Scholar who fought for freedom

Ahmad Lutfi Al Sayyed awakened the minds of Egyptians like few politicians did.

During their long occupation of Egypt, the British discriminated against everyone but succeeded to divide and rule, as occupiers usually excel at.

In 1907, Copts and Muslims clashed after the Al Watani movement promoted strict Islamic policies, which mobilised many moderate Muslims and Christians to form the Ummah movement as a nationalist complement without jingoistic features. The latter's goal was to promote national unity to seek independence and was co-founded by a remarkable man, Ahmad Lutfi Al Sayyed, with an inimitable slogan: "Egypt for the Egyptians."

It was Ummah that defined this identity, as separate from the Ottoman character, which dominated much of the Arab world at the time and which had reached a putrid level after six centuries of brutal rule. Egyptian intellectuals rushed to define themselves. Most rejected inter-religious disputes, correctly perceiving these attempts as foreign manipulation to further separate the sons of the nation. Though a devout Muslim, Lutfi Al Sayyed rushed to support the Copts because he maintained that all Egyptians - Christians and Muslims - loved their nation equally and that no one in his right mind who knew anything about the country's distinguished history could claim otherwise. In the event, Egypt's philosopher was not always successful in his endeavours but brilliantly succeeded in awakening the hearts and minds of his brethren.

He served in various capacities, including rector of the Cairo University, but was most at ease as head of the Academy of the Arabic Language, where he devoted much of his life to identifying and coining Arabic words for new philosophical concepts. A son of privilege, Lutfi Al Sayyed realised that knowledge was power and, in the words of the late Professor Majid Khadouri, "tried to fulfil one of the fundamental purposes of his life - to render into the Arabic language the achievements of Western thought".

When Lutfi Al Sayyed entered public life at the end of the 19th century, Egypt had climbed on the modernisation bandwagon although it was politically strangulated by British occupation that supplanted the withering Ottoman administration. Coptic-Muslim relations suffered under the combined strain of British rule and pro-Islamic Khedivial policies, which were evident to an intellectual mind, though few espoused Lutfi Al Sayyed's desire to introduce permanent changes to what could best be described as benign neglect.

As tensions rose, especially after the 1911 assassination of Boutros Ghali - then prime minister (1908-1910) and grandfather of future United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali (1992-1997) - several Muslim leaders emerged to reject the inclusion of confessional representations in government. Sa'ad Zaghloul, Qasim Ameen and Lutfi Al Sayyed - influenced by Jamal Al Din Al Afghani and Mohammad Abdo - declared that Copts had the same rights and obligations as Muslims and cautioned their community to be wary of British intrigues to divide and conquer.

As a nationalist who opposed all forms of occupation, Lutfi Al Sayyed joined the group because he feared the Khedive's authoritarianism, which was certainly a novel approach for the time and the environment. Like Abdo, he was a man of peaceful convictions, not violence, and discouraged any attacks on British officials.

He befriended the British ruler of Egypt, Lord Cromer, and other senior British officials not because of any sense of inferiority but only to maintain open channels of communication. In fact, an argument can be made that Lutfi Al Sayyed saw his primary role as that of an educator, to gradually prepare Egyptians to learn how best to assume responsibility and to acculturate occupiers on the futility of their enterprise. He further reasoned that once occupation ended and Egyptians were emancipated from one type of subjugation, it was essential that they should be ready not to fall into another state of lethargy or into a form of slavish submission to authoritarianism that collective ignorance would certainly guarantee.

In the event, Lutfi Al Sayyed's temperament was ill-suited for political plots, backroom deals and other shenanigans. He was far more at ease with literature and philosophy, studying the works of Auguste Comte, John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. Still, and perhaps dutifully, he served in government posts for two years after graduating from law school and practised law for a year before throwing the gauntlet. Bureaucratic abuses never amused Lutfi Al Sayyed as he sharpened his philosophical outlook.

