Rifa'a at-Tahtawi

His works influenced those of many later scholars such as Muhammad Abduh.

• Name — Rifa'a at-Tahtawi • Native Name — رفاعة الطهطاوي • Born — 15 October 1801 • Birthplace — Tahta, Egypt Eyalet, Ottoman Empire • Died — 27 May 1873 • Place of death — Cairo, Khedivate of Egypt, Ottoman Empire

• Illustration — Tahtawi Memorial before Sohag University, Sohag Tahtawi was born in 1801 in the village of Tahta, Sohag, the same year the French troops evacuated Egypt. He was an Azharite recommended by his teacher and mentor Hasan al-Attar to be the chaplain of a group of students Mohammed Ali was sending to Paris in 1826. Originally intended to be an Imam (an Islamic religious guide) he was allowed to associate with the other members of the mission through persuasion of his authoritative figures. Many student missions from Egypt went to Europe in the early 19th century to study arts and sciences at European universities and acquire technical skills such as printing, shipbuilding and modern military techniques. According to his memoir Takhlīṣ al-ʾibrīz fī talkhīṣ Bārīz, Tahtawi studied ethics, social and political philosophy, and mathematics and geometry. He read works by Condillac, Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu and Bézout among others during his séjour (visit) in France. In 1831, Tahtawi returned home to be part of the statewide effort to modernize the Egyptian infrastructure and education. He undertook a career in writing and translation, and founded the School of Languages (also knowns as School of Translators) in 1835, which become part of Ain Shams University in 1973. The School of Languages graduated the earliest modern Egyptian intellectual milieu, which formed the basis of the emerging grassroots mobilization against British colonialism in Egypt. Three of his published volumes were works of political and moral philosophy. They introduced his Egyptian audience to Enlightenment ideas such as secular authority and political rights and liberty; his ideas regarding how a modern civilized society ought to be and what constituted by extension a civilized or "good Egyptian"; and his ideas on public interest and public good. Tahtawi's work was the first effort in what became an Egyptian renaissance (nahda) that flourished in the years between 1860 and 1940. Tahtawi was a member of the Educational Council attached to the newly established Ministry of Education in the late 1860s. He edited the magazine of the Ministry of Education entitled Rawdat Al Madaris between 1870 and 1873. He died in Cairo in 1873.

• Illustration — Tahtawi's agreement with his wife not to marry another woman Tahtawi is considered one of the early adapters of Islamic modernism. Islamic modernists attempted to integrate Islamic principles with European social theories. In 1826, Tahtawi was sent to Paris by Mehmet Ali. Tahtawi studied at an educational mission for five years, returning in 1831. Tahtawi was appointed director of the School of Languages. At the school, he worked translating European books into Arabic. Tahtawi was instrumental in translating military manuals, geography, and European history. In total, Tahtawi supervised the translation of over 2,000 foreign works into Arabic. Tahtawi even made favorable comments about French society in some of his books. Tahtawi stressed that the Principles of Islam are compatible with those of European Modernity. Tahtawi, like others of what is often referred to as the Nahda, was spellbound by French (and Western in general) culture in his books. Shaden Tageldin has suggested that this produced an intellectual inferiority complex in his ideas that aided in an "intellectual colonization" that remains till today among Egyptian intelligentsia. Tahtawi rejected socialism and the labour movement, while supporting Egyptian policies progressive for their time.

A selection of his works are:

• The history of ancient Egyptians, published in 1838. • The Arabization of trade law, published in 1868. • The Arabization of the French civil law, published in 1866. • The unequivocal Arabization approach to geography, published in 1835. • Small-scale geography, published in 1830. • Metals and their use, published in 1867. • Ancient philosophers, published in 1836. • Principals of engineering, published in 1854. • Useful metals, published in 1832. • Logic, published in 1838. • Sasure's engineering, published in 1874. • General geography. • The French constitution. • On health policies. • On Greek mythology.