‘Return of the Pharaoh’ is the English version of the prison memoir of Zainab al-Ghazali. The book aims to expose to the world the cruelties and savagery she had to suffer at the hands of the Nasir regime. Zainab al-Ghazali was one of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and the founder of the Muslim Ladies Group. While the Brotherhood held a pan-Islamic view and worked towards incorporating Islam as a way of life rather than a religion, the Muslim Ladies Group trained women for the same purpose and also participated in welfare and relief activities. The title of the book is extremely interesting; it reflects the utter contempt the author holds Nasir in, and vice versa. Her hatred is so strong that she calls him a “Pharaoh”, an ancient Egyptian king who declared he was God and persecuted people who believed otherwise. The title is not only attractive and intriguing, but also appropriate, for the book demonstrates many of Nasir’s qualities that bring him on par with Pharaoh himself. For instance, instead of swearing by Allah’s name as most Muslims do, Nasir’s associates swear “by (the might of) Nasir”, as if HE were their god. Nasir also believes in eliminating all opposition just like Pharaoh did. He imprisons, persecutes and eventually kills many Brotherhood members and their sympathizers. Although Muslim by name, Nasir was opposed to all those who carry the message of Islam and seek to establish it in their lives. The title could not be more appropriate, as the reader gradually finds out. The book begins with an attempt on Zainab’s life, presumably by Nasir’s forces. Later, the Muslim Ladies Group is banned when Zainab refuses Nasir’s offer to join the Socialist Union. She then engages in secret meetings with Muslims in h... ... middle of paper ... ...ure. Zainab’s undying courage in the face of innumerable dreadful experiences in the prison serves to prove the point she makes in the book. Perhaps the main reason I liked this book was the unfaltering courage of the author in the face of such torture as hurts one even to read, let alone have to experience first-hand. Where men give in, this woman perseveres, and, eventually, emerges a stronger person, if that is even possible. The book’s main appeal is emotional, although sound logical arguments are also used. This book is also interesting as it shows us another face of Nasir – the so-called “champion of Arab nationalism” – who is also the enemy of pan-Islamism. The book is also proof of history repeating itself in modern-day Egypt. Works Cited Al Ghazali, Zainab. Return of the Pharaoh: Memoir in Nasir’s Prison. The Islamic Foundation, 2006. Pp. vii, 188.
Assmann, Jan. The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs.
Critics have already begun a heated debate over the success of the book that has addressed both its strengths and weaknesses. The debate may rage for a few years but it will eventually fizzle out as the success of the novel sustains. The characters, plot, emotional appeal, and easily relatable situations are too strong for this book to crumble. The internal characteristics have provided a strong base to withstand the petty attacks on underdeveloped metaphors and transparent descriptions. The novel does not need confrontations with the Middle East to remain a staple in modern reading, it can hold its own based on its life lessons that anyone can use.
Joyce, James. “Araby”. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Eds. R.V. Cassill and Richard Bausch. Shorter Sixth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000. 427 - 431.
Joyce, James. “Araby.” The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter Eighth Edition. Eds. Jerome Beaty, Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. New York: W.W.Norton.
First, political Islam has rogue Egypt and held it down, suffocating the country, not allowing it to stand a chance. President Hosni Mubarak was ousted and people thought that Egypt was getting better. It has not been the case. While Zaki lives in faded luxury and chases women, Bothayna endures sexual harassment while working as a shop assistant to provide for her poor family after the death of her father. Meanwhile her boyfriend, Taha, son of the building's janitor, is rejected by the police and decides to join a radical Islamic group. Egypt is heading towards a bottomless abyss. Everything is controlled by the elite. Jobs are no more; it is preserved for the top. This increases the plight of the people and leads them into committing some of the acts seen in Islam as bad or as a taboo. The political elite are crashing its opponents and ensuring that whoever com...
Any study on Modern Egyptian history naturally begins with Nasser, Egypt’s first President after the Free Officers revolution in 1952. Nasser was the foremost proponent of pan-Arabism, an ideology that called for close ties between the Arab states, presumably under the leadership of Egypt, one of the most powerful states in the Middle East at the time. Compared to other states in the Arab World, Nasser’s Egypt was stable, militarily powerful, and independent of foreign influence. From this position of re...
