Rifā،ah Badawī Rāfi، aṭ-Ṭahṭāwī: The Egyptian Revivalist

Extract

The first thing which strikes the student of the Arabic literature of this period is the remarkable number of works attributed to Rifā،ah, but, in reality, there is nothing new or startling about the quantity, for the eighteenth century provides us with the names of many Egyptian scholars who produced long lists of works on all the subjects in which the learned were interested and for which there was a constant demand in scholastic circles. Rifā،ah had a gift for writing which was encouraged by the exceptional circumstances in which he found himself once he had become absorbed into the military system created by Muḥammad ،Alī. What is so pleasing about Rifā،ah is the variety of his literary interests, and he must be credited with having been the principal actor in laying the foundations of the “new” literature. His verses, too, were admired by his contemporaries; as a student in the mosque of al-Azhar, he wrote an urjūzdh on tauḥīd which attracted the attention of one of his teachers, Shaikh al-Faḍḍālī, but it was never published.