Shibly Shmayel (1850 – 1917), a Christian from Lebanon, one of the leaders of the Arabic renaissance (النهضة).
 
His Life
 
He was graduated from the Protestants school (later on known as the American University) in Beirut, and then he went to Paris to study medicine. Finally, he stayed in Egypt, lived in Alexandria, Tanta and Cairo.
 
On 1886 he issued the magazine "The healing" (الشفاء), and was the first to introduce Darwin's evolutionary theory to the Arab world through his writings in "The Picked Up" (المقتطف) magazine, then through his work "the philosophy of origination and evolution". He issued, also, with Salama Mousa, the other leader of Arab renaissance a weekly magazine on 1914 titled "the Future", but was shut down after sixteen issues.
 
His thought
 
Shibly Shmayel defended secularism as a political system. His vision was that the social unity is an essential need in order to constitute whole general peoples volition. This necessitates divide between religion and political live, on the basis that religion is a factor of division.
 
His Works
 
· "The philosophy of origination and evolution".
· "Numerous Articles", published in "Almqtatf" and "Alhela".
· Verification of the book "Chapters of Hippocrates".
· Verification of the book "Aragoza" of Avicenna.