Cairo University Historical snapshots Part (2)

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The first Egyptian University's Mansion

The Egyptain University finally came into being and was officially inaugurated on December 21, 1908. A great ceremony was held at the Legislative Council Hall, attended by Khedive Abbas II and foreign heads of state. Study began at the university in the evening of the inauguration day in the form of general lectures to be given in diverse places such as the Legislative Council Hall, High Schools Club and Dar AL-Garida.

The first mansion of the EU was a rented mansion belonging to Greek cigarette mangnate Nestor Gianaclis. (It now houses the administration of the American University in Cairo)

Other EU mansions

Due to the financial difficulties the University faced during World War I, the premises were moved to Mohammed Sedky Palace in Al-Falaky Street and other places.

Egyptian University Missions To Europe:

The Egyptian University clung to its hope in the mission students in Europe. The first concern of the University was to send some of their distinguished students to Europe to obtain their Ph.D. and then come back to teach at the university. The training of professors was seen as so important that the first mission left in September 1908, before the university began classes. The first eleven students were divided between arts and sciences. They got E12 monthly for living expenses and could win a summer travel bonus by doing well. The students were not to marry. Returning with their doctorates, they were to teach for ten years or pay back their scholarships. They could start at E400 a year and could get raises up to E900.

The sending-off of the first mission was almost a national celebration. Delegations of well-wishers saw them off in Cairo, cheered them at train stations en route, and feted them in Alexandria.

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Children missions to Europe

Aside from a handful of eight-to ten-year-old students (Qasim Amin's son was one) on an impractical long-term program which produced no professors, twenty four students went on mission between 1908 and 1925. Twelve went to France, eight to England, three to Germany, and one to Italy. The "Journey in search of knowledge" was a venerable Islamic tradition, but these students headed to Paris and London.

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Professors from Dar al-Ulum and European Professors in the new Egyptian University:

When the university began, not a single Egyptian could meet all its ideal criteria for professors: a doctoral degree, a firm grasp of the latest Western advances in their fields, and ability to teach in Arabic. Pending the return of mission, the university had to make do with interim staff. The private university did borrow staff from the Schools of Law for its criminology, economis, and law programs. Dar al-Ulum and the School for Qadis provided the university, between 1908 and 1925, with at least nine professors, five were teaching at the school of Qadis, and one at the police school. Hefni Nasif, an educator, judge, and man of letters who sat in the university council, taught Arabic literature at the university for a year, and several other Dar al-Ulumis stayed only briefly. But four from Dar al-Ulm also taught at the university for at least five years., long enough to have a real impact: Rafat Ismail in geography and ethnography, Muhammed al-Mahdi in Arabic literature, and Muhammed al-Khudari and Abd al-Wahhab Najjar in Islamic history.
Not all the interim local professors were from Dar al-Ulum, Ahmed Zaki was a Cairo law graduate who had taught himself Islamic history.Jurjji Zaydan (Greek Orthodox editor of al-Hilal) also learned Isalmic historyon his own. he said that:"the true history of the nation is the history of its civilization and culture, not the history of its wars and conquests in the manner of the earlier Arab historians of Islam.
The other source of interim professors was Europe. The European professors fall into two categories: those who lectured in French or English on topics unrelated to the Middle East, and orientalists who lectured in Arabic and Islamic subjects. France, Italy, England, and to a lesser extent Germany, all jockeyed for the influence at the private university.
Percy White is the only individual Englishman who occupied the chair of English literature. He arrived in 1911 and taught into 1920s with a three year interruption during the war.
France and Italy were the two main contenders for cultural influence at the university. With Fuad's friend Victor Emmanuel III on the throne, the university easily secured official Italian support. Italy supplied orientalists because it had no Italian literature course to match those in English and French. Ignazio Guidi, Calo Nallino and David Meloni taught on ancient Near East.
Fuad was an Italophile first, but he also liked the French. France had been influential in Egypt since Napoleon's brief occupation. So, several Frenchmen held the chair of literature in turn. Louis Clement, of the university of Lille, took up the post in 1912 and occupied it into the 1920s. French faculty representation peaked in 1912-1913 when young orientalists Louis Massignon and Gaston Wiet arrived to replace the outsed Italians.

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