ABSTRACT
Tantawi Jawhari was born in Kafr Awadallah Hijazi village, southeast of al-Zaqaziq in al-Sharqiya Province, Egypt. After learning the basic tenets of Islam, he began attending al-Azhar in 1877. During the First World War, he was denounced several times for his outspoken anti-colonial stance and his contacts with the Democratic Political Party, a secret society founded by Mustafa Kamil Pasha, one of the figures most strongly opposed to the British occupation of Egypt. One of the main aims in his works was to link Islamic texts and history with ordinary Muslims' social life and thought. He also observed that knowledge of mathematics and the physical/natural sciences is the basis for success in a community, as maths and geometry are useful in the military and agriculture for planting, harvesting, and so on. Of Tantawi Jawhari's works and treatises, some of which have been published in other languages, two earned him Nobel Peace Prize nominations in 1939.
