Essays on Literature and Philosophy

Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006) was the greatest Arab writer of the twentieth century. Born in the old Islamic Quarter of Cairo in 1911, he began writing when he was seventeen before entering university to study as a student of philosophy in 1930. He is the author of over thirty novels – including a number of masterpieces, such as The Cairo Trilogy and Children of the Alley. In 1988 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.Rasheed El-Enany is Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, as well as Professor Emeritus of Modern Arabic Literature, University of Exeter. He has authored several books on Naguib Mahfouz, including Naguib Mahfouz. His Life and Times.Aran Byrne is an Arabic language graduate of SOAS (University of London) and Oxford University. He was co-translator of Democracy Is the Answer by the best-selling Egyptian writer Alaa Al Aswany.

• Introduction viiTranslator’s Preface xvThe Demise of Old Beliefs and the Emergence of New Ones 1Women and Public Office 7The Development of Philosophy in the Pre-Socratic Era 9The Philosophy of Socrates 13Plato and His Philosophy 17Anton Chekhov (The Russian Author) 29Three of Our Writers 35Love and the Sexual Impulse 39Philosophy According to the Philosophers 45What Is the Meaning of Philosophy? 53Psychology: Its Trends and Methods, Ancient and Modern 61Animal Life and Psychology 73The Senses and Sensory Perception 85Consciousness 99Theories of the Mind 111Language 123Art and Culture 135I Have Read (Part 1) 141I Have Read (Part 2) 143Of Art and History 147Concerning the Book Artistic Imagery in the Qur’an 151

‘At this time in the 21st century when reactionary and fundamentalist religious currents are forcefully asserting themselves wherever one looks, it is wonderful to read these essays on art and culture, on love, on democracy, on Umm Kulthum, on Philosophy, on psychology, written when the Arab world’s only Nobel Laureate in Literature was a young man, and showing that the humanity and depth of his literary oeuvre was part and parcel of his tolerant, open-minded and secularist world view.’