Egyptian thinker Hassan Hanafy has passed away on Thursday, October 21, 2021. He was 86. Hanfy is considered one of the most prominent theorists of the Islamic Left and of Occidentalism. The late Hanafy made many intellectual contributions to the development of Arab philosophical thought thanks to his comprehensive philosophical project. Throughout his life, he focused on the renewal of religious heritage, and his philosophical project aimed at transforming it to a popular and political culture.
Hassan Hanafi was born in Cairo in 1935. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts in the Department of Philosophy in 1956, then traveled to France at his own expense, and obtained a doctorate in philosophy from the Sorbonne University, for two theses, which he translated into Arabic and published in 2006 under the title: “The Interpretation of Phenomenology” and “The Phenomenology of Interpretation,” and spent about ten years preparing them.
Hanafy also worked as a scientific advisor at the United Nations University in Tokyo during the period (1985-1987), and was Vice-President of the Arab Philosophical Society, and Secretary-General of the Egyptian Philosophical Society
He headed the Department of Philosophy at the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, and taught in a number of Arab and foreign universities in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Germany, America and Japan
Hanafi was preoccupied with the issue of “Heritage and Renewal”, and he authored many books, including: “Models of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages”, “Introduction to the Science of Occidentalism” and “From Extinction to Survival” among other publications.
Hanafy received several awards in Egypt and abroad, including: the State Appreciation Prize in Social Sciences in 2009, the Nile Prize (Social Sciences Branch) in 2015, as well as the Free Thinker Prize from Poland.
