Egypt moves to renovate tombs of great thinkers

Egypt has unveiled a restored tomb of a 19th century Syrian reformist, signaling the first step in a government plan to renovate graves of influential thinkers buried in the country.

Egyptian Minister of Culture Helmi Al Namnam this week led a group of intellectuals at a ceremony marking the renovation of a tomb of Abdul Rahman Al Kawakibi, a pre-eminent writer and reformist who died and was buried in Cairo in 1902. They included a granddaughter of Al Kawakibi.

The tomb in the southern Cairo area of Al Ghafeer went in decline in recent years, prompting a plea from Al Kawakibi’s family to Egyptian authorities to salvage the site.

In response, the governmental Urban Landscape Agency started a renovation operation on the tomb in June this year at an estimated cost of 143,000 Egyptian pounds (Dh 29,000).

“Today, we are standing in a place appropriate for the history of Al Kawakibi, who was a poet, a historian and one of the famous Arab writers who struggled against despotism,” Minister Al Namnam told the ceremony.

“This is the beginning of a series of restoration works aimed at preserving the heritage and history of our scholars,” he added.

Born in the Syrian city of Aleppo in 1855, Al Kawakibi launched a career as a journalist in the city, but a newspaper he co-founded there was soon closed by local authorities because of his critical views.

He was later arrested purportedly for setting up a clandestine group seeking to overthrow the regime.

After his release, he left the city and travelled through the Arab world. In 1899, he arrived in Egypt where he mingled with leading reformists of the time.

Al Kawakibi, an Islamic revivalist, endeavoured to spread enlightenment by setting up reformist clubs where he urged Muslims to get rid of superstitions and unify against the then dominating Ottoman Empire.

He also wrote several books in Arabic, including his celebrated one “Characteristics of Despotism”, a set of articles first published in the Cairo newspaper of Al Muayed.

He died in June 1902 allegedly after unknown Ottoman agents laced his coffee with poison at a Cairo café.

In a gesture of reverence to Al Kawakibi, a major mosque in the Cairo upmarket quarter of Agouza is named after him.

Al Kawakibi is seen as nurturing reformist ideas that thrived in the Arab world in the early 20th century.