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“Whoever contemplates what we have written and what has been mentioned regarding the response to the translations of the eminent imams, he will know that, with their firm footing in the legal sciences and religious rulings, they had a great knowledge of other sciences, and a complete knowledge of their wholes and their parts, even in the books of those who disagreed with the doctrines and the branches, and then they were not free In educating their tongues and softening their nature from the flakes of poems, and the gentleness of lectures, and what the situation has reached in the time in which we fell, he knows that we are related to them as a general ratio of their time, so our best matter is to transfer from them without inventing anything with ourselves, and we wish we had reached this rank.”
(Sheikh Hassan Al-Attar criticizing the state of science and knowledge in his time)
Many people think that the modern intellectual and cultural renaissance in the Arab world, which started from Egypt, was first initiated by Sheikh Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad Abdo and his student, the noble Rashid Rida, but many are unaware that these attempts, which began to bear intellectual, cultural and educational fruits in the second half From the nineteenth century AD, it was preceded by serious attempts by some intellectuals and intelligent sheikhs who realized the necessity of renewal and keeping pace with the times half a century before that.
The era in which some of these sheikhs realized this absolute necessity began when the French armies landed in Cairo, the Delta, and Upper Egypt under the leadership of Napoleon, Meno, and Kleber, killing the people of Egypt through a mighty military machine, and subjecting them to analysis and examination through the laboratory and the decree. However, scholars of this campaign wrote it accurately and objectively to serve the French goals that it hoped for survival and continuity.
One of these alert sheikhs was Sheikh Hassan Al-Attar, a Moroccan of Egyptian origin, by birth and death, so how did these inflammatory events affect Sheikh Al-Attar?
What is his position on the French campaign and its scholars?
Why did he choose to travel and travel to the Levant, Anatolia and the Balkans?
Then why did Muhammad Ali Pasha appoint him as Sheikh of Al-Azhar at the end of his life?
And how was Al-Attar's project for reform and renewal in his time?
Sheikh Hassan Al-Attar (networking sites)
early brilliance
Sheikh Hassan Al-Attar[1] was born in 1766 AD / 1180 AH in Cairo to a family whose origins go back to the countries of the Maghreb. The Moroccans in Ottoman Egypt formed a large community that reached the limits of ten thousand people. His father, Muhammad bin Mahmoud, worked as a perfumer in the heart of comfort Cairo. He has been keen since His upbringing of his son Hassan to absorb his craft and follow his path, at a time when trade was the best available despite his poverty, in the face of the misery of peasants and farmers in Egypt who were exhausted by mismanagement, the fluctuations of the Mamelukes, the weakness of the Ottomans, and the large number of royalties from the observant. He loved reading and learning, so he used to watch his peers go to Al-Azhar to memorize the Qur’an and seek science, so he imitated them, so his father helped him in this endeavor, and the desire met the desire until he assigned the boy to attend the seminars of the great Al-Azhar sheikhs of his time, such as Sheikh Muhammad Al-Amir and Sheikh Muhammad Al-Sabban.
Al-Attar soon showed a brilliance in the acquisition of sciences at the Al-Azhar Mosque, in the gallery of the Moroccans in particular, and besides the transmission sciences in which he excelled, such as doctrine, interpretation, jurisprudence and its origins, grammar, morphology, rhetoric, history and theology, he was fascinated by the study of mental sciences, so he studied medicine, astronomy, and mathematics. These sciences and his passion for them benefited him with a philosophy that was keen on innovation and creativity and not stagnation in front of any current or incoming thought that can be benefited from.
Al-Attar was promoted in Al-Azhar, excelled among his peers, and became a circle of affairs. He was visited by students of knowledge, and scholars and sheikhs benefited from him, while he was still young, given that the advent of the French campaign to Egypt led by Napoleon in 1798 AD, and the accompanying massacres in Alexandria and the Delta and the defeat of the Mamluks Under the pyramids, many of the sheikhs of Al-Azhar, including Sheikh Al-Attar, who was thirty-two years old, were forced to flee towards Upper Egypt, to stay there for a period of time, even if the situation in Cairo was safe, Sheikh Al-Attar returned to it to complete his work in the Al-Azhar Mosque[2].
