Taha Hussein

Who is Taha Hussein?

Taha Hussein was an Egyptian writer, literary critic, and one of the most influential intellectuals of the twentieth-century Arab world, often called the Dean of Arabic Literature (Amid al-Adab al-Arabi). Blinded by illness in early childhood, he was educated first at al-Azhar and then at the newly founded secular Egyptian University, later earning a doctorate at the Sorbonne in Paris. His three-part autobiography, Al-Ayyam (The Days), is a landmark of modern Arabic prose describing his blindness, rural upbringing, and intellectual awakening. His 1926 book On Pre-Islamic Poetry applied critical methods to classical texts and provoked fierce controversy, leading to accusations of heresy. A tireless advocate for education, he championed the principle that learning should be as free as water and air, and served as Egypt's Minister of Education, expanding free schooling. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature multiple times and shaped Arabic educational and literary thought profoundly.

Sources: Taha Hussein, Al-Ayyam / The Days (autobiography, 1929 onward) · Taha Hussein, Fi al-Shi'r al-Jahili (On Pre-Islamic Poetry, 1926) · Pierre Cachia, Taha Husayn: His Place in the Egyptian Literary Renaissance (1956)