"Taha Hussein", thus the Egyptian novelist, translator, critic and thinker Taha Hussein signed an article for him in Al-Gomhouria newspaper on June 7, 1956, to implement in a practical way his call to write any letter pronounced in the word within the framework of what he called attempts to simplify the rules of the Arabic language.

Taha Hussein’s article, written in a rebellious manner against the grammar of the language, did not mention any reference to the simplification of Arabic, but it was written in the same manner as the writer’s signature – what is spoken is written – as if the dean of Arabic literature did not need to justify what he did, so he raised the sail of the ship of change and proceeded with it alone.

Certainly, the act of the Egyptian writer did not pass without the response of thinkers who also have their place in the Egyptian cultural field, and with the state of intellectual division over the problem of language and the extent of the ability to simplify it, those concerned with the language and its lovers benefited from the richness of the discussion between figures whose legacy still draws from every insider.

The battle of simplifying the rules of the language is one of the various battles of the author of “Dua’a Al-Karwan”, as his fight moved between literature, language, philosophy and religious interpretations, and despite the passage of 132 years since his birthday, on the 17th of November 1889, the echo of those battles is still evidence that The victor is always Arab literature and culture in general.

language lover

It would be curious to talk to describe Taha Hussein as a lover of the Arabic language, as his intellectual career is full of attempts to reveal the richness of the Arabic tongue, and to engage with those who tend to linguistic stagnation who stand in the way of the spread of Arabic on different tongues, according to his vision.

This can be inferred by the series of books he wrote for his journey, which stemmed mainly from a love of language, such as “From Hadith Poetry and Prose”, “On Pre-Islamic Literature”, “The Future of Culture in Egypt”, “Our Modern Literature What It Has and What It Is”, and “With Abi Al-Ala in His Prison,” “Controversy and Criticism,” “Chapters in Literature and Criticism,” “Tradition and Renewal,” “From Summer No Longing,” “From Afar,” “From Our Contemporary Literature,” and “From Our Contemporary Literature.” Alwan, Hafez and Shawqi, and Literary Life in the Arabian Peninsula.

Before that, the author of the book “Al-Ayyam” began to be associated with the language since childhood. He memorized the Qur’an before he was ten years old. Then he joined the Al-Azhar schools, which completed its linguistic refinement and tightened his connection with Arabic to complete his studies at Cairo University. He was one of the first to join it in 1908. France to complete postgraduate studies to be a doctoral thesis on one of the giants of ancient poetry "Abu Alaa Al-Maari".

During his intellectual career, he obtained membership in the Arabic Language Academy in 1940, and was a rapporteur of the Academy’s Literature Committee, then was elected its president in 1963, and assumed the task of supervising the great linguistic lexicon, in addition to holding the position of Minister of Education from 1950 to 1952.

The idea of ​​simplifying the language

It is not possible to know the exact time when Taha Hussein was mentally saturated with the idea of ​​facilitating Arabic writing, but his activity can be seen during the post-intellectual saturation stage, as he used his membership in the Arabic Language Academy to submit a proposal to allocate a prize of one thousand pounds for the best proposal in facilitating Arabic writing.

Regarding that proposal, he wrote, “This is one of the noblest purposes that a person aims at in a country who wants to learn, and we are in an era in which the constitution stipulates that education be public and obligatory, and then there are these obstacles that prevent the generalization of education. From achieving what it is, and democratic life requires us to work on spreading education and preparing it for the public by facilitating its means.. It is the nature of things, then, that writing should be easy in order to facilitate education, and most likely that the failure of compulsory education is due to the fact that reading is difficult.”

He continued, "We have called for this idea years ago, influenced by the modern mentality after it provided us with Western culture, and after we saw foreign languages ​​as easy, so we wanted to be like others who are fortunate in modern civilization, based on pure natural phenomena."

Taha Hussein tried to give evidence from the linguistic history to help pass his proposal, and he said that "the first Arabic writing was not accurate, and its control came late and gradually, and according to the diligence of linguists who reached in their diligence to what we are walking on now, and I wonder: Why is it not permissible? We have ijtihad, and we are absolutely forbidden from it? Why do we accept it for the ancients and deny it completely to ourselves? Why shouldn't the ancients have been right in some of what they decided and were wrong in others?"