Al-Attar was an avid reader, and he used to make good use of what he read, until he became famous for that, and his passion and love for reading and reading led him to complete knowledge of strange sciences and arts, as one of his friends Sheikh Muhammad Shehab says: “Sheikh Al-Attar was a verse in sharpness of sight and intensity of intelligence, He used to visit us at night sometimes, and he would take the book with the exact font that it was difficult to read in broad daylight, and he would read it on the light of the lamp while it was in its place. ) on many of its places” [3].
Because of this zeal, and delving into Arabic, Islamic and intellectual sciences, Sheikh Al-Attar’s circle at Al-Azhar was full of students. Rather, scholars would leave the circles of others and multiply in his circle, enjoying his abundant knowledge and knowledge. Moreover, Al-Attar re-taught some of the works that Al-Azhar students had They abandoned it because of its difficulty. Historian Ali Mubarak says in “The Conciliation Plans”: “It has been a while since al-Baydawi’s tafsir was not read by anyone, so senior sheikhs attended it, so if (Al-Attar) sat for the lesson, they would leave their circle and go to his lesson” [4].
Hate stagnation and intellectual stagnation
In his lessons, seminars, and councils, Sheikh al-Attar called for avoiding stagnation and openness to modern social sciences next to traditional sciences. Perhaps this vision made him approach the French campaign, and get to know some of its scholars who wanted to learn the Arabic language. On the other hand, he benefited from what they had of their sciences. And their knowledge, and he believes that “they are all in the mathematical and literary sciences, and they showed me astronomical and engineering machines.” He points to the great interest of the French in philosophy and its books, and their eagerness to acquire them. It affected him, especially with the military and scientific progress of the French, which he witnessed himself.
Perhaps that is what prompted him to read European literature in some social and human sciences, especially history and geography, and he was fond of them to the point, as well as engineering, physics and other sciences, and the Turkish language opened the door for him besides Arabic to see a large number of these writings, and he says in that:
“It happened in our time that books were brought from the countries of the Franks, and translated into Turkish and Arabic, and they contain many works, and precise actions that we have seen some of, and these works may be transformed by means of engineering principles and natural sciences from strength to action, and they spoke about military industries and firearms, and they paved the rules for them.” Fundamentally, until this became an independent science recorded in books, and they divided it into many branches, and whoever was determined to see the strangeness of books and the wonders of works, many facts from the intricacies of sciences were revealed to him, and his idea was clear if it was sound in the gardens of understanding” [6].
After the French were expelled from Egypt, Al-Attar decided to travel for Hajj, and the trip was fascinated by the trip to Palestine, the Levant, Turkey and the Balkans. Al-Bitar Al-Shafi’i, who assumed the leadership and rhetoric in the mosques of Damascus, and authored a number of important works.
From Damascus, he decided to travel to the capital of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul, and he settled there for a few years, and married a Turkish woman. He also toured the Balkans and stayed in Albania for a period of time, studying, watching, and benefiting from this scientific and life trip. When he returned to Egypt after that trip in 1815 In the authority of Muhammad Ali, as the scholar Ahmed Taymour says, he returned as an encyclopedist in his culture and knowledge. He attacked the distinguished scholars of Al-Azhar, and was filled with enthusiasm for the development of the country and reforming its conditions[7].
Renewal and openness is a must
Al-Attar called for the necessity of reviving the ancient Arab heritage with new methods, and re-teaching prohibited subjects. He and his students contributed to this renewal activity.
The most important thing that Al-Attar realized throughout these years before, during and after the French campaign, and his tour of the countries of the Islamic world in the Hijaz, the Levant, Anatolia and the Balkans, was that the era in which he was living had changed, and that was no longer the old era, and that openness and reading modern sciences, and their new theories, and follow-up on what is emerging In it, it is necessary for the desired reform process in the Azharite and cultural mentality of his time, and not to rely on only summaries and texts in circulation, and that this openness and deepening of knowledge of the humanities and experimental sciences and the industrial projects based on them are necessary and even the duty of time.
Al-Attar cautions that this matter, and rather confirms that his call is not an innovation in reform, but rather is the exact methodology followed by Islamic scholars in his golden ages, he says: Sharia sciences and religious rulings have a great knowledge of other sciences, and a complete knowledge of its totality and its details, even in the books of the opponents in the doctrines and the branches. Know that we are attributable to them as a general ratio of their time, for our utmost command is to transmit from them without inventing anything in ourselves, and we wish we had reached this rank, rather we were limited to looking at confined books authored by the latecomers and derived from their words, we repeat them throughout life, and our souls do not aspire to look at others Even as if knowledge was confined to these books” [8].
