Taha Hussein

The great Egyptian writer, who is considered one of the pioneers of thought in society during the twentieth century, and one of the symbols of Arabic literature to the extent that he became its dean. Taha was born on the twenty-fourth of November 1889, the seventh of his father Hussein’s thirteen children. They were born in the village of Kilo, near Maghagha, one of the cities of Minya Governorate in central Upper Egypt Four years had passed before the child's eyes became afflicted with conjunctivitis, which extinguished the light in them forever. But God compensated him with penetrating insight, a clear mind, an intelligent heart, and an open mind, as a result of which he lost sight and was deprived of the blessing of enjoying the beauty of existence. When Cairo University opened its doors in 1908, Taha Hussein was the first to join it. He studied modern sciences, Islamic civilization, history, geography, and a number of eastern languages such as Ethiopian, Hebrew, and Syriac. In 1914, Cairo University sent him to Montpellier, France, to pursue specialization and increase in the branches of knowledge and modern sciences. At its university, he studied French literature, literature, psychology, and modern history. He returned to Egypt in 1919... to be appointed professor of Greek and Roman history at Cairo University. It sparked a lot of intellectual controversy in society during that period. His most famous novels are “The Days,” in which he recounts his entire biography, in addition to “The Nightingale’s Prayer,” which he processed in a screenplay of the same name to become a film that is considered one of the classics of Egyptian cinema throughout its history.