Raphael Monachis

1759 (age 72)

Cairo, Cairo Governorate, Egypt

During Napoleon"s campaign in Egypt served as Napoleon"s personal interpreter. In 1803 he traveled to France where after visiting Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, he traveled to Paris to give important documents to the French government. He was appointed as adjunct professor of Arabic language at the Ècole des Langues Orientales. Among his students there was Champollion whom he taught colloquial Arabic and Coptic. In 1803 he participated in Coronation of Napoleon I and was depicted in Jacques-Louis David"s famous painting. Among his unpublished manuscripts was a treatise in Arabic called Marj al-azhar wa bustan al hawadith al Akhbar (The Hubbub of First Rate (at Lloyd's) Azhar and the Garden of New Events), in which he subtly critiqued the pedagogical methods of the First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Azhar University by contrasting them to the more organized teaching of the French Academy. In 1816 after the fall of Napoleon at Waterloo, he returned to Egypt where he entered the service of Muhammad "Ali Pasha. He worked as a translator and poet, translating many works from Italian to Arabic.

Raphael Monachis

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translator monk of Syriac poet

Background

He was born in Cairo to a Syriac-Melkite family.

Education

He studied at the Greek seminary in Rome and took his vows at the Basilian Monastery of the Saviour in Sidon where he remained from 1789 to 1794 when he returned to Egypt.

Career

During Napoleon"s campaign in Egypt served as Napoleon"s personal interpreter. In 1803 he traveled to France where after visiting Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, he traveled to Paris to give important documents to the French government. He was appointed as adjunct professor of Arabic language at the Ècole des Langues Orientales.

Among his students there was Champollion whom he taught colloquial Arabic and Coptic.

In 1803 he participated in Coronation of Napoleon I and was depicted in Jacques-Louis David"s famous painting. Among his unpublished manuscripts was a treatise in Arabic called Marj al-azhar wa bustan al hawadith al Akhbar (The Hubbub of First Rate (at Lloyd's) Azhar and the Garden of New Events), in which he subtly critiqued the pedagogical methods of the First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Azhar University by contrasting them to the more organized teaching of the French Academy.

In 1816 after the fall of Napoleon at Waterloo, he returned to Egypt where he entered the service of Muhammad "Ali Pasha. He worked as a translator and poet, translating many works from Italian to Arabic.

Membership

He was also the single Arab member of the French Institut d"Égypte.

Connections

colleague:: Silvestre de Sacy

Main Photo