Al-Attar, who is fond of literature and poetry, with his knowledge of mental and Islamic sciences, was not limited to the fact that his cry was merely an echo in the reality of Al-Azhar and the religious and scientific community of his time. Muhammad Ayyad al-Tantawi decided to teach Maqamat al-Hariri in the Al-Azhar Mosque around the year 1827 AD, and it was an unusual and surprising matter, and his other student, Rifa’a Rafi’ al-Tahtawi, began teaching hadith and the Prophet’s Sunnah by way of lecture without a text, which was what impressed scholars [9].
Al-Attar called for the necessity of reviving the ancient Arab heritage with new methods, and re-teaching the prohibited subjects. He himself and his students contributed to that renewal activity that will resonate with his students.
Al-Tantawi, who traveled to Russia and was one of the most famous influencers in Russian Orientalism later, and Al-Tahtawi, who traveled to France and returned to complete the cultural renewal project by establishing modern colleges such as Al-Alsun College.
Refa'a Rafe' al-Tahtawi (networking sites)
Sheikh Al-Attar was also keen on the necessity of treating experimental sciences, introducing them and expanding them, and his keenness on these sciences became evident when he clashed with them, and he saw the extent of the French interest in these sciences at the time of their campaign against Egypt. Not only, but he wrote on logic, astronomy, medicine, physics, chemistry and engineering, and he did not call for the mere teaching and learning of these sciences, but also for the application of what is in them so that the theories turn into a project that achieves a desired civilizational renaissance.
Perhaps this is what was noted by the scholar Ali Pasha Mubarak, who says about Al-Attar: “He contacted people from the French, and he used to benefit from the arts used in their countries, and the Arabic language would benefit them, and he said that our country must change its conditions, and renew with it knowledge what is not in it … and he marvels What the French nation has reached in terms of knowledge and science, and the abundance of their books and their editing, and their approach to ways of benefiting”[10].
Al-Attar defended the expansion of the recruitment and use of these modern sciences, and when he was elevated to the Sheikhdom of Al-Azhar (1830-1835 AD) one of the students tried to kill the doctor Clout Bey while dissecting a corpse in the mortuary of the Medical School in Abu Zaabal, which was established in 1827 AD to educate Egyptian students, and it was a new matter. Surprisingly in college, when Sheikh Al-Attar knew this, and an inquiry came from Clot Bey requesting a fatwa, he said his famous fatwa on the necessity of teaching medicine and anatomy, and the extent to which people benefit from learning these sciences. Rejected thanks to the vision and cleverness of Sheikh Al-Attar.
Going along with the authority to achieve his project
Sheikh Hassan al-Attar did not follow the path of his friends from the Al-Azhar sheikhs and scholars, led by the Sheikh and historian Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti, who attacked Muhammad Ali, his sons and his state relentlessly, and saw it as a state of oppression and tyranny, exhausting and enslaving the Egyptians. The clash, and for this he took ways to praise and draw close to Muhammad Ali and his son Ibrahim Pasha, and he says in the opening of his book “Insha’ al-Attar” describing Muhammad Ali as “the ruler of kingdoms, the securer of paths, the enlightener of the hawak, the adornment of the family and the sofas, the suppressor of transgressors, the exterminator of tyrants.” Then he praises Ibrahim Pasha Ibn Muhammad Ali after his victorious return from the wars of the Levant, in which he was able to unite these regions to the authority of Muhammad Ali, defeating the Ottoman state and its armies. He glorifies him and knows his virtues [12].
Perhaps because of this close relationship that brought Sheikh Al-Attar together with Muhammad Ali Pasha, he worked in the first newspaper that was issued in the whole Middle East, “Al-Waqa’i Al-Masryah” in 1828 AD as the first editor of the Arabic section in it, and it consisted of two Arabic and Turkish sections. , an avid reader of poetry, a writer and participant in it, accompanying the great poets of his time, to the extent that Allama Al-Jabarti tells that he used to meet with some writers and poets in his house, he says:
After our friend, the scholar Sheikh Hasan al-Attar, returned from his travels, the aforementioned (the companion of the poet Ismail al-Khashab) mixed, mixed, accompanied, agreed with and adhered to him. Definite companionship, and close affection, and they were comfortable with me, and they put up the costs that are severe on the soul”[13].
Al-Attar influences the shift from the weeping of ruins to the singing of the living nature around him, with conscious and intentional altruism, and most of his poetry is easy in words and language.
