海角大神

This man brings hope to Arab youth, one Wikipedia page at a time

Faisal Saeed al-Mutar grew up in Saddam Hussein鈥檚 Baghdad. His neighborhood sat along the highway to the international airport. He was 12 when he watched American troops arrive in 2003. The U.S. military didn鈥檛 fix things, though, he says. Families moved out of the neighboring houses, and men with guns moved in.

But something good also happened: Iraq got the internet.

鈥淚t was just the best thing ever,鈥� Mr. Mutar says. 鈥淚t was kind of like a black market that existed for knowledge.鈥�

Almost two decades later, Iraq鈥檚 internet has matured. Facebook, streaming services, and even 鈥淭he Handmaid鈥檚 Tale鈥� on Hulu are popular. But so much is still inaccessible. Less than 1% of internet content is available in Arabic, rendering much of Wikipedia鈥檚 trove unusable.

In 2017 Mr. Mutar, then a refugee living in New York, wanted to change that. He founded the nonprofit Ideas Beyond Borders (IBB) and has since hired 120 young people across the Middle East to translate Wikipedia pages into Arabic, starting with subjects they thought were most needed: female scientists, human rights, logical reasoning, and philosophy. They鈥檝e since expanded their work to translate books like 鈥淓nlightenment Now,鈥� by Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, and 鈥淔ree Will,鈥� by Sam Harris.

In less than three years, they鈥檝e translated 12 books and more than 8,000 Wikipedia pages, attracting 17 million views. The project is called Bayt al-Hikma 2.0, or House of Wisdom 2.0 鈥� a reference to the Baghdad library and intellectual hub during the Islamic golden age.

鈥淢any younger Arabs have benefited profoundly from English-based information widely available on the internet or through traditionally published material. Some of these sources offer perspectives that develop critical thinking in areas that are taboo or suppressed not just in the Middle East but also in the West,鈥� writes Natalie Khazaal in an email. Dr. Khazaal teaches Arab media at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and volunteers on IBB鈥檚 advisory board. 鈥淯nfortunately, most of that information isn鈥檛 available yet in Arabic and one needs to speak a foreign language to be able to access it online.

Mr. Mutar sees the project as a long-term investment in the region. 鈥淢y goal is to prevent refugee crises from happening in the first place, rather than dealing with refugees,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 strongly believe that education and really changing the ecosystem of information is the way to go.鈥�

Promoting independent thinking

As a teenager in Iraq, Mr. Mutar first encountered translation-sharing in an online forum about heavy metal music. People would post translations of works by Thomas Paine and George Orwell interspersed in chats about metal.

鈥淭hat metal community became kind of the counterculture,鈥� he says.

As the internet expanded, those exchanges moved to Facebook. 鈥淚 Believe in Science,鈥� a volunteer-run initiative that translates scientific research and articles to Arabic, began on Facebook in 2011 and migrated to its own website in 2013. Today, I Believe in Science has more than 300 volunteers and has translated over 10,000 articles. Its founder, Ahmed al-Rayyis, now organizes the translation team for IBB, and many of those volunteers have since been hired as Bayt al-Hikma translators.

Alber Saud, a Bayt al-Hikma translator and medical student at Al-Baath University in Homs, Syria, began translating material from medical books with a group of other students. They posted translations on Facebook to counteract phony health advice they saw online.

鈥淚 would search for medical information online and couldn鈥檛 find it in Arabic,鈥� he says.

Mr. Rayyis says the most commonly searched articles on I Believe in Science are about women鈥檚 health and pregnancy. Bayt al-Hikma鈥檚 top-read Wikipedia page is gender equality. The second most-read page? Margaret Thatcher.

鈥淥ur goal is to make Arab youth think for themselves. We don鈥檛 want them to be sheep,鈥� Mr. Rayyis says.

Dr. Khazaal says the learning flows both to the East and West, as there鈥檚 a need for audiences to recognize overlooked Arab thinkers. 鈥淸M]any progressive ideas, books, thinkers from the Arab world 鈥� throughout the centuries 鈥� remain like gems hidden from the West,鈥� she writes. 鈥淭here is a dire need in the West and beyond to 鈥榬ediscover鈥� those sides of the Arab world that are genius, diverse, and innovative. These are the kinds of areas that IBB strives to cover.鈥�

They鈥檙e also creating a space where people can seek answers to questions too taboo to ask publicly.

IBB also offers translators another form of anonymity online: They can submit their translated material to be posted from the United States, rather than from their home countries where they could be tracked. Also, translators are paid for work they were previously doing for free, and they can earn translation certifications endorsed by organizational partners.

Mr. Mutar says he makes a point of hiring people from some of the most conflict-torn countries of the region, usually without formal translation training, because he wants to offer jobs and professional development where 20-somethings need them most.

Raghad al-Katlabe, a medical student at the University of Damascus in Syria, is one of those 20-somethings. She started translating for Bayt al-Hikma about nine months ago, and has since translated more than 200 articles. The work has allowed her to buy a laptop and pay for German-language courses. She can also afford to move out of university dorms into a home of her own 鈥� a first since her family鈥檚 home in Damascus was destroyed by war.聽

鈥淧lus I met a number of great people who are facing similar life conditions,鈥� she writes in an email. 鈥淚t felt great to know I鈥檓 not alone.鈥�

Investing in ideas

As a teenager, Mr. Mutar became more interested in online discourse and the varied viewpoints it offered. In high school, he started a blog, where he says he mostly posted about anti-extremism. He also passed out Arabic copies of the Bill of Rights at school.

Members of Al Qaeda threatened Mr. Mutar, saying he should shut down his blog. His parents had reason to worry: Their family is Shiite and was living in a Baghdad neighborhood controlled by radical Sunnis. He and his brothers used fake IDs with Sunni-sounding names to get through Al Qaeda-controlled checkpoints in their neighborhood. In 2007 his brother disappeared at a checkpoint and was presumed to have been killed. Mr. Mutar shut down his blog.

He left Iraq and moved to Lebanon in 2009, then enrolled in college in Malaysia, where he studied computer science. He applied for United Nations refugee status there and was accepted to the U.S. in 2013. Mr. Mutar worked for an international nonprofit before he planned IBB and began pitching to donors for startup funds.

Since its founding in 2017, IBB has also started translating texts into Kurdish and Farsi. Last fall it partnered with the University of Mosul, where 10 students each semester will earn translation certification while working with Bayt al-Hikma.

In November, three people from IBB handed out 500 abridged, Arabic-language copies of 鈥淓nlightenment Now鈥� to protesters in Baghdad鈥檚 Tahrir Square, where anti-government demonstrations have rocked the country since October.

鈥淲e won鈥檛 see immediate results,鈥� says Mr. Rayyis. 鈥淏ut if we invest in ideas, we can invest in a better future for everyone.鈥�

[Editor's Note: This story has been updated to specify which family member was targeted by Al Qaeda and which members were issued fake IDs.]