"When the assailant stuck the knife in the neck of our Nobel Laureate, Naguib Mahfouz," wrote an Egyptian literary critic recently, "it wasn't just an attack on our country's most prominent literary personage, but an assault on Egypt itself."
On October 14, as Mahfouz was leaving his apartment in the Cairo suburb of Agouza for his weekly nadwa, a get-together with friends and admirers at a coffeehouse beside the River Nile, a man came up to him, plunged a knife into his neck, and then sped off in a Mercedes. Mahfouz was rushed to the Police Hospital, fortunately situated just opposite his apartment building, where his life was undoubtedly saved by an immediate emergency operation. He is now recovering, albeit slowly-not surprising when we bear in mind that he is 83 years old and suffers from diabetes. He has, however, not lost his sense of humor: when visited by the Minister of Finance, Mahfouz observed that he had now paid his taxes.
These events underscore not only the threat posed by religious fanaticism to the stability of Egyptian society (and that of several other nations in the Middle East) but also the genuinely dangerous nature of a writing career in that region. Why, one might ask, try to assassinate the Arab world's only Nobel Laureate in Literature, the author whose Trilogy (now available in English) has fascinated so many Western readers? The answer lies with another of his many works, less known in the Western world but a continuing bugbear in the life of its author: Awlad haratina ("Children of our Quarter"), to give its original title, or Children of Gebelawi, the title of the English translation (Washington: Three Continents Press, 1981).
This novel is an allegory in five sections: enveloping all five is
the figure of Gebelawi, a distant and powerful personage who lives in a
big house outside the walls of the "quarter" where the people reside.
The work recounts in succession the careers of five leaders who try to
bring the unruly gangs of the quarter under control: Adham, Jabal,
Rifa'ah, Qasim, and 'Arafah. When we interpret those names slightly
differently - as Adam, Mountain (Moses), Resurrection (Jesus), Apportioner
(Muhammad), and Scientia (Science) - we can follow the readers of al-Ahram, the Cairo daily, who in 1959 realized that Mahfouz is here
offering an allegory of mankind's religious existence in which God and
several Islamic prophets are personified and indeed the modern
confrontation between religion and science is addressed. Even during the
fraught political atmosphere of Nasser's presidency in 1959, when the
role of religion was considerably less prominent than it is today,
Awlad haratina was banned from publication in Egypt. (It was published
in book form in Lebanon in 1967.)
Mahfouz's defense of Rushdie
And thus things remained until 1988, Mahfouz's Nobel Year. Soon
after the announcement of his award in October, news began to spread
about the contents of another novel, Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses.
The newly announced winner of the Nobel Prize was asked what he thought
of the death sentence against Rushdie, and Mahfouz replied that he fully
supported the concept of writers' freedom. The accompanying controversy
now led religious conservatives in Egypt back to Mahfouz's novel of
almost three decades earlier, Awlad haratina. Among other things, it
was suggested that Rushdie would not have considered writing Satanic
Verses if Mahfouz's work had not already appeared.
A popular blind Islamic preacher pronounced a death sentence on
Mahfouz; his name was 'Umar 'Abd al-Rahman. About to be expelled from
Egypt for his advocacy of violence, al-Rahman was admitted to the United
States through a still-unexplained error on the part of the U. S.
Immigration Service and took up residence in Brooklyn. Despite this
death threat in 1988, Mahfouz refused protection and, as long as his
health permitted, used to walk unescorted to central Cairo every day to
read the newspapers in his favorite cafe. The reaction of religious
conservatives to this work of Mahfouz's, the death threat against him,
and his courageous refusal of any kind of protection all led up to that
almost fatal knife-thrust in October.
The Penn connection
My own acquaintance with Mahfouz goes back to 1970 when I was
preparing an anthology of his short stories, later published as God's
World (1973). During the 1970s I sat with him several times to discuss
his output and to give him copies of translations and studies. In 1986 I
was asked to write an article concerning writers from the Arab world who
might merit consideration for the Nobel Prize; it was published in
World Literature Today in March of 1988 and, I am told, was part of
the evidence before the Nobel Committee during its deliberations. The
last time Mahfouz and I met was at the weekly nadwa, the very place he
was going when he was stabbed.
Nor is this Penn's only connection with Mahfouz. Raymond Stock, a
Ph.D. candidate in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, has been designated
by Mahfouz as his authorized biographer and is now in Cairo meeting with
Mahfouz as often as possible (and, via e-mail, serving as my most direct
source of the most up-to-date information).
Repercussions of the attack
Mahfouz's world will now change, of course. Nerve damage may mean
that he will lose the use of his writing hand, but, because of his very
poor eyesight, he has been dictating his contributions to the newspaper
al-Ahram for some time now. This incident, however, has galvanized
Egyptian intellectuals into adopting a far more aggressive stance in
their expressions of opposition to the violent tendencies of certain
segments of the popular Islamic groups in the country.
Perhaps most interesting of all, the literary work at the center of the storm is seeing its profile change, too. At a news conference following the announcement that Mahfouz would recover from his wound, a question was asked concerning the continuing ban on publication of Awlad haratina. The Minister of Information said that he could see no reason for the ban. Since that time, numerous newspapers have published extracts from the book, and al-Ahram has been assigned the rights to publish it complete. The entire work is currently being broadcast in episodes on Cairo radio. Meanwhile, the authorities at al-Azhar, the mosque-university in Cairo and famous seat of Islamic learning, have recommended the publication of the book so that it can be read by all appropriate experts before passing judgment on its contents. All of which sounds like a good idea. . . .
Meanwhile, Naguib Mahfouz, already acknowledged as one of the world's greatest novelists, now earns our unbounded admiration for his immense courage as his country attempts to address the overwhelming social problems with which it is confronted.