Rifa'a at-Tahtawi

Life & Legacy

Rifa'a Rafi' at-Tahtawi (Arabic: رفاعة رافع الطهطاوي, romanized: Rifāʿa Rāfiʿ aṭ-Ṭahṭāwī; 1801–1873) was an Egyptian writer, teacher, translator, Egyptologist, and intellectual of the Nahda (the Arab renaissance).
One of the first Egyptian travellers to France in the nineteenth century, Tahtawi published in 1834 a detailed account of his 5-year-long stay in France, Takhlis al-ibriz fi talkhis Bariz  ('The Extrication of Gold in Summarizing Paris'), and from then on became one of the first Egyptian scholars to write about Western culture in an attempt to bring about a reconciliation and an understanding between Islamic and Christian civilizations.
In 1835 he founded a School of Languages in Cairo, and he was influential in the development of science, law, literature, and Egyptology in 19th-century Egypt. His works influenced those of many later scholars such as Muhammad Abduh.