التايمز البريطانية تنعى د. عبد الله الطيب

نعت صحيفة التايمز اللندنية العريقة الدكتور العلامة عبد الله الطيب في عدد يوم الثلاثاء الماضي، في زاوية (النعي) وذكرت ملامح من حياة البروف ومجاهداته في سبيل إعلاء راية اللغة العربية والأدب في السودان والوطن العربي، ودوره الهام كعالم متبحر في علوم الأدب والدين على المستويين السوداني والعربي
وهنا نص المادة المنشورة بتاريخ الأول من يوليو

Professor Abdalla El Tayib
Writer and scholar whose vast guide to Arabic poetry related its traditions to those of the West Eloquence and originality were the hallmarks of Professor Abdalla El Tayib. He presented his ideas with a contagious joy and had the power to communicate with people from all walks of life. For 35 years the people of Sudan were inspired by his interpretations of the Koran into colloquial Arabic on the radio. A great deal of his energy was devoted to enhancing the intellectual life of the Arab world and Africa.
He was a scholar of rare distinction in Arabic literature. In 2000 he was awarded the King Faisal Literature Prize for his Murshid: A Guide to the Understanding of Arabic Poetry, produced in four volumes over a period of 35 years and giving an insightful analysis of Arabic poetry from the pre-Islamic period, as well as dealing with its impact on European poets such as Dante, Marvell, Blake and the Romantics.

Abdalla El Tayib had an extensive command of English poetry and even when lecturing in Arabic he would often illustrate a point with a smile and an English quotation. He enjoyed writing for a great range of readers. In the 1950s, while he was writing the first volume of the Murshid, he was also designing the Arabic syllabus for the schools of Sudan.

In Arabic he also published several collections of his own poems, several plays and numerous stories depicting rustic life in the riverine Sudan. In English he produced not only scholarly pieces such as the chapter on pre-Islamic poetry in the Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, but also simplified readers such as Heroes of Arabia and Stories from the Sands of Arabia.

He was born in 1921 at Timairab on the west bank of the Nile in northern Sudan. He was always proud of having been one of the Majaziib of Al-Damer, a centre of traditional learning acknowledged by Burckhardt in his Travels in Nubia published in 1822.

He first arrived in Britain in 1945 on a colonial teachers’ scheme. Less than a year later he met his future wife, Griselda Treadwell, a fellow student at the Institute of Education in London. They were to share more than half a century of artistic and intellectual companionship, both of them relishing the folklore and cultural richness of Sudan.

After his arrival in Britain his potential as a scholar was recognised by Margaret Read. He received his degree at the University of London in 1948 and went on to take his doctorate in Arabic literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies in 1950. In the same year he was appointed to a lectureship at the school.

In 1951 he returned to Sudan to become head of the department of Arabic at the Teachers’ Training Institute of Bakht al-Ruda. Just after the Sudan achieved its independence in 1956, he became Professor of Arabic at the University of Khartoum.

Five years later he was chosen to be dean of the faculty of arts, and in 1974 he became vice-chancellor of the university. In his final years, he was chairman of the University Council.

In 1977 he became Professor Emeritus of Arabic Literature for life at the University of Khartoum, which awarded him an honorary degree in 1981.

As a faithful member of the Council for Higher Education, he played an active part in developing other Sudanese institutions as well. He was the founding Vice-Chancellor of the University of Juba. In recent years, he served as the founding president of the Arab Language Academy, Sudan.

He took a great interest in the development of intellectual life in other countries of the Middle East and Africa as well. In 1961 he was elected a full member of the Arab Academy in Cairo. From 1977 to 1986 in Morocco he held a chair of higher studies at the College of Arts and Humanities of Sidi Muhammad bin Abd Allah University in Fez. Each year after 1986 he returned to Morocco to attend the Durus al-Hassania lectures held during Ramadan at the court of King Hassan II.

In Kano, Nigeria, he founded the Abd Allah Bayero College of Ahmadu Bello University and was its first provost. The college subsequently became Bayero University, which awarded him an honorary degree in 1987. He was also a member of the editorial board of the African Encyclopaedia in Ghana.

He suffered a cranial haemorrhage in 2000 and never regained his power of speech.

He is survived by his wife, Dr Griselda El Tayib, MBE.



Professor Abdalla El Tayib, Arabic scholar, was born on June 2, 1921. He died on June 19, 2003, aged 82.

رحمه الله رحمة واسعة


علم من أعلام بلادي