Taha Hussein - Misplaced Pages

(Redirected from Al-Fitna Al-Kubra) Egyptian writer (1889–1973)

Taha HusseinON
طه حُسين

Born	(1889-11-14)November 14, 1889 Maghagha, Khedivate of Egypt
Died	October 28, 1973(1973-10-28) (aged 83) Cairo, Egypt
Awards	Order of the Nile

Era	Modern literary theory
School	Modernism, Classical Arabic literature, Nahda
Main interests	Classical Arabic literature, Islamic history, Mediterranean culture

Taha Hussein (Egyptian Arabic: [ˈtˤɑːhɑ ħ(e)ˈseːn], Arabic: طه حسين; November 15, 1889 – October 28, 1973) was among the most influential 20th-century Egyptian writers and intellectuals, and a leading figure of the Arab Renaissance and the modernist movement in the Arab world. His sobriquet was "The Dean of Arabic Literature" (Arabic: عميد الأدب العربي). He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature twenty-one times.

Early life

Taha Hussein was born in Izbet el Kilo, a village in the Minya Governorate in central Upper Egypt. He was the seventh of thirteen children of lower middle class parents. He contracted ophthalmia at the age of two, and as the result of false treatment by an unskilled practitioner, he became blind. After attending a kuttab, he studied religion and Arabic literature at El 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.

Taha Hussein in France

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."

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.

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. 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.

Academic career

In 1919 Hussein returned to Egypt with Suzanne, and he was appointed professor of history at Cairo University. He went on to become a professor of Arabic literature and of Semitic languages.

At the Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo, Taha Hussein was made responsible for the completion of Al-Mu'jam al-Kabir (The Great Dictionary), one of the academy's most important tasks. He also served as president of the academy.

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. 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. 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).

He was the founding Rector of the University of Alexandria.

Political career

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. 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.

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. 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 Education Ibrāhīm al-Ibyārī [ar]. Hussein proposed that Al Azhar University should be closed down in 1955 after his tenure as education minister ended.

Taha Hussein held the position of chief editor of a number of newspapers.

Works

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", his major works include:

The Memory of Abu al-Ala' al-Ma'arri 1915
Selected Poetical Texts of the Greek Drama 1924
Ibn Khaldun's Philosophy 1925
Dramas by a Group of the Most Famous French Writers 1924
Pioneers of Thoughts 1925
Wednesday Talk 1925
On Pre-Islamic Poetry 1926
In the Summer 1933
The Days, 3 Volumes, 1926–1967
Hafez and Shawki 1933
The Prophet's Life "Ala Hamesh El Sira" 1933
Curlew's Prayers 1934
From a Distance 1935
Adeeb 1935
The Literary Life in the Arabian Peninsula 1935
Together with Abi El Alaa in his Prison 1935
Poetry and Prose 1936
Bewitched Palace 1937
Together with El Motanabi 1937
The Future of Culture in Egypt 1938
Moments 1942
The Voice of Paris 1943
Sheherzad's Dreams 1943
Tree of Misery 1944
Paradise of Thorn 1945
Chapters on Literature and Criticism 1945
The Voice of Abu El Alaa 1945
Osman "The first Part of the Greater Sedition
Al-Fitna al-Kubra ("The Great Upheaval") 1947
Spring Journey 1948
The Stream Of Days 1948
The Tortured of Modern Conscience 1949
The Divine Promise "El Wa'd El Haq" 1950
The Paradise of Animals 1950
The Lost Love 1951
From There 1952
Varieties 1952
In The Midst 1952
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, ISBN 9774242998
Criticism and Reform 1956
Our Contemporary Literature 1958
Mirror of Islam 1959
Summer Nonsense 1959
On the Western Drama 1959
Talks 1959
Al-Shaikhan (Abu Bakr and Omar Ibn al-Khattab) 1960
From Summer Nonsense to Winter Seriousness 1961
Reflections 1965
Beyond the River 1975
Words 1976
Tradition and Renovation 1978
Books and Author 1980
From the Other Shore 1980

Translations

Jules Simon's The Duty 1920–1921
Athenians System (Nezam al-Ethnien) 1921
The Spirit of Pedagogy 1921
Dramatic Tales 1924
Andromaque (Racine) 1935
From the Greek Dramatic Literature (Sophocles) 1939
Voltaire's Zadig or (The Fate) 1947
André Gide: From Greek
Legends' Heroes
Sophocle-Oedipe

Tribute

On November 14, 2010, Google celebrated Hussein's 121st birthday with a Google Doodle.

