How Rifa'a Al-Tahtawi Pioneered the Egyptian Intellectual Awakening
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Loading... - Jason Chloros
- 22 Jun 2022
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Rifa’a Al-Tahtawi rose to develop into certainly one of Egypt’s main enlighteners, thinkers, and translators within the Nineteenth century. Writer Kaj Ohrnberg describes him as, “a standard-bearer and image of Arab renaissance, the most-well identified thinker of his epoch.”
Born in 1801 in Sohag, Al-Tahtawi started his academic profession by finding out Qur’an in his hometown; a superb thoughts at a ripe age, he joined Al-Azhar at 17, changing into an imam within the course of.
In 1826, Al-Tahtawi traveled to Paris with an Egyptian academic mission despatched by Egypt’s former ruler, Muhammed Ali. Ali, the ‘engineer of recent Egypt,’ which dispatched younger Egyptians to the West on nice assets to scientific and cultural missions.
In awe, he skillfully captured European etiquette, schooling, and tradition, which he printed in his e-book, Talkhis Al-Ebreez Fy Paris (A Paris Profile), within the mid-Nineteenth century. This e-book is among the most necessary accounts of Al-Tahtawi’s journey in Paris.
Al-Tahtawi’s brilliance additional lies in his mastered translation work, from French to Arabic – “the extraordinary half about his studying was the truth that he translated into Arabic almost each e-book he learn. There have been three different imams, however not certainly one of them tried any job past his duties.” He studied ethics, social and political philosophy, arithmetic, and geometry. He additionally learnt of Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and others throughout his time in France.
The 25-year outdated chaplain and non secular trainer traveled with curiosity and openness; he returned 5 years later, simply changing into the pioneer of schooling and translation in Egypt.
Following his time in Paris, Al-Tahtawi grew to become the pinnacle of the brand new Faculty of Languages in Cairo in 1836. In 1841, he grew to become accountable for a translation bureau, the place he dealt with the interpretation of many books on historical past, geography, and navy sciences. He finally oversaw the interpretation of greater than 2,000 books into Arabic.
His “contribution to the lexical improvement” of recent literary Arabic stands as certainly one of his biggest achievements in Egypt. By his writings, Al-Tahtawi tried to resolve the difficulties of finding applicable Arabic lexical phrases to specific the brand new science and cultural phrases that have been newly launched from the West into Egypt within the Nineteenth century.
His contributions weren’t solely necessary to the examine of the Arabic lexicon traditionally and usually, but in addition for enriching the Arabic language and the understanding of how language develops by way of interplay with different languages.
“An Egyptian reformer and thinker who’s well known because the pioneer of the Nahda (Egyptian ‘Awakening) within the Nineteenth century, [Al-Tahtawi] stands on the cultural coronary heart of the mental awakening of Egypt’s modernization motion that sought to import and implement navy, scientific, technical, and academic improvements from the West.”
Al-Tahtawi handed away in 1873, however his life-long achievements stand to mirror his sensible thoughts. Regardless of rising up in humble upbringings, he solid his path to changing into an impactful pioneer in Egypt. Read More...
