By: A. S. Alkoronki

Professor Abdullah Al-Tayeb passed away on the 19^th of June 2003. He was born in 1921 in the village of Al-Timirab, Al-Dammar Locality, where his family and ancestors were famous for their Care for teaching Islamic religious knowledge and Arabic language. Last week his students, people of Arts and Culture commemorated the ninth anniversary of his death.

Here on this site, the well informed writer Muawad Mustafa Rashid, on the 20^th of this June, has written a good topic of Al-Tayeb’s autobiography and prolific writings. So that frees me to write on some other aspects of the famous Professor.

When I joined the University of Khartoum, as a student at the Faculty of Arts, in the early years of the Sixties of Last Century, Professor Al-Tayeb was already the Dean of that Faculty. We had known the man, before seeing him, by his books that were taught at the Elementary Schools, and through his famous programme that was broadcast by Omdurman Radio, in which he used to expound the Surras of the Quran in a simple, digestible Arabic. Till now I remember the crowds of villagers who would surround the only radio in that village to hear that programme. They were attracted by his ability to transfer difficult meanings into simple comprehended ones. His clear, sound voice was another attraction.

With that background I was ecstatic to find myself a proper student to that famous man. I remember, when he used to come to the lecture rooms 102 and 105, there would be no place for you if didn’t come half an hour before he arrived. The benches, the corridors, the passage ways and even the windows would be full of eager students even from other classes and colleges.

He was not an ordinary lecturer: His deep grasp of the study materials, his clear pronunciation, his ability to easily transfer difficult ideas through his loveable change of intonation, his typical ever smiling face, and his dramatic ability to represent different meanings, all which made him an unsurpassed lecturer of his time in his country and the outside Arab and African worlds, like Nigeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen and most other Arab countries where they used to invite him to benefit from his encyclopedic knowledge in Arabic Language and Literature.

Let’s All Ask Allah to Rest His Soul In Peace.