And he added in his guide, "In the past, they did not write the alif in the middle of a word, and we find this a lot in the Qur'an. These issues have been studied by the Council for a long time, going back to the days of the late Sheikh Ahmed al-Iskandariya and Sheikh Hussein Wali. The fact of the matter is that some members are hesitant in their ijtihad for fear of criticism, And the Qur’an was recited before Al-Khalil bin Ahmad without any form, and when Al-Khalil bin Ahmad formed the Qur’an, he was not challenged by a caliph or minister, and no one held him accountable for what he did. The Qur’an is only formed after a century.”

Battle article

Taha Hussein continued to present his idea of ​​introducing amendments to the Arabic language, which would simplify the language for speakers and students of it, in his various cultural sessions, especially the famous Wednesday Salon, in addition to his articles in newspapers and above that in the meetings of the Arabic Language Academy.

The idea of ​​the Dean of Arabic Literature, which was preceded by other thinkers in the modern era such as Ahmed Lotfi Al-Sayed, won the support of some, but it was rejected by the majority of those who were influential in cultural affairs and those in charge of the language complex at the time, which prompted the Egyptian thinker to write an article whose linguistic rules are in line with his call.

On June 7, 1956, the headline came on the front page of the newspaper, provoking the reading of the article of the Dean of Arabic Literature, which will be published the next day. The book: Taha Hussein implements the coup tomorrow."

Taha Hussein with his wife Suzanne (networking sites)

In its main story, the newspaper explained, "He wrote an article and drew the letters of the article on a new rule that aims to draw Arabic words as we pronounce them. So we cancel the alif al-qassora and replace it with the apparent alif in every word like Mustafa, so it becomes 'aligned' and given and becomes 'atta', and we prove the letter tide in all words. Which is customary to omit this letter in writing.. “this” becomes “this” and “these” becomes “these,” and we cancel every letter that we do not pronounce in the word like the last letter of the alif in a verb were, so it becomes kano.

The Republic explained that the discussions and research between linguists had led to the refusal to introduce any modification to the drawing of Arabic words, which is what Taha Hussein decided to implement his proposal in a practical way and publish his articles in the new drawing to the audience of readers.

The next day, an article by the author of the book “Al-Ayyam” was published, under the title “A quarrel in a different place,” and in the foreground was this note “There is no typographical error in this article and the difference is intended.”

The article did not include any reference to the rules of the Arabic language and attempts to simplify it. Rather, its topic was about teaching religion, the Arabic language, and Egyptian history in foreign schools in Egypt.

weakening the language

After Hussein published his article in Al-Jumhuriya newspaper, the pens of a number of thinkers rushed to respond to the call to simplify the grammar of the language, including the pen of the thinker Abbas Al-Akkad, who chose the same newspaper as his response.

Al-Akkad said that the proposed method of writing words as we pronounce them would create more problems than the facilities that Taha Hussein thought would lead to them, and expected weakening the position of Arabic in front of foreign languages ​​and throwing the first seeds of corruption to eliminate the language entity.

And he continued, "Suppose you wrote the sentence "So-and-so on the mountain" like this "So-and-so has risen the mountain." So how do we read the mountain after that? And what is the specific meaning that you mean from this sentence? Is it the height of the mountain, meaning that it rose?

Al-Akkad accused the dean of Arabic literature of wanting change only for the sake of change, and concluded, "Our goal is always to change for the sake of change. For example, if one of us walked on his hands, we would applaud him and take us in his imitation, and this is what can be called this heresy."

In defense of the author of the book "On the Margins of the Biography", the critic and journalist writer Rushdi Saleh responded to Al-Akkad accusing him of not understanding the dean's call or understanding it from the narrowest angles, so he hurriedly threw stones as every new experience should throw stones.

In a press article, Saleh asked: “I do not know why Taha Hussein’s call deserved to be stoned by Al-Akkad before he studied it and without he presenting a practical solution to the difficulty of dictation?” He explained that simplifying the language extends to how to eradicate illiteracy and find an easy general level in which writing approaches spoken Arabic. .

The debate and controversy continued, which ended with the failure of the call to simplify the rules of the language, but rather the absolute abandonment of the simplified writing that he promoted, content with signing his name under his articles in the same way "Taha Hussein". Hussein" until his death on October 28, 1973.