High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Taha Hussein was one of the most influential Egyptian writers and intellectuals. He was a figurehead for the modernist movement in Egypt.Taha Hussein was born on November 14, 1889 in the village of Izbet el Kilo in Minya Governorate in central Upper Egypt. He contracted an eye infection as a child, and faulty treatment rendered him blind at the age of six. He went to a kottab, and then was sent to Al-Azhar University, where he was educated in religion and Arabic literature. From his childhood days he was reluctant to engrave the traditional education in his heart.