Rifaa Al-Tahtawi

In the last year of the eighteenth century, the French expedition came to Egypt, bringing to it everything new in the West, and it was a violent shock that woke up the sleeping city. Since this year, Egypt has begun to communicate with the West. Muhammad Ali has believed since he assumed the throne of Egypt that the secret of the West's greatness and progress is this new science. That is why he made every effort to transfer this science to Egypt and the Egyptians. He established schools, summoned European professors, sent envoys abroad, and began the broad translation movement to transfer European sciences into the Arabic language.
Rifa'a Rafi' al-Tahtawi is the most brilliant Egyptian who was sent to Europe. After his return, he made commendable efforts in Egypt's cultural life. Which makes him truly a leader of our intellectual renaissance in that era.
Rifa'a's life suggests to us many things that we must take into consideration as we continue our cultural renaissance: the first and most important of which is that we must not teach our youth one of the two cultures - Eastern and Western - without the other, but rather we must teach them both cultures together. Secondly: We must double our attention to translation and publishing and not limit our attention to writing alone.