Suha Kudsieh
Shaykh Muhammad ‘Ayyad al-Tantawi (1810-1861) was born in a village near Tanta in Egypt. Upon graduating from al-Azhar, he joined the ranks of teachers and manuscript-verifiers employed by Muhammad ‘Ali, the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt. In 1840, and at the behest of St. Petersburg University and with the approval of Alexander II, the Tsar of Russia, Muhammad ‘Ali agreed to dispatch the shaykh to St. Petersburg to teach Arabic at the Institute of Oriental Languages, St. Petersburg University. In 1847, al-Tantawi was promoted to the rank of Chair of Arabic Studies. He continued to teach Arabic until he died in St. Petersburg in 1861.
Al-Tantawi wrote an interesting account entitled Tuhfat al-adhkiya’ bi-akhhar bilad al-Rusiya [The Precious Gift of the Sharp-Witted in the News about the Russian Land] based on the first ten years of his stay in Russia. The account provides detailed information about Tsarist Russia, the history of the empire, its culture, and the habits of the people. The account stands out for three reasons. First, al-Tantawi portrays the Russians positively. He does not look down upon their culture or express reservations about their drinking habits or for following a religion that is different from his. Bearing in mind that the Ottomans and the Russians had been engaged in a series of wars since the sixteenth century, the positive portrayal of the Russians in the account is remarkable, particularly when it is compared with the more celebrated account written by Rifa‘a al-Tahtawi about the French (published c. 1834). Second, al-Tantawi’s ability to fully appreciate the cultural differences that existed among the Russian, the Ottomans, and the Egyptians is a testimony that not all Muslim travelers viewed the world through a binary lens (as us/them or Muslims/non-Muslims), as some scholars contend (cf. Bernard Lewis). Unlike al-Tahtawi, who was sometimes wary of the French, al-Tantawi managed to express his insights freely. His role as a teacher of Arabic to foreign students and his long stay in Russia helped him appreciate better the culture of his host country. Third, although Egyptians, and Ottomans by extension, understood that France posed as much threat to their country as Russia did, it seems they considered revolutionary French culture and secularism to be more of a threat than class-based Ottoman and Russian cultures.
Although the account appeared in Print in 1924, it did not receive the scholarly attention it merits especially within Arab circles. In this paper, I will bridge this gap by shedding light on al-Tantawi’s background and his close ties with European Orientalists when he was in Egypt, highlighting how those friendships shaped his Weltanschauung. His exposure to European ideas continued when he moved to St. Petersburg, where he taught German, Finnish, Russian students.
Furthermore, I will examine how al-Tantawi’s account emphasized the similarities between Russia and Egypt’s march towards modernization: Peter the Great (1672-1725) enforced his modern policies in Russia at the beginning of the eighteenth century; and Muhammad ‘Ali (1769-1849), the Viceroy of Egypt, implemented his policies with an iron fist at the beginning of nineteenth century. Both countries in effect “imported” French sciences and modern military tactics, and imposed them on the locals by force. At the same time, the two countries were diligent in censoring the ideologies of the Enlightenment and the theories of the French philosophes. Ironically, these similarities facilitated al-Tantawi’s assimilation into his new home.