Naum Faiq

Naum Elias Yaqub Palakh (February 1868 – February 5, 1930), better known as Naum Faiq (Syriac: ܢܥܘܡ ܦܐܝܩ, Naˁum Fayëq), was an Assyrian poet, journalist, and teacher, remembered as one of the founding fathers of modern Assyrian nationalism during the early 20th century.

[4] He was born in Diyâr-ı Bekr (present-day Diyarbakır) in the Ottoman Empire and began his education there at the age of seven.

In 1910, Naum began publishing a newspaper for the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Syriac communities, entitled Kawkab Madnho ("Star of the East").

This newspaper, along with that of Ashur Yousif, signaled the emergence of Assyrian nationalism in the Syriac Christian communities of the Ottoman Empire.

After the Ottoman Empire and Italy began to fight over the province of Libya in 1911, Naum like other Christians in the region felt a backlash from the Muslim community and in 1912, he fled to United States, where he began to write for the newspaper Intibah ܐܢܬܒܗ (Cirutho ܥܝܪܘܬܐ, in English: Awakening), published by Gabriel Boyaji from 1909-1915.