Remembering Taha Hussein: 'The Dean of Arabic literature', one of Egypt's most esteemed writers and intellectuals

According to most accounts, Taha Hussein, one of Egypt's most esteemed writers and intellectuals and a giant in modern Arabic literature, was born on 14 November, 1889, in the Upper Egyptian village of Izbet Al-Kilo in the Minya governorate. He had humble beginnings hailing from a large lower middle-class family of 13 children, in which he was the seventh child...
In 1926, his most controversial book was published, entitled Pre-Islamic Poetry. The book was banned and later revised, having been deemed by religious authorities as being blasphemous over its questioning of the Quran's traditional interpretation and the authenticity of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, insinuating Arab historians and linguists of faking or accepting fake history of pre-Islamic Arabic tribes. This serious charge would see his later position as dean of the faculty of arts terminated in 1932, only for him to be reappointed where he would thereafter always formally be known as "the Dean".

[middleeastmonitor.com]