The birth of Naguib Mahfouz

Naguib Mahfouz

Naguib Mahfouz Abd al-Aziz Ibrahim Ahmed al-Basha, was born on December 11, 12 AD in the Gamaleya neighborhood in Cairo. He was brought up in a middle-income family, where his father was an employee in the state, and he did not read a book in his life after the Qur’an except for the hadith of Issa Ibn Hisham, because its writer, al-Muwailhi, was a friend. His mother, Fatima Mustafa al-Qisha, daughter of Sheikh Mustafa al-Qisha, one of the scholars of Al-Azhar.

studying

Mahfouz completed his primary and secondary studies, after which he joined the university in 1930 AD, after which he obtained a BA in Philosophy in 1934 AD, and then embarked on literature after reading the works of Akkad and Taha Hussein, where he discovered his inclinations to literary writing.

Najeeb the writer

Naguib Mahfouz is considered one of the literary geniuses in the field of the novel, as his style was distinguished by simplicity, closeness to people and their reality, and he classified his literature as realistic literature, because it describes reality objectively and with high technology. Therefore, he became the most popular Arab novelist, and he is considered the first Arab novelist to win a Nobel Prize in Literature, in addition to the State Appreciation Award in Literature, the Great Nile Necklace, and many other awards and honors.

He was given many nicknames, including what his owner Adham Ragab gave him, as he called him Al-Sabelji as a kind of humor and entertainment, as he was the grandfather of Naguib Mahfouz, the headmaster of the Book of the Path, and he was also called Naguib Pasha Mahfouz, after the obstetrician-gynecologist who supervised his birth, which was described as difficult. And hard.

Naguib Mahfouz married his wife, Atiyat Allah Ibrahim, during the period he stopped writing in the year 1952 AD, and he hid the news of his marriage from everyone for ten years, justifying his preoccupation with his mother, his widow sister, and her children.

Literary works

Naguib Mahfouz had many books that ranged between novels and short stories, and his works have been translated into 33 languages, and among his most famous books:

• Khan al-Khalili in 1946 AD.
• Al-Madaq Alley in 1947.
• Qasr al-Shawq, Bain al-Qasrain, and Sukkariyeh, which were published in 1956.
• The futility of fate.
• The collection of short stories, Whisper of Madness.
• The children of our neighborhood, the Harafish, and the journey of Ibn Fattouma.
• Film scenarios, including: The Trilogy, Beginning and End, The Road, and Gossip over the Nile.

Death

Naguib Mahfouz died on the morning of Wednesday, August 30, in the year 2006 AD, in the Police Hospital in the Al-Agouza neighborhood in central Cairo, as a result of a bleeding ulcer that he had after a sudden drop in pressure and kidney failure. The head required surgery immediately, and Naguib Mahfouz remained, until the end of his days, keen on his day program in meeting with his friends in some hotels in Cairo, where they read him news headlines and listened to his comments on various events.