayat is very popular. It is more critical of the Saudi government than its main rival, Asharq Al-Awsat.
The newspaper's motto is (Arabic: إن الحياة عقيدة وجهاد "Life is belief and struggle"), a line taken from a poem by Ahmed Shawki.
The original Al-Hayat was founded by Kamel Mrowa, a Lebanese Shi'a Muslim, in Beirut on 28 January 1946 (issue no.1). (He named his daughter, Hayat Mrowa (now Hayat Palumbo, Lady Palumbo), after the newspaper.) In 1966 (16 May), as Mrowa checked final proofs for the next day's edition, an assassin walked into the Beirut office and shot him to death. Although the assassin's motive was never conclusively determined, investigators linked the shooting to the newspaper's criticism of the Arab nationalist movement. The publication survived 13 bombing attempts before the Lebanese Civil War finally forced it to shut down in 1976.
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