On the occasion of the centenary of Cairo University, we will elaborate, in this series of articles, on how the idea of creating an Egyptian university was initiated, developed and realized.
Then we will give an overview of the pattern of teaching that was followed during the first decade of its operation and we will amuse on reciting how people like Taha Hussein developed their career under its auspices.
Cairo University started at the beginning of the 20th Century as a non-governmental university. The idea was initiated by the leaders of the national movement. The press had played a vital role to transform the idea into a national project in opposition to the British occupation and to encourage the people to participate in the public offering against the will of the foreign occupation.
In 1900, Georgy Zidan, the founder of Al-Hilal Magazine, wrote an article calling for the creation of a new university with the title “A Faculty in Egypt is our great need” and in 1904, the Egyptian nationalist Mostafa Kamel wrote in the ‘Lewa’a’ newspaper promoting the creation of the “Faculty of the Nation” and urging the people to donate money for this purpose.
In 1905, in the ceremony of the centenary of Mohamed Ali as a ruler, Mostafa Kamel repeated his call for the creation of the University and he proposed for it the name “Mohamed Ali Faculty”.
In 1906, Ahmed Zaghloul (the brother of the leader Saad Zaghloul) presented a request to Lord Cromer (the British Consul) to allow the creation of an Egyptian university. The request was denied by Lord Cromer, an act that highly challenged and motivated the Egyptian people to start the struggle for the realization of their dream.
On September 30, 1906 Mr. Mostafa Al Ghamrawy sent a letter to the chief editor of ‘Al-Moayed’ requesting the support for the idea of the creation of an Egyptian university and donated 500 pounds as an initiative to start the funding.
On October 4, 1906, ‘Al-Moayed’ published an article under the title “Creation of an Egyptian Faculty” declaring that many Egyptian leaders and intellectuals are supporting the idea such as Saad Zaghloul and Kassem Amin as well as many others and that every one of them has already donated 100 pounds for this purpose.
On December 21, 1908, the non-governmental university was inaugurated declaring the triumph of the will of the nation and its ability to realize its objectives. The university continued on its way with financial difficulties until the Government interfered in 1925 converting it into a governmental university and changed its title to “The Egyptian University”. In 1940, the title changed again into “Fouad I University”.
Date: 25-07-2010
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After the Egyptian revolution in 1952, the university changed its name once more to “Cairo University” in 1953.
