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A review by tawfek
أولاد حارتنا by Naguib Mahfouz
4.0
This is part of a series that protests the banning of books. The series will focus on books that have been banned, burned, or challenged. It will also feature books that discuss the banning and burning of books. In addition, this series will include books about ostracized groups since banned books are frequently written in support of those groups. This series might even include some groups who mistakenly believe they are ostracized.
This is an English Review Of a Novel known as Children of the Alley AKA Children of Gebelawi By Nobel Prize Winning Writer in Literature Naguib Mahfouz.
I am Tawfek, An Egyptian Arabian Atheist (30 Years Muslim prior) Man, i have been reading for the past 8 years, varied reading that are all over the place, i try to follow excellence, and more often than not i find it, and i am overwhelmingly humbled by it each time, I was in a position that allowed me to be a humble student to many great readers, and many new readers alike, we shared experiences, it served me greatly to continue having this much passion for reading today.
I will tell you all a brief story, About the Novel that almost killed its writer, I would have loved to say that this is a special occasion, but sadly it's not, In The Arabian/Muslim world, The Religious medium is more often than not controlled by lazy, Mediocre, Demagogue, religious figures who use their platform to just teach people how to hate, who is going to hell, and sometimes with complete disregard or admonishment or punishment from The ruling Governments, Would tell us who has just forsaken the religion by something they said or wrote or did, and they never really spill the blood (as its called in Islamic term) of anyone but those they perceive as a danger to their dominance of telling people what is the right path to be a good religious man, the right path eventually to heaven the most coveted of all.
This novel is an absolute Beautiful piece of Symbolic Literature, It tells the tales of a few humans, and their journey through life, that's if you don't know the Biblical or Quranic tales of the Three prophets, that have made such huge Impact on history by giving us Three of the most known religions in the world right now, I know Judaism doesn't have a big following now, but in fact we can say that its more Recognized than both Islam and Christianity just for the fact that they both believe in Judaism and they are both building on it, and combined they consist the majority of religious humans on earth.
Naguib Mahfouz retold the tale of religion, of humanity and their history with the Judaic god, and his three prophets, making them all what can roughly be translated from Arabic into "Guardians of the alley", An old occupation where a strong guy would defend his Alley and his people from people who would otherwise harm them, he got protection money from the shops for that job, he was pretty much the law, and while they were not always good people and would become corrupt in real life, Mahfouz gave us three of them who are living genius saints!
He told the tale of Four Prophets, Adam, Moses, Jesus, Muhammed.
But in order to bring them into the mundane modern Alley life of Egypt, he gave them that job, and modernized their methods or biblical abilities, So for Example We see the character that represents Muhammed, Open a Gym, where the youth join and they train, and become stronger and defend the alley with him, Another Example Moses, he gives him another modern? occupation, the question mark because its not really modern, but in the life of the Egyptian Alley it was present, passing magicians if you will for lack of a better word, whose gift is they can make snakes dance, and can get bitten by them but not get poisoned among a myriad of other tricks they are trained to do and capable of doing.
Each of the prophets were pretty much represented as heroes, who has lifted injustices that had befallen their people or followers!
If Mahfouz just retold their tale this way, uptight unimaginative uncultured religious Sheikhs would still have been mad at him, but he actually went as far as making a symbolic character who is Gebelawi, Now you can view Gebelawi as God, he is the one who kicked Adam from the heaven after his sin, and he is the one who kept in touch with Moses, Jesus and Muhammad afterwards, You can do that by all means, if you think God Can be killed, because that's exactly what happened in the novel god got killed by a later character who was a genius alchemic, the genius alchemic was Mahfouz's way to symbolize Science, Gebelawi was Mahfouz's way to symbolize Religion Not God!, he believed that Science will eventually make people not believe in religion, he wasn't killing God, Mahfouz was a religious married man, with loving wife and children, he had a steady job working in a journal all his life, everyone in Egypt knew him at the time, and most of readers of the Arab world, he was our only Nobel prize winner, you want to know where he lives or where he works, or the way he took to his work, it was common knowledge for most people living in the capital, the man went to his work daily for years and years on foot, and that's how he got back too!
Now starts the ugly part, The novel gets released, it makes an uproar because of the religious figures, did they read it? did they get a synopsis of it told to them by some fanatic?
Either way they didn't like what they read/or heard, and First thing that happened was, The Holy Azhar, an institute that is pretty much the equivalent of the Vatican, to Muslims, Banned the novel, What did Mahfouz do? he accepted the ban graciously, and published the novel In Lebanon which was always the one Arab country with the most publishing freedom you can get anywhere around here, The Book remained out of publishing in Egypt the country that Mahfouz won a Nobel prize for, till his Death, by the time, we had the Arab spring revolution, and his Descendants published the novel again in Egypt, allowing people to not buy it sneakily from Lebanon and sneak it into the country anymore, and just go buy it!
