Ahmed Sameh Al-Khalidi (1896-1951) was one of the most prominent educators in Palestine and one of the greatest Arab educators in the modern era. He ran the Arab College – also called the Teachers’ House – in Jerusalem for many years until it became, under his supervision, the most important educational edifice in the country.
He devoted his life to building an educated nation, and he believed that education was the basis for the progress and building of nations. The Nakba forced him to immigrate to Lebanon, where he cared about helping refugees there until he died in 1951.
Birth and upbringing
Ahmed Sameh Al-Haj Ragheb Al-Khalidi was born in 1896 in the city of Jerusalem. His name is Ahmed Sameh, and his nickname is Abu Al-Walid.
His father’s name is Hajj Ragheb, and he belongs to the Al-Khalidi family, an ancient Jerusalemite family.
Ahmed Sameh Al-Khalidi was married twice, and he has 6 children, 5 of whom are from his second wife, and his son Walid is from his first wife.
Study and training
Ahmed Sameh Al-Khalidi received a distinguished degree of education, completing his basic education at the American Colonial School, and his secondary education at the Bishop’s English School in Jerusalem (St. George’s School).
He joined the American University of Beirut, but he did not complete the fourth academic year to obtain a bachelor’s degree in history at this university, because he was summoned to serve in the Ottoman army in 1915.
Al-Khalidi joined the Ottoman Medical College in Beirut in 1916, where he graduated with a pharmacy degree with the rank of second lieutenant “pharmacist” in the Ottoman Army in 1918, and obtained a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from the American University in 1919.
In the summer of 1923, he also obtained a master’s degree (professor of science) from the American University of Beirut after preparing a thesis on the education systems in Palestine at the end of the Ottoman era.
Jobs and responsibilities
He served in the Sinai Desert during World War I, and was appointed chief pharmacist at Homs Hospital in the final months of the war.
With Palestine falling under the British Mandate, Ahmed Hossam Al-Khalidi returned to his homeland, but he did not practice pharmacy. Rather, he devoted his life to teaching and working in the educational field.
During the years 1919-1923, Ahmed Sameh was appointed inspector of knowledge in the districts of Jaffa, Gaza, and Tulkarm. He was very active in establishing and modernizing schools in the cities and villages of Palestine. He was the first to propose the idea of villagers donating land and working without pay to build schools in exchange for the state appointing teachers. And paying their salaries, which contributed to modernizing the educational system in rural Palestine and to the parents’ eagerness to educate their children.
In 1923, he was appointed General Inspector of Knowledge in the Jerusalem District and a lecturer in education at the Teachers’ Home in the same city. He was also chosen as director of that home, succeeding the educator Khalil Totah. He named it the Arab College in 1925, and he remained in this position until the end of the British mandate in May 1948.
Al-Khalidi held the position of Assistant Director of General Education in Palestine in 1941. He cared for the children of the martyrs of the Great Palestinian Revolution. In 1939, he established the Arab Orphan Project. He formed a committee called the General Arab Orphan Committee and assumed its presidency. He established with its members the Institute for the Children of Martyrs in Deir Amr, west of Jerusalem, which is About a model project for a productive village.
The project cost about 150 thousand Palestinian pounds, and he organized its collection himself. He also served as Chairman of the Higher Education Committee among Muslims.
Al-Khalidi assumed the deanship of the Arab College in the period from 1930-1948, and gave the students of the Arab College his lectures on education and psychology, and wrote and translated a number of educational books that dealt with teaching methods, its pillars, and the best modern curricula, which made him the knight teacher in this field until he was called the Father of Education. Modern science in Palestine, and it became a famous science among major Arab educators in the modern era.
After the Nakba, he left Palestine for Lebanon in 1948 after the campus of the Arab College was placed under the protection of the International Committee of the Red Cross because it was located in a combat zone. He directed his activity in Lebanon to writing, helping Palestinian refugees and educating their children. He founded a model school in southern Lebanon similar to the Deir Amr Institute.
Al-Khalidi was appointed to Pan American Airlines in January 1951, and was assistant director to Saeb Salam. In addition, he was a member of the Royal Society of Arts in England and a member of the Royal Central Asian Society in London.
Writings and achievements
Al-Khalidi was interested in ancient Arabic literary works in order to serve the issues of his homeland and the Arab nation. He wrote many books in various fields of knowledge and education. He also published many articles in Palestinian and Arab periodicals.
Among his books in the field of education are:
- Class management.
- Education systems.
- Teaching pillars.
- Intelligence Test Message, Jerusalem.
In the field of history, he wrote several books, the most notable of which are:
- Governance and administration men in Palestine.
- Scholars between Egypt and Palestine.
- Egyptian institutes in Jerusalem.
He also produced a number of manuscripts and translated many books and works, the most important of which are:
- Mental life…lessons in psychology.
- Love masks.
Ahmed Sameh Al-Khalidi holds a Member of the Order of the British Empire, and was awarded the Jerusalem Medal for Culture, Arts and Letters by the Palestine Liberation Organization in December 1990.
His death
Ahmed Sameh Al-Khalidi died after suffering a heart attack in the town of Beit Mery in Beirut in 1951 at the age of 54. He was buried in the Lebanese capital next to Imam Al-Awza’i.