It revolves around the issues of gender oppression, sexual assault, and importance of social status. Alifa Rifaat manages to express her opinions towards these themes by writing about a typical Egyptian marriage. She puts in focus the strong influence that a patriarchal society has. She also manages to prove how important social status is in society. The uses of literally elements such as theme and irony help express this view. It shows that in a typical Egyptian society women are commonly oppressed by all males in society
Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard UP, 1991. Print.
8. Nawal El-Saadawi, "The Hidden Face of Eve, Women in the Arab World," translated and edited by Sherif Hettata, Zed Press, London, 1980, pg.33
Over thousands of years, the ancient Egyptian civilization been closely associated with religion, mythologists have considered itself one of the most important fundamentals of the Egyptian civilization, more than five thousand years, and the pillars of the establishment of the Egyptian state and standardization. However, I was always fascinated about the myths in the middle east, not because I was born in Iraq and grew up in an Assyrian family, it’s because the ancient Egyptians have contributed in adding many civilizational achievements to the world through the knowledge of their agriculture, stability, creating the first major central country in the region, and may be accompanied by the presence of major achievements in various fields in
Throughout “Araby”, the main character experiences a dynamic character shift as he recognizes that his idealized vision of his love, as well as the bazaar Araby, is not as grandiose as he once thought. The main character is infatuated with the sister of his friend Mangan; as “every morning [he] lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door…when she came on the doorstep [his] heart leaped” (Joyce 108). Although the main character had never spoken to her before, “her name was like a summons to all [his] foolish blood” (Joyce 108). In a sense, the image of Mangan’s sister was the light to his fantasy. She seemed to serve as a person who would lift him up out of the darkness of the life that he lived. This infatuation knew no bounds as “her image accompanied [him] even in places the most hostile to romance…her name sprang to [his] lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which [he] did not understand” (Joyce 109). The first encounter the narrator ex...
“The Yacoubian Building” by Alaa al-Aswany is a novel set in a ten-story building located in downtown Cairo around 1934. It revolves amongst the lives of several of the residents in the building who are struggling to survive their everyday life and the corrupted government in Egypt. During the course of the novel, I observed that necessity versus dignity seemed to be one of the most obvious and painful recurring subjects. The inadequacy of the government has altered many of the characters’ interpretations of morality. Despite the many despicable actions and crimes “The Yacoubian Building” depicts, its narrator almost never explicitly judges the novel’s characters. Instead, Al Aswany goes to great length to demonstrate how these characters are all victims of their cruel society. As such, Busayna comes to consent her employer's groping in the backroom because she has a family to support; Abduh’s moral hatred to homosexuality, yet he surrender to Hatim seduction in order to escape poverty. Souad pretends to appreciate sex with her elderly husband Hagg Azzam because he provides for her son from another marriage; Taha’s failure to become a policeman because he is the son of a doorman has ultimately leads him to Islamic extremism and violence.
...ller” not only takes a lot of courage in the Arab society while being a woman, but portrays the mentally strong character, in this case, Firdaus.
Al-wazedi N. - Hearing ‘Subaltern’ voices of resistance in works of Taslima Nasrin and Monica Ali, Ann Arbor International, 2008 Print.
Daniels starts the chapter by stating that men historically have had more advantages than women. Men could be writers without being judged while women were unable to do so due to their lack of education. It is because of this that men could express their opinion while women were kept shut. Literature served as an insight of the culture and society of the time period. In Arab literature specifically, women are often portrayed in the familiar cultural stereotypes. Alifa Rifaat, a Muslim feminist, took a twist on the average Arab literature and she instead wrote stories about what it means to be a woman in an orthodox Muslim society in Egypt. In Rifaat’s book, Distant View of a Minaret, she discusses themes of human rights, sex and gender roles in her stories that would allow the reader to come to their own conclusion about such rights, or lack of, regarding women, hopefully in protest of such. Rifaat’s book contains thirteen short stories in which Muslim women are faced difficulties in their arranged marriages. Throughout her stories it is made clear that in Egypt and other orthodox Muslim societies women have little to no say in economics or major decisions, as well as little to no education. Women are expected to be under the control of their husbands, or their older brother if they are single or widowed. A major theme in all of Rifaat’s short stories is the deprivation of sexual satisfaction and lack of emotional attention many of the women suffer from in their marriages in orthodox Muslim societies. This then leads to a tyranny of masculinity that make women passive and unable to fight back. Not only is it the religious rules that have oppressed women in orthodox Muslim societies but it is also the tradition in such cultures. Such rules and traditions have