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Mahfouz, Naguib
Mahfouz, Naguib (b. 1911). Egyptian author of novels, short stories, and film-scripts. His early works were set in Pharaonic Egypt; then followed novels of social realism, set in Cairo, culminating in the Cairo Trilogy. In 1959, after a long silence, his religious allegory, Awlad Haratina (tr. as Children of Gebelaawi), was serialized in the newspaper Al-Ahram. It caused offence to many readers by its familiar treatment of figures representing Adam, Moses, Jesus, and Muḥammad, and by allowing the death of the old man thought by many to stand for God. Publication in book form has never been permitted in Egypt, but the author has always claimed it to be a deeply religious work. Controversy was revived by the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988 and, in the wake of the fatwā against Salman Rushdie (see SATANIC VERSES), a hostile opinion was expressed in a Kuwaiti newspaper by Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman. Some interpreted this as a fatwā against the author, although the Sheikh himself has vigorously denied it. Mahfouz survived an attempted assassination in Oct. 1994.
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Cite this article
JOHN BOWKER. "Mahfouz, Naguib." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. 1997. Encyclopedia.com. 31 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. JOHN BOWKER. "Mahfouz, Naguib." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. 1997. Encyclopedia.com. (May 31, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O101-MahfouzNaguib.html JOHN BOWKER. "Mahfouz, Naguib." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. 1997. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O101-MahfouzNaguib.html |
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Mahfouz, Naguib
Mahfouz, Naguib (1911– ) Egyptian novelist and short-story writer. He is celebrated mainly for the ‘Cairo Trilogy’ (1956–57) of novels (Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street), which examines the fate of a middle-class family in Cairo between 1917 and the birth of the republic in 1952. His religious allegory Children of Gebelawi (1959) was banned in much of the Arab world. In 1988, Mahfouz became the first writer in Arabic to receive the Nobel Prize in literature.
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Cite this article
"Mahfouz, Naguib." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. 31 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "Mahfouz, Naguib." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. (May 31, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O142-MahfouzNaguib.html "Mahfouz, Naguib." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O142-MahfouzNaguib.html |
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