Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Series Editor's Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction – Prophetic Tendencies: Egyptian Translators of the Twentieth Century
- 1 Translation in Motion: A Survey of Literary Translation in Lebanon and Egypt during the Nahḍa
- 2 Plagiarised Prophecy in the Romantic Works of al-Manfalūṭī, al-ʿAqqād and al-Māzinī
- 3 The Hero at Home: Muḥammad al-Sibāʿī and Thomas Carlyle
- 4 Tarjama as Debt: The Making of a Secular History of Arabic Literature
- Conclusion – The Prophet Today: The Novel in Distress
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Tarjama as Debt: The Making of a Secular History of Arabic Literature
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Series Editor's Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction – Prophetic Tendencies: Egyptian Translators of the Twentieth Century
- 1 Translation in Motion: A Survey of Literary Translation in Lebanon and Egypt during the Nahḍa
- 2 Plagiarised Prophecy in the Romantic Works of al-Manfalūṭī, al-ʿAqqād and al-Māzinī
- 3 The Hero at Home: Muḥammad al-Sibāʿī and Thomas Carlyle
- 4 Tarjama as Debt: The Making of a Secular History of Arabic Literature
- Conclusion – The Prophet Today: The Novel in Distress
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
You see that taking up this method is not necessary only for those who study science and write about it, but it is also necessary for those who read.
Ṭāhā Ḥusayn, Fī al-shiʿr al-jāhilī (1926)Egypt teeters back and forth even today, as in the past, between the Arab and Western mentalities, one of them winning at one point, the other later on. When the Western mentality triumphs, the liberal idea is reasserted, scientific ideas are published and spread about, and culture is influenced by these ideas in various institutes of learning, even the religious institutes. When the Arab mentality triumphs, sentiment takes over and dominates arbitrarily, the power of the past is revived, and culture is influenced by these ideas in various institutes, even in the secular university.
Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal, Mudhakkirāt fī al-siyāsa al-Miṣriyya (Memoirs of Egyptian Politics) (1951–3)In 1908, Ṭāhā Ḥusayn was one of the first students to enrol in the Egyptian University. After completing his doctoral thesis on Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī, Ḥusayn left for Paris to study history at the Sorbonne and write his dissertation on Ibn Khaldūn under the supervision of Emile Durkheim, founder of the modern discipline of sociology. He returned to Egypt in time for the 1919 Revolution and soon became its most polemical literary figure. On 10 November 1921, Ḥusayn published an article in al-Istiqlāl (Independence) newspaper– ‘Waylun lī-l-ḥurrīya min Saʿd [Zaghlūl]’ (No Freedom under Saʿd), attacking Saʿd Zaghlūl, prime minister and head of the Wafd majority party, for restricting intellectual freedom. Both Ḥusayn and Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal attacked the Wafdist government openly in al-Siyāsa. The newspaper issues were banned, Haykal, then editor-in-chief, was indicted, and Ḥusayn put on trial even though his most aggressive articles remained unsigned. On 17 June 1924, Ḥusayn was summoned to court: when he denied penmanship of the articles, he was dismissed but ordered to refrain from writing political criticism. In 1925, ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Rāziq published his controversial book al-Islām wa-uṣūl al-ḥukm (Islam and the Foundations of Governance), advocating for the separation of religion and politics in Islam. The Azhar ʿulamāʾ revoked his title of ʿalīm.
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- Information
- Prophetic TranslationThe Making of Modern Egyptian Literature, pp. 155 - 209Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2018