But it didn't end With just a ban, The Azhar is Huge, and a lot of people are part of its institutions that teach youth a religious variation of the education system that persists to this day, So another Sheikh allows the spilling of the blood of Naguib Mahfouz, something they can do to this day that gets them zero repercussions from our justice system for some reason!
And they take to spreading rumors too, talking about How Naguib Mahfouz is actually an atheist, and how he said that in an English interview, Excuse the expression which is absolute bullshit, And yeah Being an atheist is enough for one of them to spill your blood if you were famous enough, and is viewed as a dangerous accusation for sure.
People hear these things they don't Necessarily go and try to follow the truth of the matter, No some Fanatics who believe killing someone like that would be a fast way ticket to heaven, would actually go through with it, and attempt to murder that person in cold blood, you are living a miserable life? go ahead kill someone, you will go to heaven and live happily and prosper, free women free of charge too!
So one of these guys attacks Naguib Mahfouz and stabs him in the neck with a knife, while he was out with a friend to attend a weekly seminar that everyone knows where its held and when.
He was moved immediately to a hospital and got saved by the doctors.
A trial was held later, after arduous investigations into all possible terrorist groups that are working within the country, Two guys are sentenced to death, two are sentenced to 20 years in prison, and another two for twenty years in prison with hard labor, among other lighter sentences for the others, 16 guys in total were involved in the trial, only 2 were acquitted. (Forgot to mention this, They asked His would be assassinator did you read the novel? he said no, i heard about it only!)
Naguib isn't the only Writer to suffer from this in our history, there has been those who couldn't be saved and died, Its really sad and heartbreaking for me to think that they are allowed to spill anyone's blood and wouldn't get punished for Incitement to murder.
This review isn't intended as An offense to religion or religious people, In fact even Religious readers admonish what happened to Mahfouz, they abhor terrorism, We might not agree on everything, Specially the root of the problem and how we allow instigating murder to be okay if it was made by a religious figure.
If This review is received well in the goodwill it was intended, i might later in a month or two read a new novel, that was banned or put the life of its Writer in mortal danger, These Stories need to be told, need to be known, need to be studied, in order to reach the glaring solutions, that we all can see.
الرواية رائعة و كعادة نجيب محفوظ روايات أدبية في أبسط صورها السهل الممتنع بكل ما تحمله الكلمة من معاني للأسف محستش انها تستحق 5 نجوم فيه روايات رمزية كثير كانت بأساليب أقوي من كده.
فهمت تقريبًا أغلب رموز الرواية و زعلت جدًا اني مفهمتش أغلب رموز أصحاب النبي عيسي الحقيقة أنا جاهل بقصة عيسي الكاملة زي أغلب المسلمين يعني.
و لذلك قررت ان الكتاب القادم ليا هيتكلم عن قصة المسيح بإستفاضة و يا ريت يكون الكتاب شامل كل معلومة احب اعرفها في القصة العظيمة دي
طبعًا عرفت رمز مريم و رمز مريم المجدلية و رمز زكريا و النجار يوسف.
بس أغلب اصحابه معرفتش اميزهم من بعض مع ان كان فيه جمل واضحة جدًا تعرفك الشخصيات دي كل واحد فيهم بيرمز لمين زي اللي انكره و زي اللي اتبع طريقته و اللي بعد عنها و ما الي ذلك و حسيت بإحباط اني لحد دلوقتي مقرأتش في القصص دي لأني اعرف رموزها لما أقراها و اني اصلًا معرفش قصة عيسي كاملة بكل أحداثها مش القصة المختصرة بتاعت القرآن.
و بعد ما اكتشفت بساطة رمز الجبلاوي احبط جدًا في أغلب الجدل اللي قام حوالين الكتاب ده اصلًا ان نجيب محفوظ قصد الإله مع اني مكنش عندي مانع لانها في الاول و في الآخر رواية
أروع حاجة في الرواية تحويل كل أحداث كتب الأديان الثلاثة للصورة المصرية دي بحواري مصر القديمة و فتواتها حاجة ميعرفش يعملها الا رائد أدب الحارة المصرية بنفسه نجيب محفوظ
مبسوط جدًا اني قرأت أخيرًا العمل الرائع دي و راضي جدًا ان دي تكون رحلتي مع نجيب السنة دي في الغالب مش هقراله تاني الا السنة الجاية و اتمني تكون الحرافيش عشان ابقي خلصت من اكبر روايتين كبار للكاتب و يتبقي الثلاثية كمشروع قراءة كامل <3
This is an English Review Of a Novel known as Children of the Alley AKA Children of Gebelawi By Nobel Prize Winning Writer in Literature Naguib Mahfouz.