Lutfi Al Sayyed was fortunate to attend public school early in his life, even though his father's position allowed him to frequent the best private institutions in Egypt or even enjoy the fruits of Western education in Europe. That unique experience for a son of privilege illuminated the young man to the many shortcomings around him, as he set out to correct perceived wrongs by encouraging the formulation and implementation of different ideas. He quickly concluded that an individual fulfils his potential when he is free from tyranny and oppression and worked tirelessly to see that his countrymen, too, became free in the full sense of the word. This singular obsession with individual freedom meant that his views would stand out - even from those of his closest friends who championed independence - and, to accomplish his goal, Lutfi Al Sayyed proposed that a "ruler's powers must be restricted by constitutional guarantees".

The very idea of a people sharing authority with their ruler, which would require the adoption of a written constitution and the creation of "a parliamentary form of government" with independent political parties, meant that ordinary Egyptians would be "heard". Naturally, an elite was necessary to fulfil these goals but Lutfi Al Sayyed insisted that "democracy was the best form of government that man had yet developed to guarantee individual freedom" and, moreover, Egyptians were certainly worthy of such representation.

Of course, these calls for democracy and liberty were influenced by Lutfi Al Sayyed's exposure to Western liberalism, where several societies rose against authoritarianism and oppression over the course of two centuries mired in warfare. To avoid similar bloodshed, Lutfi Al Sayyed concluded that parliamentary democracy, rather than popular democracy, was best suited for his country, "presided over by an enlightened elite imbued by patriotism and such ideas as progress and welfare and morality".

Because Lutfi Al Sayyed devoted most of his life to the Academy of the Arabic Language, which he promoted to translate critical Western studies, he befriended leading philosophers whose knowledge of Western thought was stellar.

He was, for example, a close friend of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit priest who trained as a palaeontologist and questioned the very concept of original sin, for which the Frenchman earned a Vatican reprimand in 1962. Beyond the friendship, however, Lutfi Al Sayyed understood "the extent to which Europe had outdistanced his country in culture".

In the words of Professor Khadouri, Lutfi Al Sayyed consequently "admonished his countrymen to first learn what Europe had achieved during the past few centuries before embarking on creative work". Towards that end, he encouraged the translation of European writers, especially Greek philosophers, who created the systematic study of critical thinking. Of course, he himself devoted years to translating Aristotle into Arabic and though the Greek philosopher was well known throughout the Muslim world, much of the ancient translations and commentaries were lost by the turn of the 19th century.

Lutfi Al Sayyed concluded that it was essential for Egyptians to reacquaint themselves with Aristotle, whose ideas about authority and freedom were legendary. Over a period of two decades, Lutfi Al Sayyed published highly readable translations of Aristotle's Ethics (1924), On the Universe (1932), On Generation and Destruction (1932), On Nature (1935) and ending with Politics (1940), the First Master's most creative opus.

Though these books were translated from French, since Lutfi Al Sayyed did not known enough Greek to undertake a direct rendition, his Arabic style was so fluid that critics raved about his prose. Several of his disciples learnt fluent Greek and followed in his footsteps.

Lutfi Al Sayyed realised that individual freedom was a rare commodity but "he saw it as a requisite for a responsible citizenry", especially if Egyptians wanted to end occupation and govern themselves independently. Unlike several of his associates, he actually believed that his countrymen were capable of great accomplishments but lamented their limited devotion to learning.

To redress what he perceived as a grave shortcoming, Lutfi Al Sayyed adopted a simple slogan: "All we need is to go on learning," he was fond of saying, because "the biggest enemies of progress are despair and lethargy".

His view of the nation differed sharply from the Islamic or even the ecumenical varieties, then promoted by Mustafa Kamil and other nationalists, as Lutfi Al Sayyed focused on territoriality. Islamic rule, the philosopher reasoned, was but one chapter in Egyptian history, whereas the lives of its citizens encompassed many more features, including territorial rights, social and economic conditions and historical precedents.

