Ṭāhā Ḥusayn

Ṭāhā Ḥusayn (born Nov. 14, 1889, Maghāghah, Egypt—died Oct. 28, 1973, Cairo) was an outstanding figure of the modernist movement in Egyptian literature whose writings, in Arabic, include novels, stories, criticism, and social and political essays. Outside Egypt he is best known through his autobiography, Al-Ayyām (3 vol., 1929–67; The Days), the first modern Arab literary work to be acclaimed in the West.

Ṭāhā Ḥusayn was born in modest circumstances and was blinded by an illness at age two. In 1902 he was sent to al-Azhar seminary in Cairo, the leading Sunni centre of higher Islamic education, but he was soon at odds with its predominantly conservative authorities. In 1908 he entered the newly opened secular University of Cairo, and in 1914 he was the first to obtain a doctorate there. Further study at the Sorbonne familiarized him with the culture of the West.

Ṭāhā Ḥusayn returned to Egypt from France to become a professor of Arabic literature at the University of Cairo; his career there was frequently stormy, for his bold views enraged religious conservatives. His application of modern critical methods in Fi al-shiʾr al-jāhilī (1926; “On Pre-Islamic Poetry”) embroiled him in fierce polemics. In this book he contended that a great deal of the poetry reputed to be pre-Islamic had been forged by Muslims of a later date for various reasons, one being to give credence to Qurʾānic myths. For this he was tried for apostasy, but he was not convicted. In another book, Mustaqbal al-thaqāfah fī Miṣr (1938; The Future of Culture in Egypt), he expounds his belief that Egypt belongs by heritage to the same wider Mediterranean civilization that embraces Greece, Italy, and France; it advocates the assimilation of modern European culture.

Serving as minister of education (1950–52) in the last government formed by the Wafd party before the overthrow of the monarchy, Ṭāhā Ḥusayn vastly extended state education and abolished school fees. In his later literary work he showed increasing concern for the plight of the poor and interest in energetic governmental reforms; he also strongly defended the use of literary over colloquial Arabic.

The first part of Al-Ayyām appeared in 1929 (Eng. trans. An Egyptian Childhood) and the second in 1932 (Eng. trans. The Stream of Days). At age 78 he published a book of memoirs, Mudhakkirāt (1967; Eng. trans. A Passage to France), considered a third volume of Al-Ayyām. In 1997 all three parts were published together in English translation as The Days.