An Arab-Lebanese writer, writer and thinker. He was called Amir al-Bayan. for his intellectual prowess. He was a frequent traveler; Where he traveled between many countries, and met with many notables, writers and thinkers of his time, and he had many intellectual, literary and political contributions that made him one of the most distinguished of his time. He was also considered one of the great thinkers and advocates of Islamic unity.
Shakib Arslan was born in 1869 AD in the village of Choueifat near Beirut. He was influenced by a large number of notables of his time who were students at their hands or contacted them at various stages of his life, such as his teachers, “Sheikh Abdullah Al-Bustani”, “Fares Al-Shadiqi” and “Dr. Ahmad Karnali” He also got acquainted with "Ahmed Shawky" and "Ismail Sabry", and other notables of thought, literature and poetry in his time. Arslan has mastered several languages: Arabic, Turkish, French and German.
Shakib Arslan spent a large part of his life in trips, so he made his famous trips from Lausanne in Switzerland to Naples in Italy, to Port Said in Egypt, and crossed the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to Jeddah and then Mecca. On this trip, he recorded everything he saw and met. Arslan spent nearly sixty years in reading, writing and rhetoric, and his most famous books are: “The Sundanese Suits,” “Why Did Muslims Be Late and Others Advance?”, “Pleasant Drawings,” and “The History of the Conquests of the Arabs.”
Arslan did not trust the allies’ promises to the Arabs, as he warned against foreigners exploiting the rift between the Arabs and the Turks to eliminate the Ottoman Empire first, and then divide the Arab countries after that. This is what actually happened when the Turks repudiated the Islamic Caliphate after the Ataturk coup, turned to secularism, and cut the ties between them and Arabism and Islam. At that time, Arslan took another position. He began calling for Arab unity, and he was one of the most joyful people when the Arab League was founded in 1945 AD. When the Second World War ended, "Arslan" returned to his homeland at the end of 1946 AD, and soon died after a life full of suffering and struggle.
لماذا تأخر المسلمون؟ ولماذا تقدم غيرهم؟ pdf by Shakib Arslan
عقب قراءة أحد تلامذة الإمام رشيد رضا للمقالات التي كان يكتبها أمير البيان «شكيب أرسلان» في الجرائد العربية، ورؤيته لما تلقته هذه المقالات من صدى واسع واهتمام كبير لدى القراء، أرسل إلى أستاذه الإمام يتساءل؛ لماذا لا يكتب شكيب أرسلان عن أسباب تأخر المسلمين وتقدم غيرهم، خاصة أن للأمير رؤية تاريخية واسعة، ومعرفة حضارية كبيرة، وخبرة سياسية لا يستهان بها، ما يجعل تشخيصه للمحنة التاريخية تشخيصًا دقيقًا، وبالفعل أرسل رشيد رضا بتلك الرسالة إلى الأمير شكيب أرسلان، فما كان منه إلا أن استجاب لهذا المطلب فأفاض وأفاد.