Béchir Sfar

Béchir Sfar (1856–1917) was a Tunisian reformer and nationalist leader, one of the leaders of the Tunisian reform movement, called a second "father of the Tunisian renaissance" after Kheireddine of Tunis.¹

He was born in Tunis on 27 February 1856 (the Arabic article's lead gives 1865, most likely a transposition of the digits of the date on which the English and French articles and Wikidata agree).²¹ His family was of Turkish origin, settled at Mahdia; his father Mustafa Sfar moved to Tunis in 1842 to serve in the Tunisian army, rising to army commander and then undersecretary at the War Ministry.¹ Béchir entered Sadiki College and was in its first graduating class, was sent on a government study mission to Paris in 1880, and returned to Tunis in 1882 after the mission's funding was cut.¹²

On his return he took a government post and headed the accounting division in the Grand Vizier's office from 1882 to 1891.² He founded the Khaldounia association and for years headed the Habous Council responsible for endowment land, resigning in 1898 in protest at colonial laws that allowed the French to acquire habous land and sell it to colonists.² On 2 August 1888 he founded the newspaper El Hadhira (The Capital), in which he called on Tunisians to preserve their Muslim Arab culture and not lose their identity, holding that Tunisia's renewal could come only through education joining Islamic culture to science, economics, history, geography and modern languages.² In 1907 he co-founded the Young Tunisians with Ali Bach Hamba.² A visit to Egypt in 1907, where modern education's effects were visible everywhere in public life, left a strong impression on him.²

He died in Tunis on 1 March 1917.²³⁴

• Arabic Wikipedia, "Béchir Sfar".¹
• English Wikipedia, "Béchir Sfar".²
• French Wikipedia, "Béchir Sfar".³
• Wikidata, Q2929700.⁴