Background and studies Butrus's father, Mikha'il al-Marini, son of 'Awwad al-Marini, came from
Bhersaf (modern-day Lebanon), and moved to
Baghdad (modern-day Iraq) to work as an interpreter. In Baghdad, Mikha'il married Butrus's mother, an Iraqi woman named Maryam Jubran, daughter of the Chaldean Augustin Jubran from Baghdad, descending from an old Iraqi Christian family. which would however remain unfinished by the time of his death. Al-Marini initially titled his projected dictionary ''Dhayl Lisan al-'Arab
( / , ) before choosing the title Al-Musa'id'' ( / , ). On 5 May 1888 he entered the Carmelite monastery in
Chèvremont, near
Liège,
Belgium. He then went to
Montpellier, France, to study
philosophy and
theology. He took his
simple vow in June 1889 and his
solemn vow in 1892. He was ordained a priest on 22 October 1894, and took the name Anastase-Marie de Saint Élie ('Anastasius-Maria of Saint Elijah'). He would become known in Arabic as "al-Karmali", meaning 'the Carmelite'.
Early years as a priest In the period following his ordination, al-Karmali toured Spain before returning to Baghdad. As principal of the , he taught Arabic and French, preached and counselled. At the same time, his articles were published in the magazines of
Egypt,
Syria and
Iraq. Some of these articles were about the different communities of Iraq. In 1900 and 1901, al-Karmali published two articles about the
Mandaeans, a community with which he would become "deeply involved". However, his description of the
Shabak people in an article of 1902 "has been the source of much misunderstanding and biased secondary literature." In June 1908, al-Karmali was asked to escort
Louis Massignon from Baghdad to Beirut after Massignon's captivity. Al-Karmali eventually accompanied him all the way to
Brittany, where he met Massignon's parents, before returning to Baghdad. Al-Karmali and Louis Massignon would maintain a correspondence until 1936. In 1911, al-Karmali got involved in the academic debates which followed the discoveries (including his own discovery) of forged manuscripts of the
Yazidi Book of Revelation and the
Yazidi Black Book. Also in 1911, al-Karmali founded
Lughat al-Arab ('The Language of the Arabs'), a "literary, scientific historical monthly magazine" ( / ). The magazine's publication would be interrupted by
World War I, before resuming for six more years between 1926 and 1931. The discovery of the lost text of the first
Arabic dictionary, the ''
Kitab al-'Ayn'', was announced in 1914 in this journal.
World War I and later years In 1914, as World War I had started, the Ottomans accused al-Karmali of being a spy and exiled him to
Kayseri in
Central Anatolia, where he was retained until 1916. Upon his release, al-Karmali returned to Baghdad in July 1916. During his absence, his library had been destroyed in great part. Al-Karmali would however rebuild his collection, which would number 15,000 volumes and 2,500 manuscripts in the mid-1930s. Around 1920, al-Karmali became the first librarian of the (Peace Library) in Baghdad, and introduced a system of modern management. He helped develop the Library's collection, donating printed materials from his private collection, when other collections in foreign languages remained in the monastery library. The Peace Library would later be renamed the Baghdad Public Library, and in 1961 would become the basis for the establishment of the
Iraq National Library. In the 1930s, al-Karmali played an instrumental role in defending the Mandaean community against accusations of
astrolatry, by taking part in the case filed by the Mandaean high priest
Dakhil Aidan against the Iraqi historian
'Abd al-Razzaq al-Hasani. during its first session. Al-Karmali stands at the back. On 8 October 1933, al-Karmali was appointed as a member of the
Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo by
Fuad I of Egypt. He took part in it from its inaugural session of 1934 onwards. Shortly before his death, al-Karmali donated 2,500 books and 1,500 manuscripts from his personal library to the
Iraq Museum Library. Al-Karmali died in Baghdad on 7 January 1947. ==Writings==