Honours

Ribbon bar	Country	Honour
	Egypt	Grand Collar of the Order of the Nile
	Egypt	Grand Cross of the Order of Merit (Egypt)
	France	Grand Officier of the Legion of Honour
	Greece	Grand Cross of the Order of the Phoenix (Greece)
	Lebanon	Grand Cordon of the National Order of the Cedar
	Morocco	Commander of the Order of Intellectual Merit
	Spain	Grand Cross of Civil Order of Alfonso X, the Wise
	Syria	Grand Cordon of Order of Civil Merit of the Syrian Arab Republic
	Tunisia	Grand Cordon of the Order of the Republic of Tunisia

References

^ "SCIENCE\taha". Archived from the original on December 10, 2004. Retrieved December 1, 2006.
Ahmed, Hussam R. (2021-06-15). The Last Nahdawi: Taha Hussein and Institution Building in Egypt. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-1-5036-2796-3. Archived from the original on April 23, 2022. Retrieved December 18, 2021.
Ghanayim, M. (1994). "Mahmud Amin al-Alim: Between Politics and Literary Criticism". Poetics Today. 15 (2). Poetics Today, Vol. 15, No. 2: 321–338. doi:10.2307/1773168. JSTOR 1773168.
طه حسين عميد الأدب العربي: حياته، آثاره الأدبية و آراؤه (in Arabic). 1997. Archived from the original on April 23, 2022. Retrieved February 27, 2021.
"Nomination Archive: Taha Hussein". NobelPrize.org. 2020-04-01. Archived from the original on August 14, 2022. Retrieved 2022-09-29.
^ Allen, Roger (2005). The Arabic Literary Heritage: The Development of its Genres and Criticism. Cambridge University Press. p. 398. ISBN 0-521-48525-8. Archived from the original on May 15, 2023. Retrieved March 22, 2023.
^ Paniconi, Maria (2017). "Ḥusayn, Ṭāhā". Encyclopaedia of Islam. Vol. 2017–3 (3rd ed.). Brill Publishers. ISBN 9789004335721. Archived from the original on June 24, 2021. Retrieved 18 June 2021.
^ دار المعرفة طه حسين عودته إلى الديار الفرنسية. Morocco. 2014. p. 133.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^ von Grunebaum, G. E. (1959). "Review of Al-Muʿjam al-kabīr, Murad Kāmil, Ibrāhīm al-Ibyārī". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 18 (2): 157–159. doi:10.1086/371525. ISSN 0022-2968. JSTOR 543279. Archived from the original on March 27, 2022. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
"مجمع اللغة العربية!". بوابة الأهرام. Archived from the original on April 2, 2022. Retrieved 2021-03-31.
Labib Rizk, Dr Yunan. "A Diwan of contemporary life (391)". Ahram Weekly. Archived from the original on September 18, 2018. Retrieved 1 May 2018.
Gershoni, I., J. Jankowski. (1987). Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs. Oxford: Oxford University Press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
البحراوي, إبراهيم (2007-10-09). "لماذا خالف طه حسين الملك فاروق في التحالف مع هتلر؟". Al-Masry Al-Youm.
Malika Zeghal (1999). "Religion and Politics in Egypt: The Ulema of al-Azhar, Radical Islam, and the State (1952–94)". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 31 (3): 376. doi:10.1017/S0020743800055483. S2CID 33718066.
P. Cachia in Julie Scott Meisami & Paul Starkey, Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, Volume 1, Taylor & Francis (1998), p. 297
"SCIENCE\taha". Archived from the original on 2004-12-10. Retrieved 2006-12-01.
"Birthday of Taha Hussein". Google. 14 November 2010. Archived from the original on November 16, 2019. Retrieved November 16, 2019.
"Ṭâhâ Husayn (1889-1973)".
{{cite web|url=https://humazur.univ-cotedazur.fr/s/humazur/ark:/17103/7ds8#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-115%2C0%2C462%2C299%7Ctitle=Ṭâhâ Husayn (1889-1973)}
"Tâha HUSSEIN".
"Séance du 15 décembre 1947".
{{cite web|url=https://humazur.univ-cotedazur.fr/s/humazur/ark:/17103/7ds8#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-115%2C0%2C462%2C299%7Ctitle=Ṭâhâ Husayn (1889-1973)}
{{cite web|url=https://humazur.univ-cotedazur.fr/s/humazur/ark:/17103/7ds8#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-115%2C0%2C462%2C299%7Ctitle=Ṭâhâ Husayn (1889-1973)}
{{cite web|url=https://humazur.univ-cotedazur.fr/s/humazur/ark:/17103/7ds8#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-115%2C0%2C462%2C299%7Ctitle=Ṭâhâ Husayn (1889-1973)}
{{cite web|url=https://humazur.univ-cotedazur.fr/s/humazur/ark:/17103/7ds8#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-115%2C0%2C462%2C299%7Ctitle=Ṭâhâ Husayn (1889-1973)}
{{cite web|url=https://humazur.univ-cotedazur.fr/s/humazur/ark:/17103/7ds8#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-115%2C0%2C462%2C299%7Ctitle=Ṭâhâ Husayn (1889-1973)}

v t e Egyptian writers
Ahmed Shawki Hafez Ibrahim Salama Moussa Edwar al-Kharrat Taha Hussein Fekry Abaza Tawfiq al-Hakim Munira Thabit Muhammad Husayn Haykal Abo El Seoud El Ebiary Naguib Mahfouz Edmond Jabès Tatamkulu Afrika Andrée Chedid Mustafa Mahmoud Fathy Ghanem Anis Mansour Yusuf Idris Mohammad Moustafa Haddara Alifa Rifaat Samir Amin Fawzia Fahim Nawâl El Saadâwi Salama Ahmed Salama Sonallah Ibrahim Abdel Rahman El Abnudi Leila Ahmed Gamal Al-Ghitani Ahmad Al-Khamisi Ahdaf Soueif Laila Soliman Ahmed Khaled Tawfik
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