I am Tawfek, An Egyptian Arabian Atheist (30 Years Muslim prior) Man, i have been reading for the past 8 years, varied reading that are all over the place, i try to follow excellence, and more often than not i find it, and i am overwhelmingly humbled by it each time, I was in a position that allowed me to be a humble student to many great readers, and many new readers alike, we shared experiences, it served me greatly to continue having this much passion for reading today.
I will tell you all a brief story, About the Novel that almost killed its writer, I would have loved to say that this is a special occasion, but sadly it's not, In The Arabian/Muslim world, The Religious medium is more often than not controlled by lazy, Mediocre, Demagogue, religious figures who use their platform to just teach people how to hate, who is going to hell, and sometimes with complete disregard or admonishment or punishment from The ruling Governments, Would tell us who has just forsaken the religion by something they said or wrote or did, and they never really spill the blood (as its called in Islamic term) of anyone but those they perceive as a danger to their dominance of telling people what is the right path to be a good religious man, the right path eventually to heaven the most coveted of all.
This novel is an absolute Beautiful piece of Symbolic Literature, It tells the tales of a few humans, and their journey through life, that's if you don't know the Biblical or Quranic tales of the Three prophets, that have made such huge Impact on history by giving us Three of the most known religions in the world right now, I know Judaism doesn't have a big following now, but in fact we can say that its more Recognized than both Islam and Christianity just for the fact that they both believe in Judaism and they are both building on it, and combined they consist the majority of religious humans on earth.
Naguib Mahfouz retold the tale of religion, of humanity and their history with the Judaic god, and his three prophets, making them all what can roughly be translated from Arabic into "Guardians of the alley", An old occupation where a strong guy would defend his Alley and his people from people who would otherwise harm them, he got protection money from the shops for that job, he was pretty much the law, and while they were not always good people and would become corrupt in real life, Mahfouz gave us three of them who are living genius saints!
He told the tale of Four Prophets, Adam, Moses, Jesus, Muhammed.
But in order to bring them into the mundane modern Alley life of Egypt, he gave them that job, and modernized their methods or biblical abilities, So for Example We see the character that represents Muhammed, Open a Gym, where the youth join and they train, and become stronger and defend the alley with him, Another Example Moses, he gives him another modern? occupation, the question mark because its not really modern, but in the life of the Egyptian Alley it was present, passing magicians if you will for lack of a better word, whose gift is they can make snakes dance, and can get bitten by them but not get poisoned among a myriad of other tricks they are trained to do and capable of doing.
Each of the prophets were pretty much represented as heroes, who has lifted injustices that had befallen their people or followers!
If Mahfouz just retold their tale this way, uptight unimaginative uncultured religious Sheikhs would still have been mad at him, but he actually went as far as making a symbolic character who is Gebelawi, Now you can view Gebelawi as God, he is the one who kicked Adam from the heaven after his sin, and he is the one who kept in touch with Moses, Jesus and Muhammad afterwards, You can do that by all means, if you think God Can be killed, because that's exactly what happened in the novel god got killed by a later character who was a genius alchemic, the genius alchemic was Mahfouz's way to symbolize Science, Gebelawi was Mahfouz's way to symbolize Religion Not God!, he believed that Science will eventually make people not believe in religion, he wasn't killing God, Mahfouz was a religious married man, with loving wife and children, he had a steady job working in a journal all his life, everyone in Egypt knew him at the time, and most of readers of the Arab world, he was our only Nobel prize winner, you want to know where he lives or where he works, or the way he took to his work, it was common knowledge for most people living in the capital, the man went to his work daily for years and years on foot, and that's how he got back too!
Now starts the ugly part, The novel gets released, it makes an uproar because of the religious figures, did they read it? did they get a synopsis of it told to them by some fanatic?
Either way they didn't like what they read/or heard, and First thing that happened was, The Holy Azhar, an institute that is pretty much the equivalent of the Vatican, to Muslims, Banned the novel, What did Mahfouz do? he accepted the ban graciously, and published the novel In Lebanon which was always the one Arab country with the most publishing freedom you can get anywhere around here, The Book remained out of publishing in Egypt the country that Mahfouz won a Nobel prize for, till his Death, by the time, we had the Arab spring revolution, and his Descendants published the novel again in Egypt, allowing people to not buy it sneakily from Lebanon and sneak it into the country anymore, and just go buy it!
