Background
Ahmad Amin was born on October 1, 1886, in Cairo, Egypt.
Al Mokhaym Al Daem, Egypt
Al-Azhar University where Ahmad Amin studied.
1 Gamaa Street, Giza 12613, Egypt
Cairo University where Ahmad Amin studied.
educator historian philosopher writer
Ahmad Amin was born on October 1, 1886, in Cairo, Egypt.
Ahmad Amin studied in a modern elementary school for four years before his father transferred him to study classical Islamic disciplines at Al-Azhar University. Amin left Al-Azhar University in 1904. In 1907 it was decided to open the school of Islamic jurisprudence, where he was accepted after some difficulties as a result of his short sight. He studied Islamic sciences such as Elocution, Literature, History, and Fiqh (Islamic law) in addition to modern sciences such as Geography, Science, arithmetic and Geometry. After four years he graduated from the high-level department.
Ahmad Amin started his career as a teacher at Sharia Judicial School in 1911. He held this post until 1921 and then became a judge at Sharia courts of Egypt. In 1926, Amin took up a post of a professor at Cairo University where he worked until 1946. He gave lectures on Egyptian literary history. At that time, he also worked as Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Cairo University from 1939 to 1942. In 1947, he became Director of the Cultural Bureau at the League of Arab States and worked there until 1952.
Ahmad Amin wrote history of Islamic culture, in three volumes that were published between 1928 and 1953. He also wrote an autobiography in 1950 that was translated into English in 1970. Amin is the author of the dictionary of Egyptian folklore.
Despite his traditional training, Amin was an open-minded thinker and recognized the usefulness of Western methodology. His aim was the revival of the Islamic cultural heritage as a means to the intellectual and moral renewal of all ArabIslamic peoples. He held advanced social ideas and was aware of the necessity to relate religious prescriptions to changing situations. Amin espoused Mutazilite rationalism and logic, preferring Mutazilites to philosophers because of their emphasis on faith. He acknowledged that a modernist awakening must be grounded on intellect and human free will, without immoderate resort to divine predestination. Amin’s thought has exerted a powerful influence on Arab intellectuals.