Arabic Dialogues, Phrasebooks and the learning of colloquial Arabic; 1798-1945

Author

Mairs; Rachel

Year

2024

Language

English

Pages

ISBN

978-1-80008-619-7

Link

Last Update

06-Jan-2026

Keywords

History ; European Studies ; Middle East Studies

Description

Scholarly command of a language and the ability to function in it in day-to-day life are two very different things. An encounter between two famous scholars in Paris in the late 1820s makes this abundantly clear. The Egyptian Rifā῾a Rāfi῾ al-Ṭahṭāwī (1801–1873) was in France as imām (religious leader) to an educational mission sent by the ruler of Egypt, Muḥammad ‘Alī.¹ Al-Ṭahṭāwī, who had been educated at the ancient university of al-Azhar in Cairo and was a protégé of the renowned scholar Ḥasan al-‘Aṭṭār, had shown an aptitude for French, and combined his spiritual duties with studying alongside the...