M. C. Siddi Lebbe
Sri Lankan educator (1838-1898)
Muhammad Cassim Siddi Lebbe (11 June 1838 – 5 February 1898), also known as Mukammatu Kacim Cittilevvai, was a Ceylonese lawyer, educationist, scholar, philosopher, seer, writer, publisher, social reformer, and Muslim community leader.
Genealogy
The Lebbe family claimed ancestry from Arabs who settled on the western coast of Ceylon and later penetrated the Kandyan District, where his father was born. His father, Muhammad Lebbe Siddi Lebbe, was one of the first Ceylonese proctors and was also the Head Moorman in 1833.
Early life
Lebbe was born in Kandy as the third of five siblings. Education was important to his upbringing and he became well-versed in Arabic, Tamil and English. Lebbe found himself a lawyer at 24 and practiced in settings ranging from local municipal courthouses to the Supreme Court to which he was appointed in 1864. Siddi Lebbe had an older brother named Muhammad Lebbe, an Arabic-educated Alim, under whom he learnt to read the Qur'an and study Tamil and English. He was later admitted to the 'General Schooling' and was educated in English.
Establishments and services
In 1884, he established the first Anglo-Mohammedan school in Colombo with the assistance of Orabi Pasha and Wapichie Marikkar.
In 1882, he introduced a madrasa called 'Madrasatul Zahira' in Maradana, Colombo.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12987803. VIAF identifies the subject as 70372900. The Library of Congress control number is n85210702. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1838, 1898, 1833 and 1864.
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This entry incorporates text from “M. C. Siddi Lebbe” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.