Tunisian thinker, academic and historian Hisham Djait died today, Tuesday, at the age of 86. Tunisian President Kais Saied mourned the late thinker, saying that he was “a unique national figure and a distinguished scholarly stature whose memory will remain immortal in the history of the cultural scene in Tunisia and the Arab and Islamic world.”
Jeit (born 1935) is described as a thinker who was and still is loyal to his personality, not affiliated with anyone else, and the historian who dealt with the document without yielding to the stick of power, despite being the son of a family of intellectuals, judges and senior officials from the large bourgeois class in Tunis, as he is the grandson of the Grand Minister Youssef Djait, and the nephew of the scientist and Sheikh Muhammad Abdulaziz Djait.
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Study, pain and social gloryجد
Djait studied at the Sadiq school in Tunis, and about it he said that he was grateful to his father that he did not enter a Francophone school, which made him master the Arabic language, although his father was a modernist inclined to French culture.
Jeit continued his studies in the French capital, Paris, where he spent 8 years before returning to his country to suffer in the atmosphere of “demagogy and dictatorship,” according to his description. Although he did not participate in political life in France, he used to see it as a free country.
Djait says that when he returned to his country, he saw people who were half savages, “I found myself living in a primitive and backward country, and my family turned against itself and its values. My father was a sheikh at Zaytuna University. Zaytuna University was removed at the request of (the Tunisian president at the time) Habib Bourguiba, and my father did not suffer for losing this The scientific edifice, rather, it suffered for its social position, which was canceled, because the sheikhs have become despised, especially since people follow the religion of their kings, “according to his description.
Jeit believes that independence brought about a great social change in Tunisia, as the state became in the hands of those in the old petty bourgeois class, and they succeeded in the national movement, and Zaytuna University was wiped out, and social glory and hegemony became for those who entered the state.
He says, “The new state was authoritarian and fanatic. Bourguiba was influenced by Ibn Khaldun’s theory of Asabiyya, so my family felt despised, and wanted, like many others, to regain something of social existence. Academic certification was the only key to social prosperity.”
critical historian
Hisham Djait was not satisfied with his study of history with what he received at school, but his love for him pushed him to read historians and orientalists with eagerness and vigilance.
The “Al-Masha’” program in the episode (24/1/2019) accompanied Djait, and talked with him about his beginnings with interest in history, until he became one of the thinkers and historians who are referred to as stubbornness.
Jeit began his early research on Africa and the Maghreb, and wrote about Africa in prestigious European magazines, and after that he began to read what historians and orientalists wrote about Islamic history and the history of religions.
Jeait relied on what a writer wrote about Kufa, so he wrote a book called “Kufa”, in which he talked about the Arab tribes and how the first Arab civilization was formed, and he had no positive thoughts about the era of prosperity, Islamic classicism, the Abbasid period, Abbasid opulence and the expansion of the Islamic kingdom. The topics are more than the study of the Abbasid court and similar matters.
Jeit also focused in his subsequent writings on the settlement of Arab tribes and their formation of cities, and the regulations that were imposed in these cities very quickly, and also discussed the time period that spanned 20 years from the life of the Prophet Muhammad – may God bless him and grant him peace – and 10 years after his death, and how the religion was and spread in The Arabian Peninsula after facing stiff opposition, and how it was “restructured”.
What caught Djait’s attention was how the Islamic empire was formed 20 years later, and his interest in this great transformational period.
Jeit explains that what he attracted in the Islamic state and the Umayyad state was the genius of the people, and “I have returned to make comparisons in ancient civilizations because comparisons appeal to me.”
Africa, the Abbasids, and sedition
Djait spoke to “Al-Masha’a” about his project book “Africa”, where he noted that Africans rely on oral sources, not written, but orientalists do not rely on oral sources, and he believes that oral sources are important with subjecting them to criticism to indicate whether they are reasonable or unreasonable.
But the Muslim historians had an objective sense – according to Jeit – and they were seeking to preserve the events that took place and this is the reason for writing for them, and the Abbasids were encouraging bloggers to write Umayyad history, not for political reasons, but because they said that the Arabs have poetry.
As for his book “The Fitna”, it gained wide public circulation, and 8 editions of it were printed, and the reason is that the masses see that they are living in sedition.
He also spoke about his book, “The Prophet’s Biography”, which spanned in 3 parts. The first part deals with revelation in general and the history of comparison between religions, in which he is exposed to the idea of ”occultation” or “littleness” (the moment of receiving revelation), which is the precursor in Mecca, and the relationship of madness to prophecy and psychological stress. As for the second and third parts, they focused on pure history, and studied closely the developments of the Islamic call and what happened precisely by relying on frequent sources.
As for the book “The Messenger in the City”, he describes it as the most difficult book for him in terms of its events, explaining that the difficulty lies “in the dismantling between all the existing forces, why the city received the Prophet, and how the Prophet reached within 10 years the formation of a nation and that Islam spread from the embryo of a state and not A complete state, and how did some spread occur in the life of the Prophet only.” He says that he followed a line explaining this success that might be acceptable, according to his description.
He divided the way Muslims wrote about the Prophet, peace be upon him, into two types: religious or defensive writings against orientalists. To praise. “