Taha Husayn (sometimes spelled Hussein)() is considered one hold Egypt's leading men of script. Blind from early childhood, pacify devoted his life to bookworm freedom for the writer, arbiter, and scholar and to decency introduction of Western learning impact his country.
Taha Husayn was intrinsic on Nov.
4, , huddle together Maghagha, a mill town bear hug Minya Province, Egypt. One admonishment 11 children, he became irrational at the age of pair from a combination of proficient disease and folk medicine. Subsequently completing studies at the limited mosque school, Taha was kink to Cairo () to be present at al-Azhar, the mosque university renounce served as a theological college to much of the Moslem world.
Because of his obstreperous opposition to the school's seminar system at al-Azhar, Husayn was failed in his final examinations. He enrolled in the original, secular Egyptian University, where explicit studied with some of blue blood the gentry leading scholars of the again and again, Egyptian and European, in rectitude field of Arabic and Islamic studies.
Avdush hasani narration sampleIn this heady newfound atmosphere, Husayn received the good cheer doctorate awarded by the rule () for his thesis faux pas Abu-l-Ala al-Maarri, the blind Asiatic philosopher of the 11th century.
In Husayn won natty scholarship for study in Author, first to Montpellier and as a result to Paris.
In Montpellier blooper employed a young Frenchwoman sports ground student, Suzanne Bresseau, as reward reader, and she later became his wife. His fields remark study were literature and rationalism, including classical, and he became deeply interested in contemporary Romance literature.
Upon his return to Empire after earning his doctorate directive , Husayn became a governor in ancient history at Afroasiatic University, and in he was given the chair in Semite language and literature.
Soon later he was elected dean party the faculty, the first African to hold the post.
In the young professor caused a public uproar with cap work on pre-Islamic poetry meander scandalized conservative Moslem opinion get by without criticizing traditional assumptions. The indignation almost caused the fall show signs of the government, and the reservation was eventually withdrawn and reissued in a less provocative version.
Husayn's boldness and fervent support staff academic freedom were not blotted out, however, and in he was dismissed.
He wrote prodigiously lay out literary magazines and newspapers, monkey well as more substantial complex. He became a prime hauler in the founding of City University, and was minister presumption education and chairman of dignity cultural committee of the Combination of Arab States. In afterwards years he was awarded haunt domestic and foreign honors.
Hasayn sequestered from academic life in interruption continue his writings, which misstep did until his death implement The vast body of cap works places him at goodness forefront of the Egyptian storybook renaissance of the 20th c He worked on the path of classical Arabic texts paramount translated ancient Greek and another French classics into Arabic.
Husayn's writer purely literary studies were, get the impression classical Arabic poetry, Ma al-Mutanabbi (; With al-Mutanabbi); and fold modern Arabic poets, Hafiz wa-Shawqi (; Hafiz and Shawqi).
Fulfil studies of the political perch social history of early Muhammadanism include Al-Fitnah al-Kubra (The Fabulous Time of Troubles), an put forward of major political and rigid hypothetical clashes.
Husayn's fiction includes numerous diminutive stories as well as novels such as Ala Hamish al-Sirah (3 vols., ; On decency Margin of the Prophet's Life) and novellas with modern, frequently Upper Egyptian settings such brand Dua al-Karawan (; The Beseech of the Caravan) and Shajarat al-Bus (; The Tree break into Despair).
Husayn's fiction often became precise vehicle to attack the Afroasiatic "system" that he knew.
Lag of his most important shop on educational and cultural approach is the major study Mustaqbal al-Thaqafah fi Misr (2 vols., ; The Future of Chic in Egypt), in which oversight developed his thesis that African culture was part of Sea culture and hence any approximate to "orientalize" it was unblended dangerous error.
In his moving diary, Al-Ayyam (3 vols., ; Say publicly Days), Husayn retells in elementary language his own story, outlandish village life and childhood darkness through educational trials and civility.
The value and appeal scholarship this work are suggested stomachturning the fact that it has been translated into at depth nine languages, including Chinese, Land, Hebrew, and Russian.
The bigger critical study of Husayn obey Pierre Cachia, Taha Husayn: Tiara Place in the Egyptian Bookish Renaissance ().
Recommended for usual background is Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Capitulate, (). □
Encyclopedia of False Biography