Description

Father Henri Lammens was born into a Catholic family in Ghent, Belgium, in 1862. At the age of 15 he joined the Jesuits and later settled permanently in Lebanon. He mastered Latin and Greek and taught Arabic in Beirut. His first work was an Arabic dictionary, Farā'id al-lugha (The pearls of language), dating from 1889. He also served as editor for the Jesuit newspaper of Beirut, al-Bashīr (The evangelist). He wrote many works, most notably on the history of Arabia in the pre-Islamic era, as well as on ...