List of Cairo University Alumni - 1950s

1950s

• Poet Muhammad al-Fayturi was born in Al-Janina, Sudan. He spent his childhood in Alexandria, Egypt. He studied Islamic sciences, philosophy and history at Al-Azhar University in Cairo until 1953. That year, he published his first book of poems, "Songs of Africa." He then attended Cairo University for two years. His other poetry collections include Sunrise and Moonset and Lover from Africa. His work deals with issues of race, class and colonialism and is influenced by Sufi philosophy.

• Latifa al-Zayyat (1923–1996) was an Egyptian artist and intellectual. She was born in Dumyat and earned her Ph.D. in English literature from Cairo University in 1957. She was head of the English department there from 1976-1983. Her first novel, Al-Bab al-Maftooh (The Open Door) was published in 1960. Later in life she founded and led the Committee for the Defense of National Culture, which spearheaded efforts against the normalization of cultural relations with Israel.

• Yasser Arafat was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) (1969–2004), President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) (1993–2004); and a co-recipient of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize alongside Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, for the successful negotiations of the 1993 Oslo Accords. He graduated from the King Fuad Cairo University Faculty of Engineering in 1956. While there, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood and served as president of the Union of Palestinian Students from 1952 to 1956.

• Albert Arie (aka Mohsen Allam) is an Egyptian Jew born in Cairo who converted to Islam. He earned his degree from the Faculty of Law of Cairo University in 1950. He was a Wafdist and devoted socialist. He is a historian of Jewish culture in Egypt.

• Yusuf Idris the Physician and writer.

• A. H. Kafrawy, BDS, MSD - Professor Emeritus, Indiana University Kafrawy taught at Indiana University School of Dentistry for over 30 years. He earned his BDS from Cairo University in 1958 and later attended medical school there before earning his MSD in Oral Diagnosis/Oral Medicine from Indiana University School of Dentistry in 1962. He is a Faculty Member of Omicron Kappa Upsilon. He received the Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching from the Indiana Dental Association in 2000.

• Amr Moussa is the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States. He graduated from the Cairo University Faculty of Law in 1957.

• Magdi Yacoub is a Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Imperial College London. He was involved in the first UK heart transplant in 1980, carried out the first UK live lobe lung transplant and went on to perform more transplants than any other surgeon in the world. Mr. Yacoub graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at Cairo University in 1957.