Al-Attar’s literary style was dominated by simplicity, ease, and keenness on the idea and conveying it to the reader, for his style is just a means of expression, not an end in itself. Closeness and traditional subtraction, he says:
And do not weep as the woman of al-Qays weeps when she is pregnant *** nor does he fall asleep at the descent of the fallen
He influences the shift from crying ruins to singing about the living nature around him with conscious and intentional altruism, and most of his poetry, as Ahmed Taymour Pasha says, is easy in words and language, interconnected in one unit, so he was famous among a number of literary critics and his men as one of the first innovators of modern Arabic poetry before the advent of Mahmoud Sami Al-Baroudi for at least half a century.
Because of this great activity, and this good relationship with the political authority, Muhammad Ali Pasha issued a decree appointing Sheikh Hassan Al-Attar as Sheikh of Al-Azhar Al-Sharif in 1830 AD when he was sixty-five years old, five years before the man’s death, he spent all of it in the service of Al-Azhar and its sheikhdom, but some historians blame the Sheikh Al-Attar asserted his weakness in implementing what he called for reforming Al-Azhar, and expanding the education of legal and scientific sciences in modern ways that involve innovation and creativity. At an early stage, I fought them with all force and brutality, and brought them back to the corridors of the mosque after their influence had filled the hearing and sight of the entire Egyptian society, such as Sheikh Omar Makram and others.
Muhammad Ali Pasha (networking sites)
Sheikh Al-Attar was also known for his tendency to reconcile with the authority, and not to engage in skirmishes that do not benefit the reform process but rather harm, and if the man had his hands tied by the authority of the Pasha and his tyranny and his ability to oppress without supervision or accountability, his call for reform, openness and renewal in religious and mental sciences Indeed, in the field of literature and poetry, it has met with wide response, and founded a unique generation that took upon itself this call, such as Rifa'a al-Tahtawi, Muhammad Ayyad al-Tantawi, Muhammad Shihab al-Din al-Adib and his assistant editor of the "Al-Waqa'i al-Masryah" magazine and others.
It was not strange for Muhammad Ali to hear Al-Attar’s call and expand on the establishment of schools of engineering, medicine and pharmacy. It was also not surprising that his student, Rifa’a Al-Tahtawi, was at the head of the first delegation of Egyptian envoys abroad, the famous business owner “Al-Ibriz in the Briefing of Baris” which narrates It was watched in Paris, and he was the one who oversaw the establishment of the Al-Alsun School just one year after the death of his sheikh Al-Attar in 1836 AD, and thanks to this school and its graduates, hundreds of European and French literature were translated, especially in mathematics, engineering, literature, philosophy and others[14], and it helped to motivate Stagnant culture and intellectuals of his time.
Perhaps this is what gives us a hint about the reason for the “apparent” friendliness that Al-Attar had or shown to Muhammad Ali, as he wanted to take advantage of the authority in achieving his project calling for educational, cultural and intellectual reform in his time, a desire that met with Al-Basha, so he made him at the head of Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, and there are signs It confirms that Sheikh al-Attar was not completely satisfied with the political authority of Muhammad Ali Pasha, including his participation with the great historian al-Jabarti in writing his book “The manifestation of sanctification with the demise of the state of the Francis” without writing his name on the book.
The scholar Timur Pasha confirms this matter, and explains it by contemplating Sheikh Al-Attar’s handling of the political affairs of his time, to confirm beyond any doubt that Al-Attar was not completely satisfied with everything that revolves around him, but he was sane and was taught what Muhammad Ali did to the Egyptian leaders and scholars who opposed him Sheikh Al-Attar did not resort to the method of open confrontation[15], but rather artificial friendliness to achieve his project.
Thus, after a busy life in the field of science, knowledge, authorship and travel, and after his elevation as the first Egyptian of Moroccan origin to the Sheikhdom of Al-Azhar Mosque, and in the month of March of the year 1835 AD, Sheikh Hassan Al-Attar met his Lord, after he threw into the cultural, intellectual and religious life of his time a stone that moved many of Its stagnant waters, and opened the door wide for the launch of a new generation, from which al-Tahtawi, Muhammad Abdo, Ayyad al-Tantawi, Ali Mubarak and hundreds of others emerged, and its impact was and still remains clear in the school of revival, renewal and reform, a reform that leaned on Islam and proceeded from it and did not deny it, or destroy what it came with.