Baydas, Khalīl, 1875-1949

Khalil Beidas (Arabic: خليل بيدس, also transliterated Khalil Bedas, Khalil Baydas, Khalil Beydas) (1874–1949) was a Palestinian scholar, educator, translator and novelist. Beidas was the father of Palestinian Lebanese banker Yousef Beidas and was a cousin of Edward Said's father. Alongside contemporaries such as Khalil al-Sakakini, Izzat Darwaza and Najib Nassar, Beidas was one of Palestine's foremost intellectuals in the early twentieth century during the Al-Nahda cultural renaissance. Beidas was the pioneer of the modern Levantine short-story and novel. He was also a prolific translator—as early as 1898, he had translated some of the works of Tolstoy and Pushkin into Arabic. In addition, he established a magazine, "al-Nafā'is al-'asriyyah" (النفائس العصرية, The Modern Treasures), which acquired a good name in literary circles both in the Ottoman vilayet of Syria (broadly corresponding to today's Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon) and the Palestinian Diaspora. Beidas is also known as Raʾid al-qissa al-filastiniyya (the pioneer of Palestinian short-story). He and his wife, Adele, had 4 sons and 4 daughters.