He grew up in Damascus. After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire as a result of the First World War, he published a daily newspaper in Damascus called لسان العرب which has been closed. Then he participated in the publication of the daily Al-Mafeed and wrote literary and social articles. After the Battle of Maysalun on 23 July 1923 and the French invasion of Damascus, he was sentenced to death in absentia and the seizure of his property by the French authorities. He escaped from Damascus to the Mandatory Palestine and made a pilgrimage to the Kingdom of Hejaz. In 1921, Al-Zarkali became a subject of the Kingdom of Hejaz and Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca made him adviser to his son Abdullah I of Jordan on the establishment of the first government in Amman, where he was appointed Inspector General of the Ministry of Education. The French government overturned Zorkali's death sentence and he returned to Damascus. In 1925, he founded the Arabic printing works in Cairo, where he printed a number of own books and by other authors. In Jerusalem, he was with two other persons editor of the newspaper "Al-Hayat" which was closed by the British Mandatory Palestine administration. From 1925 to 1927 during the Great Syrian Revolt he wrote in Syrian and Egyptian newspapers against the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon. The Mandate authorities again condemned him to death and demanded that Fuad I of Egypt silence Kheraddin Al-Zerakly or expel him from Egypt. He founded another daily newspaper in Jaffa. In 1930 he was elected member of the Arab Academy of Damascus. In 1934, Ibn Saud appointed him agent later envoy of Saudi Arabia in Cairo. He represented Ibn Saud in the discussions on the founding of the Arab League and signed the founding agreement. In 1946, Ibn Saud appointed him Foreign Minister in his throne council, in agreement with and the Arab League, and he became member of the Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo. In 1951, Ibn Saud appointed him ministre plénipotentiaire to the Arab League in Cairo. From 1957 to 1963 he was the ambassador of Saud of Saudi Arabia to Mohammed V of Morocco in Rabat. In 1960 he was elected a member of the Iraqi Academy of Sciences.
In 1954 he was Ministre plénipotentiaire in Athens.
In 1955 he was sent to Tunisia and participated in a conference organized by the Constitutional Party.
Works
Al-Aʻlām, qāmūs tarājim li-ashhar al-rijāl wa-al-nisāʼ min al-ʻArab wa-al-mustaʻribīn wa-al-mustashriqīn ; Al-Aʻlām Dictionary, translations of the most famous men and women of the Arabs, Orientals and Easterners. Biographical dictionary six volumes.
