Taha Hussein was born in Izbet el Kilo, a village in the Minya Governorate in central Upper Egypt.[1] He was the seventh of thirteen children of lower middle class parents.[1] He contracted ophthalmia at the age of two, and as the result of false treatment by an unskilled practitioner, he became blind.[6][7] After attending a kuttab, he studied religion and Arabic literatureatEl Azhar University; but from an early age, he was dissatisfied with the traditional education system.
When the secular Cairo University was founded in 1908, he was keen to be admitted, and despite being poor and blind, he won a place. In 1914, he received a PhD for his thesis on the sceptic poet and philosopher Abu al-ʿAlaʾ al-Maʿarri.[6]
Taha Hussein left for Montpellier, enrolled in its university, attended courses in literature, history, French and Latin. He had studied formal writing, but he was not able to take full advantage of it as he "may be used to taking knowledge with his ears, not with his fingers."[8]
He was summoned to return to Egypt due to the poor conditions at then University of Cairo; but three months later, those conditions improved, and Taha Hussein returned to France.[8]
After obtaining his MA from the University of Montpellier, Hussein continued his studies at the Sorbonne University. He hired Suzanne Bresseau (1895–1989) to read to him, and subsequently married her.[7][8] In 1917 the Sorbonne awarded Hussein a second PhD, this time for his dissertation on the Tunisian historian Ibn Khaldun, who is regarded as one of the founders of sociology.
In 1919 Hussein returned to Egypt with Suzanne, and he was appointed professor of history at Cairo University.[7] He went on to become a professor of Arabic literature and of Semitic languages.[9]
He was a member of several scientific academies in Egypt and internationally.
A work of literary criticism, On Pre-Islamic Poetry (في الشعر الجاهلي), published in 1926, brought him fame and some notoriety in the Arab world.[11] In this book, Hussein expressed doubt about the authenticity of much early Arabic poetry, claiming it to have been falsified during ancient times due to tribal pride and inter-tribal rivalries. He also hinted indirectly that the Qur'an should not be taken as an objective source of history.[6] Consequently, the book aroused the intense anger and hostility of religious scholars at Al Azhar as well as other traditionalists, and he was accused of having insulted Islam. The public prosecutor stated, however, that what Taha Hussein had said was the opinion of an academic researcher; no legal action was taken against him, although he lost his post at Cairo University in 1931. His book was banned but was re-published the next year with slight modifications under the title On Pre-Islamic Literature (1927).[6]
President Gamal Abdel Nasser awarding Taha Hussein the National Honors Prize in Literature (Cairo, 1959)
Taha Hussein was an intellectual of a modern Egyptian renaissance in the early to mid 20th century and a proponent of the ideology of Egyptian nationalism as an Arab nation within the Arab world, arguing in a series of public letters against the Pharaonist Tawfiq al-Haki that Arab identity is integral to Egyptian identity.[12] Hussein criticized the lack of freedom in Nazi Germany, writing "They live like a society of insects. They must behave like ants in an anthill or like bees in a hive." Hussein urged the Egyptian government to reject neutrality and fight the Germans in the war.[13]
In 1950, he was appointed Minister of Education, in which capacity he led a call for free education and the right of everyone to be educated.[7] He also transformed many of the Quranic schools into primary schools and converted a number of high schools into colleges such as the Graduate Schools of Medicine and Agriculture. He is also credited with establishing a number of new universities and he was the head of the Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of EducationIbrāhīm al-Ibyārī [ar].[9] Hussein proposed that Al Azhar University should be closed down in 1955 after his tenure as education minister ended.[14]
Taha Hussein held the position of chief editor of a number of newspapers.
In the West he is best known for his autobiography, Al-Ayyam (الأيام, The Days) which was published in English as An Egyptian Childhood (1932) and The Stream of Days (1943).
The author of "more than sixty books (including six novels) and 1,300 articles",[15] his major works include:[16]
Ali and His Sons (The 2nd Part of the Greater Sedition) 1953
(Sharh Lozoum Mala Yalzm, Abu El Alaa) 1955
Anatagonism and Reform 1955
The Sufferers: Stories and Polemics (Published in Arabic in 1955), Translated by Mona El-Zayyat (1993), Published by The American University in Cairo, ISBN9774242998
^Gershoni, I., J. Jankowski. (1987). Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs. Oxford: Oxford University Press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Order of the Nile
