No matter how nahḍah intellectuals differed, they all agreed that ignorance was one of the main reasons for the stagnation (jumūd) and decline (inḥiṭāṭ) of their people, and that knowledge and education would pave the way for progress and civilisation. Moreover, they all insisted that the cultivation of humanistic learning (i.e., grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history and moral philosophy) was the basic formula for cultural and moral renewal, and adopted a methodology towards educational reform that involved the importation of modern Western learning, the simultaneous revival of classical Arab-Islamic traditions, and the dissemination of the knowledge thus acquired through the curricula and user-friendly textbooks. In this manner, they wanted to cultivate the zeal for modern knowledge while preserving Arab-Islamic culture. This chapter illustrates the development and diffusion of these ideas among Muslim intellectuals during the course of the nineteenth century by focusing on the educational activities and works of a number of Azharī scholars. At the same time, the chapter hopes to highlight the important contribution of these scholars to educational reform in the nahḍah.

Al-Ṭahṭāwī and the School of Languages

In Egypt, reformers had recognised the importance of education from the very start. During his sojourn in Paris in 1826, al-Ṭahṭāwī had already concluded that European political, scientific and economic progress could not have materialised without prior progress in the field of education. On returning to Cairo in 1831, he called for reforms in Islamic law, by reopening the door of rational interpretation (ijtihād), and also for reforms in the education of the ‘ulamā’ through the introduction of modern learning into their curriculum.