Ahmad Taymur Pasha
- Died
- 1348 AH
- Born in
- Cairo
Ahmad Taymur Pasha (1288–1348 AH / 1871–1930 CE) was an Egyptian scholar of literature, historian, philologist, and bibliophile, and a member of the Arab Scientific Academy in Damascus .
Lineage and early life
He was Ahmad ibn Ismail ibn Muhammad ibn Ismail ibn Ali Taymur, of Kurdish origin tracing to Mosul . He was born in Cairo on 22 Sha'ban 1288 AH (1871 CE) into a prominent and affluent family . His grandfather, Muhammad Kashif Taymur, had entered Egypt with the Ottoman army, served under Muhammad Ali Pasha, and risen to become governor of the Hijaz before dying in 1262 AH (or 1264 AH according to another report) . His father, Ismail Pasha Taymur, held various administrative directorships and served as head of the Khedivial Diwan before dying in 1289 AH, when Ahmad was only three months old . He was consequently raised by his elder sister, the poet and essayist Aisha Taymur . At birth, he was named Ahmad Tawfiq and called Tawfiq in his childhood, before his family shortened his name to Ahmad, by which and his family name he became widely known .
Education and scholarly pursuits
Ahmad Taymur received his early education under private tutors and studied French at the Kleber School under Monsieur Marcel and Ubayd Bey, later attaining fluency in French as well as Ottoman Turkish and Persian alongside Arabic . He studied the Arabic language, Qur'anic orthography, and recitations under Ridwan Muhammad al-Mukhallalati, logic and other disciplines under Hasan al-Tawil, and advanced philology and classical poetry under the Mauritanian linguist Muhammad Mahmud al-Shinqiti, attending his private sessions on the pre-Islamic odes (al-Mu'allaqat) . He also studied under Muhammad Abduh and other leading Egyptian scholars of his era .
Devoting his wealth and leisure to scholarly research, he built one of the most celebrated private manuscript repositories of his time, known as the Taymuriyya Library (al-Khizana al-Taymuriyya), which contained roughly twenty thousand volumes, including exceptionally rare handwritten codices gathered from across the Islamic world and Europe . He was noted for his generosity in making his manuscripts accessible to visiting researchers and fellow scholars, regularly lending rare works and corresponding extensively with contemporaries such as Muhammad Kurd Ali and Anastase Marie al-Karmali . Among his critical contributions was his treatise Tashih Lisan al-Arab ("Correction of Lisan al-Arab"), in which he systematically identified and emended errors and editorial defects in Ibn Manzur's major lexicon . He also authored Awham Shu'ara' al-Arab fi al-Ma'ani ("Misconceptions of Arab Poets in Meanings"), examining poetic motifs and factual misconceptions in classical verse . He bequeathed his entire collection of manuscripts and books to Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya .
Personal life and death
Taymur married the daughter of Ahmad Pasha Rashid, a former finance minister of Egypt . She died when he was twenty-nine years old, and he chose not to remarry to avoid introducing a stepmother who might mistreat his children, retiring instead into scholarly seclusion among his books . He was deeply affected by successive personal tragedies, including the loss of his sister Aisha and the early death of his son, the writer Muhammad Taymur, who fell ill and died around 1339–1340 AH . The grief precipitated recurrent cardiac episodes that severely undermined his health .
He died in Cairo on 23 Shawwal 1348 AH (1930 CE) . Following his death, a scholarly committee was established to edit and publish his remaining manuscripts and writings .
Answer updated
List of Works
Awham Shuara al-Arab fi al-Maani is a literary critical and philological treatise investigating conceptual misconceptions, poetic errors, and thematic inaccuracies found in classical Arabic poetry.
Tashih Lisan al-Arab is a philological treatise dedicated to identifying and correcting errors, misreadings, and printing lapses in Ibn Manzur's classical Arabic lexicon Lisan al-Arab.
Mujam Taymur al-Kabir fi al-Alfaz al-Ammiya is an extensive Arabic dictionary dedicated to documenting, analyzing, and tracing the origins of colloquial Egyptian vocabulary and expressions.
Nazra Tarikhiyya fi Huduth al-Madhahib al-Fiqhiyya al-Arbaa is a historical treatise examining the formation and geographic spread of the four Sunni legal schools.
al-Sama wa al-Qiyas is a treatise on Arabic linguistics and grammar that investigates the foundational linguistic principles of transmitted usage and analogical reasoning, evaluating how classical grammarians and lexicographers resolved conflicts between established textual attestations and standard morphological rules.