But it didn't end With just a ban, The Azhar is Huge, and a lot of people are part of its institutions that teach youth a religious variation of the education system that persists to this day, So another Sheikh allows the spilling of the blood of Naguib Mahfouz, something they can do to this day that gets them zero repercussions from our justice system for some reason!
And they take to spreading rumors too, talking about How Naguib Mahfouz is actually an atheist, and how he said that in an English interview, Excuse the expression which is absolute bullshit, And yeah Being an atheist is enough for one of them to spill your blood if you were famous enough, and is viewed as a dangerous accusation for sure.
People hear these things they don't Necessarily go and try to follow the truth of the matter, No some Fanatics who believe killing someone like that would be a fast way ticket to heaven, would actually go through with it, and attempt to murder that person in cold blood, you are living a miserable life? go ahead kill someone, you will go to heaven and live happily and prosper, free women free of charge too!
So one of these guys attacks Naguib Mahfouz and stabs him in the neck with a knife, while he was out with a friend to attend a weekly seminar that everyone knows where its held and when.
He was moved immediately to a hospital and got saved by the doctors.
A trial was held later, after arduous investigations into all possible terrorist groups that are working within the country, Two guys are sentenced to death, two are sentenced to 20 years in prison, and another two for twenty years in prison with hard labor, among other lighter sentences for the others, 16 guys in total were involved in the trial, only 2 were acquitted. (Forgot to mention this, They asked His would be assassinator did you read the novel? he said no, i heard about it only!)
Naguib isn't the only Writer to suffer from this in our history, there has been those who couldn't be saved and died, Its really sad and heartbreaking for me to think that they are allowed to spill anyone's blood and wouldn't get punished for Incitement to murder.
This review isn't intended as An offense to religion or religious people, In fact even Religious readers admonish what happened to Mahfouz, they abhor terrorism, We might not agree on everything, Specially the root of the problem and how we allow instigating murder to be okay if it was made by a religious figure.
If This review is received well in the goodwill it was intended, i might later in a month or two read a new novel, that was banned or put the life of its Writer in mortal danger, These Stories need to be told, need to be known, need to be studied, in order to reach the glaring solutions, that we all can see.
الرواية رائعة و كعادة نجيب محفوظ روايات أدبية في أبسط صورها السهل الممتنع بكل ما تحمله الكلمة من معاني للأسف محستش انها تستحق 5 نجوم فيه روايات رمزية كثير كانت بأساليب أقوي من كده.
فهمت تقريبًا أغلب رموز الرواية و زعلت جدًا اني مفهمتش أغلب رموز أصحاب النبي عيسي الحقيقة أنا جاهل بقصة عيسي الكاملة زي أغلب المسلمين يعني.
و لذلك قررت ان الكتاب القادم ليا هيتكلم عن قصة المسيح بإستفاضة و يا ريت يكون الكتاب شامل كل معلومة احب اعرفها في القصة العظيمة دي
طبعًا عرفت رمز مريم و رمز مريم المجدلية و رمز زكريا و النجار يوسف.
بس أغلب اصحابه معرفتش اميزهم من بعض مع ان كان فيه جمل واضحة جدًا تعرفك الشخصيات دي كل واحد فيهم بيرمز لمين زي اللي انكره و زي اللي اتبع طريقته و اللي بعد عنها و ما الي ذلك و حسيت بإحباط اني لحد دلوقتي مقرأتش في القصص دي لأني اعرف رموزها لما أقراها و اني اصلًا معرفش قصة عيسي كاملة بكل أحداثها مش القصة المختصرة بتاعت القرآن.
و بعد ما اكتشفت بساطة رمز الجبلاوي احبط جدًا في أغلب الجدل اللي قام حوالين الكتاب ده اصلًا ان نجيب محفوظ قصد الإله مع اني مكنش عندي مانع لانها في الاول و في الآخر رواية
أروع حاجة في الرواية تحويل كل أحداث كتب الأديان الثلاثة للصورة المصرية دي بحواري مصر القديمة و فتواتها حاجة ميعرفش يعملها الا رائد أدب الحارة المصرية بنفسه نجيب محفوظ
مبسوط جدًا اني قرأت أخيرًا العمل الرائع دي و راضي جدًا ان دي تكون رحلتي مع نجيب السنة دي في الغالب مش هقراله تاني الا السنة الجاية و اتمني تكون الحرافيش عشان ابقي خلصت من اكبر روايتين كبار للكاتب و يتبقي الثلاثية كمشروع قراءة كامل <3