Born in 1801, al-Tahtawï came from a family from Upper Egypt. He began his intellectual career at al-Azhär University when he was sixteen years old. He studied there with Shaykh Hassan al-Attar, one of the first Egyptian scholars to engage the French sciences at Napoleon’s Institut d’Égypte. Nine years later, al-Tahtawï was appointed the imam of the first delegation of students that Muhammad Alï sent to Paris in 1826. Al- Tahtawï stayed there for five years, learning French and the art of transla- tion and, with these skills, delving deeply into ancient history, philosophy, and French literature. Upon returning to Egypt, he published a description of Paris, the celebrated Takhlïs al-ibriz fï talkhïs Bärïz (Refinement of Pure Gold in the Summary of Paris). Soon Muhammad `Alï appointed him the director of the new School of Languages, an institution created to train Egyptian students for new secular professions.

Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Coloni…, loc. 218