Amin was born in
Egypt in 1935, the son of judge and academic
Ahmad Amin.
Hussein Ahmad Amin, an Egyptian writer and diplomat, was his brother. Amin studied at
Cairo University, graduating with an
LL.B. in 1955 before studying for diplomas in
economics and
public law. After receiving a government grant to study in Britain, Amin obtained an M.S. (1961) and a Ph.D. (1964) in economics from
London School of Economics. From 1964 to 1974, he taught economics at
Ain Shams University, and worked as an economic advisor for the
Kuwait Fund for Economic Development from 1969 to 1974. After a year's teaching at
UCLA in 1978–1979, Amin joined the faculty of
the American University in Cairo. Historian
Albert Hourani describes Amin's writing as "forceful," particularly his argument in
Mihnat al-iqtisad wa’l-thaqafa fi Misr (The Plight of the Economy and Culture in Egypt), among his better known books, which:"...tried to trace the connections between the
infitah and a crisis of culture. The Egyptian and other Arab peoples had lost confidence in themselves...the
infitah, and indeed the whole movement of events since the
Egyptian revolution of 1952, had rested on an unsound basis: the false values of a consumer society in economic life, the domination of a ruling élite instead of genuine patriotic loyalty. Egyptians were importing whatever foreigners persuaded them that they should want, and this made for a permanent dependence. To be healthy, their political and economic life should be derived from their own moral values, which themselves could have no basis except in religion."Amin died on 25 September 2018. ==Published works==