INTRODUCTORY 10different system of education which soon produced men destined to occupy
important posts in the government could only lead in the long run to the
weakening of the authority of traditional values. Arab Muslim society ceased
to be the 'closed' culture it had been for so long and western culture and
western languages were to play an ever-increasing role in the cultural make-
up of the Arab world. Moreover, because secular education did not grow by a
process of natural development out of the indigenous traditional system of
al-Azhar, but was rather imposed upon it from above, a dichotomy or polarity
of education ensued with grave psychological consequences still visible even
today.
Among the innovations of Muhammad Ali in the sphere of education there
are two items which deserve to be singled out because of their direct relevance
to this study. These are the use of the Arabic printing press (originally in order
to provide the necessary text books for his new schools) and the establishment
of the Cairo School of Languages (where French, English and Italian were
taught), and the movement of translation to which this school gave rise. At
the beginning of the movement translators were not very well versed in the
subjects they were translating, nor was their command of Arabic very great.
Hence arose the need for editing and correction.^8 The importance of the part
played by these translators, editors and correctors in the development of the
language cannot be exaggerated. It is the translation of scientific works,
together with journalism, that in the course of time helped to rid modern
Arabic prose (and ultimately poetry) of the excessive preoccupation with
badi' and other forms of verbal ingenuity. Under the enlightened direction
of Rifa'a al-Tahtawi, whom Muhammad Ali appointed as director of the
School of Languages in 1836, the School produced a large number of dis-
tinguished translators and writers.
Whatever we may think of his intentions, in encouraging Arabic transla-
tion Muhammad Ah" started a process which, in fact, is still gathering mo-
mentum to this day. In importance and in size the modem Arabic movement
of translation is no less impressive than its famous counterpart in the ninth
century under the Abbasids. Although in the beginning the books translated
were of an almost exclusively technological and military nature, in the course
of time we notice an appreciable increase in the percentage of literary works.
Under Isma'ilthe number of literary and historical books rose to one fourth
of the total works translated, and during the last- two decades of the nine-
teenth century literary works alone formed no less than one third of the total
output of translations.^9 As the century drew to its close the realization of the
vital importance of translation was so keen that some of the best minds in
Egypt and the Lebanon were engaged in it. This marked the beginning of a