He wrote a series of books on the history of the Islamic civilization (1928–1953), a famous autobiography (My Life, 1950), as well as an important dictionary of Egyptian folklore (1953).

He then taught Arabic literature at Cairo University, where he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Arts, until 1946.

Ahmad Amin was one of the most brilliant intellectuals of his time: he was editor of the literary journals Al Risalah (1933) and Al Thaqafa (1939), founder of Ladjnat al-ta'lif wa l-tardjama wa-l-nashr ("Literary Committee of Translation and Publication").

Amin's student Shawqi Daif claimed that the dearth of properly published Egyptian works from the period made such a judgement tenuous, and suggested that he and Amin republish the Egyptian sections in anthologies of poetry from the period.

[2] Amin agreed to write the introduction while Daif wrote the preface,[2] while fellow scholar Ihsan Abbas assisted the team with editing the folios for printing from 1951 until 1952.