Mahmoud Hafith

Dr. Mahmoud Mukhtar said about him on the day of his reception (March 21, 1977 AD): "A bright figure who carried the torch of knowledge and education for a long time with faithfulness and adequacy, and was encrusted with pearls of the true religion and the blessed Arabic language." (Complex Journal C 39).

Mahmoud Hafeth was appointed as an undersecretary for the Supreme Council for Scientific Research, as an undersecretary for the Ministry of Scientific Research in 1968, after which he returned as head of the entomology department until 1972, then he became a full-time professor at the college. And he was chosen as an expert in the Academic of sciences in the committee of biology and agricultural sciences, then he was chosen as a member of the Academic of sciences in the year 1977 AD, in the place vacated by the death of Dr. Murad Kamel, then vice president of the Academic of sciences in 1996 AD until 2005 AD, then the president of the Academic of sciences from 2005 AD.

Mahmoud Hafeth's involvement in the Arabic Language Academy goes back to 1956, when he was cooperating with Nazir Bey, a member of the Academy, in translating some terms into Arabic. Then he was chosen as an expert in the complex in 1964. Hafeth participated in many council committees before he was unanimously elected vice president of the council in 1996, and then he succeeded Shawqi Deif in chairing the council in 2005 after his unanimous election as well. This unanimity did not happen in the history of the council. Thus, Hafeth became the first scholar in the history of the complex to occupy the chair of the presidency in it.

Mahmoud Hafez began his education at Farskour kuttab, where he memorized the Qur’an. However, he left the school and moved to Cairo to complete his education at the Saeidia High School, based on his mother's desire. Then he graduated from the Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Fouad I University at the time, in 1935 and was appointed as a lecturer there, where he obtained a master's degree in 1938. Then a doctorate degree in entomology in 1940, and he was the first Egyptian to obtain this degree. He continued his pioneering research at the University of London and the University of Cambridge in England in 1953, where he was appointed as a Chair Professor of the Department of Entomology at the University, and when he returned to Cairo, he was appointed as Vice Dean of the Faculty of Science in 1964.

Mahmoud Hafeth (Arabic: محمود حافظ; January 10, 1912 – December 23, 2011) was a pioneering Egyptian scientist in entomology and former president of the Egyptian Scientific Academy and the Arabic Language Academy in Cairo. He is the first Egyptian to obtain a doctorate in entomology, and the second Egyptian to combine the presidency of the Arabic Language Academy and the Academic of sciences, after the Dean of Arabic Literature, Taha Hussein. He died one week after the Academic of sciences fire, following protests in Cairo.

Mahmoud Hafez was born on January 10, 1912, to a family with a long history in the struggle against British colonialism. His father established what was known as the "Kingdom of Faraskour", which was formed in Damietta to expel the English, and he was forced to sell all his possessions to spend on national work, until the Egyptian leader Saad Zaghloul paid 50 pounds to help his son complete his education.