Hani Muhammad-Ali al-Rahib (Arabic: هاني محمد علي الراهب, romanized: Hānī Rāhib or Hānī Rāheb; 30 November 1939 – 6 February 2000)[1] was a Syrian novelist and literary academic who wrote a number of distinguished novels.
[1][2][3] Hani Muhammad Ali al-Rahib was born in the village of Mashqita in Latakia Governorate to a poor farming family.
He then continued his higher education in the United Kingdom, obtaining a doctorate in English literature at the University of Exeter.
[2] Al-Rahib's works attracted political attention and his views created issues that resulted in his dismissal from the Arab Writers Union in 1969.
His father, Shaykh Muhammad Ali, was deaf-mute but "was able to communicate with others with expressive gestures and knew how to read and write".
In Alf layla wa-laylatān, he dealt with more disappointments that resulted from the defeat suffered in the Six-Day War.
[2] He was expelled from the Arab Writers Union as far back as 1969, and was dismissed from his teaching position at Damascus University and demoted to a high school.
In 1995, Rahib was forced out of the Arab Writers Union for a second time, claiming that he had called for the normalization of relations with Israel.
[5] Al-Rahib wrote his last novel, I Have Drawn a Line on the Sand, in 1999 after Kuwait University, where he had been teaching, refused to renew his contract because of an article he wrote about Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses in which he called for freedom of expression for writers.
Numerous symposia were held on his works, which were also the subject of much critical and academic research inside and outside of Syria.