The first translation was approved by the American Protestant missionaries under the leadership of the missionary Cornelius Van Dyke, a professor at the American University of Beirut, along with two Christian Lebanese writers and philologists, Butrus al-Bustani and Nasif al-Yaziji, Ibrahim al-Yaziji's father.

Among al-Yaziji's more well-known intellectual and ideological commitments was "championing Arabic as the bond of identity, over religion, among those for whom the language is a common tongue.

"[6] This was sociopolitical project on the rise more broadly during the Arab renaissance (nahda), which took place around the turn of the 20th century.

Al-Yaziji advocated for secular Arab identity, based on language, "explicitly and famously" during his lifetime.

[6] One of Yaziji's most significant innovations was the creation of a greatly simplified Arab font.