In 1918, Ottoman sovereignty over geographic Syria ended. In less than two years, Faisal’s Arab Kingdom rose and fell, and France received a mandate to instruct the art of self-governance. In this turbulent period emerged the Arab Majmac (al-Majma‘ al-‘Ilmi l-‘Arabi): a government-established coterie, staffed with intelligentsia whose agenda was to write and proliferate the narrative of the modern, nation-state of Syria. This paper examines the vision of Mu?ammad Kurd ‘Ali, the Majma‘’s first president, to de-Ottomanize and subsequently forge an Arabized, Syrian cultural identity. This paper intends to fill the lacuna on what academia frequently mentions in passing as merely the ‘distinguished’ Arab Majma‘ of Damascus. Based on excerpts from his Memoirs and the Majma‘ Journal, this paper contends that the political activist and language reformer Kurd ‘Ali capitalized on political connections and intellectual networks to secure autonomy in implementing his Arabization project. He effectuated his objectives through the Majma‘, which implemented language policies within the nascent bureaucracy and educational system of Syria. Under the auspices of the flagship Majma‘, the Zahiriyah Library worked to preserve and redact the written records of the nation-state’s new, correct identity. Also within Kurd ‘Ali’s control was the Antiquities Museum, which became a public space for the masses to interact with their corrected history through a process Carol Duncan labels “a ritual of citizenship” (Watenpaugh 2004: 189). This paper concludes that Kurd ‘Ali built his vision of Arabization upon Orientalists models of nationhood and he attempted to situate his Arab Majmac as an essential branch of the European universities and academies. Future research should diagram the social networks of local intellectuals and examine their roles in forging nationalist narratives in the region. Additional work begs inquiries into the varied missions of the several, regional Majma‘s in proliferating Arabic and Arabness.