Rifa’a Al-Tahtawi rose to become one of Egypt’s leading enlighteners, thinkers, and translators in the 19th century. Author Kaj Ohrnberg describes him as, “a standard-bearer and symbol of Arab renaissance, the most-well known thinker of his epoch.” Born in 1801 in Sohag, Al-Tahtawi began his educational career by studying Qur’an in his hometown; a brilliant mind at a ripe age, he joined Al-Azhar at 17, becoming an imam in the process. In 1826, Al-Tahtawi traveled to Paris with an Egyptian educational mission sent by Egypt’s former ruler, Muhammed Ali. Ali, the ‘engineer of modern Egypt,’ which dispatched young Egyptians to the West on great resources to scientific and cultural missions. In awe, he skillfully captured European etiquette, education, and culture, which he published in his book, Talkhis Al-Ebreez Fy Paris (A Paris Profile), in the mid-19th century. This book is one of the most important accounts of Al-Tahtawi’s journey in Paris. Al-Tahtawi’s brilliance further lies in his mastered translation work, from French to Arabic – “the extraordinary part about his reading was the fact that he translated into Arabic nearly every book he read. There were three other imams, but…
