Farah Antun

Farah Antun (Arabic: فرح انطون ), also spelled Farah Antoun (1874–1922), was among the first Syrian Christians to openly argue for secularism and equality regardless of religious affiliation, although he also, uncommonly for his background, argued against Arab nationalism. Antun became popular for his magazine "Al-Jami'ah" and his public debate with Muhammad Abduh over conflicting worldviews.

Farah Antun was born in 1874 to a Lebanese, Eastern Orthodox Christian family. He had three sisters, Rose, Mariana, Ramza and a younger brother. His father, Elias Antun, was a lumber merchant in Tripoli, where only a forth of the population was Christian and the rest was Muslim. His father traded mostly by sea, and so Antun's family lived in a Christian dominated area of Tripoli near the sea named al-Mina. American Protestant and Catholic missionaries opened schools in Lebanon, but after attaining a primary certification in 1888, he enrolled in Kiftin in Tripoli, a boys' school attached to the Orthodox monastery. The school taught not only the languages of Arabic, Turkish, French and English, but also history, geography, mathematics and Muslim legal sciences. He spent four years there, entering when he was 13 and leaving at the age of 16 when the school closed. He especially excelled in French and would often spend more time reading magazines, books and articles in French than doing schoolwork. He spent very little time learning English or focusing on the Arabic-Islamic heritage of his region. He did, however, report that Kiftin was very religiously tolerant, and catered to the religious activities of all students and staff, something unusual for the time and region.

When the school closed, Antun's father brought him into the lumber trade as an apprentice in his business. For the following year or two, Antun traveled throughout Lebanon in the business, but was restless and eventually told his parents that he was leaving the merchant trade. Not long after, he took up a teaching position at "al-Madrasah al-Ahliyah", another Orthodox school in Tripoli. However, he often had only a handful of students of his own sect and was underpaid. While teaching, many of his articles were published and he began to translate French materials. His desire grew to enter the field of Journalism and so he left his job as a teacher in Syria to pursue his new dream.

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