While he and most Egyptians were deeply religious, Lutfi Al Sayyed firmly believed that religion should be a matter of individual conscience, to avoid stagnation and an intrinsic hindrance, perhaps even an inability, to successfully deal with changing circumstances.

It was a creative rationale for a master Egyptian philosopher, guided by a deep love for knowledge. Collective erudition, he reasoned, would fuel the engine of an established but proud nation, negotiating a disruptive moment.

Dr Joseph A. Kéchichian is an author, most recently of Faysal: Saudi Arabia's King for All Seasons, Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2008.

Published on the second Friday of each month, this article is part of a series on Arab leaders who greatly influenced political affairs in the Middle East.

Biography

Ahmad Lutfi Al Sayyed was born on January 15, 1872, into an aristocratic Egyptian family in the village of Birqin, near the city of Sinbalawin, in Dakahlia Governorate (Delta region). His father was an 'umda' (village headman) and relatively wealthy, and his affluence relieved Lutfi Al Sayyed from worries about material security - a luxury that allowed him to pursue purely intellectual endeavours.

A precocious child, Lutfi Al Sayyed learnt the Quran by heart by the time he was 10 years old. In 1885, after a short stay at the district primary school, he attended the Khedive School in Cairo, where a classmate, Abdul Aziz Fahmi, became both his friend and future law partner.

He graduated in 1889 and entered the School of Law, where he met several of Egypt's future political leaders, including Mohammad Abdo, who left a profound impact on the young man's reformist views. Lutfi Al Sayyed spent his 1893 summer vacation in Istanbul, where he frequented the house of Jamal Al Din Al Afghani, and witnessed Ottoman excesses, including censorship and police surveillance.

This is where his anti-colonial perceptions sharpened although he preferred Egyptian nationalism to pan-Arab activism, insisting that all Egyptians were entitled to freedom. Upon graduation, he accepted a minor government post for two years and even practised law for another year, both of which disappointed him. Public life and bureaucratic abuses prompted Lutfi Al Sayyed to delve into politics and, in 1896, he formed a secret society with Fahmi to work against British occupation.

In 1907, Lutfi Al Sayyed founded Egypt's first political party, Ummah (Nation), and edited its mouthpiece, 'Al Jarida'. Wartime censorship forced him to retire in 1915 but he was persuaded to serve as director of the Khedive's library, which became the National Library after the war.

An avid reader, Lutfi Al Sayyed embarked on his major translation work at this time, tackling Aristotle's 'Ethics', which saw light in 1924. He returned to politics at the end of the war and, along with Sa'ad Zaghloul, Abdul Aziz Fahmi, Ali Sharawi and Mohammad Mahmoud, formed a "delegation" that eventually became the nucleus of the Wafd Party.

Lutfi Al Sayyed was a member of the Egyptian delegation to the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference, where he pleaded for independence but retired from politics once again because he gave up on London and, equally important, he was disappointed with the ongoing power struggle at home.

As rector of the Cairo University, Lutfi Al Sayyed promoted Egyptian secularism and liberalism, efforts that will earn him the unofficial title of "teacher of an entire generation". When his close friend at the university Taha Hussain was arbitrarily transferred from his post in 1932, Lutfi Al Sayyed resigned his post to protest the government's decision.

Though he returned temporarily, he left the prestigious post in 1937, after largely illiterate policemen broke into university premises. That singular event crystallised, perhaps more than any other, the huge gap that existed between the elite and the masses, which he desperately wished to close.

Though he served as minister of education and interior in several pre-revolutionary Cabinets, Lutfi Al Sayyed turned down Jamal Abdul Nasser's offer to assume the presidency in 1952, preferring to devote his later years to translating philosophical tomes. He married a Circassian lady with whom he fathered a son, Sayyed, and a daughter, who passed away at a young age. Lutfi Al Sayyed passed away in Cairo in 1964.