Naguib Mahfouz - Khan Al-Khalili

“There’s nothing worse,” his companion continued, “than a system that requires people to lower themselves to the level of dumb animals. How can life afford intelligent people any pleasure when they are well aware that the majority of the country’s citizens are starving and never have enough to eat? They’re so ignorant that their minds never make it any higher than the brains of riding animals; they’re so sick that bacteria of every conceivable kind infest their emaciated bodies. Has it never even occurred to them to demand equal rights for peasants and animals? No one can question the fact that in the countryside animals have the right to demand that their owners feed them, give them shelter, and keep them healthy. Peasants don’t have the same guarantees!”

At this point Ahmad Akif could no longer resist the urge to protest; it was simply too much for him to allow the young lawyer to continue with this harangue and for him to have to listen to it like some student.

“If peasants have rights, as you say,” he commented, “then why don’t they demand them?”

“Peasants are kept in a state of total oppression and at the very lowest levels of humanity,” the lawyer responded angrily. “They can’t demand anything. But anyone who reckons that they deserve the privilege of belonging to humankind should feel honor-bound to remove that oppression from the overburdened shoulders of the peasantry. In the old days it was free men who battled slavery, not slaves!”

Ahmad found himself struggling with conflicting emotions. There was a part of him that was pleased to hear what the young man was saying. After all, if the scales of equality in his country had been genuinely balanced, nothing would have prevented him from completing his own education and he would have obtained the level of respect that he longed for. But the other side of him detested the young man’s committed focus on social problems. For him such things did not deserve the attention of a genuine intellectual, someone who needed to focus on more cerebral things such as logic, mysticism, and literature. At that moment he remembered how strongly the young man expressed his opinions and how certain he was of his own rectitude. That riled his sense of superiority, and he felt compelled to react.

“If peasants really deserved more than they’re allotted,” he replied testily, “they would have obtained it by now. Rights pertain to those people to whom they are allotted. Anything beyond that is nonsense!”

The young lawyer adjusted his spectacles in a nervous gesture. “Are you a follower of Nietzsche, Professor?” he asked.

Heavens above, who on earth was Nietzsche? Wasn’t it possible for a school of thought to exist — even if it was inspired by anger and hatred — without needing a spokesman from among all these philosophers of whom he was in complete ignorance? How was he supposed to respond to the nasty little devil? He allowed his mind to direct him toward the single way of getting out of the trap that his foe had set for him.

“My dear Professor Rashid,” he replied in a much less angry tone, “you’re trying to push me to talk about things I don’t even care about.”

“You mean, you don’t care about your own life?”

“Just forget about peasants. Let people who need to be concerned about them deal with all that. Haven’t you read Aristotle or the Brethren of Purity? Haven’t you had any kind of spiritual education?”

The young man looked uneasy. “We’re just like the captain of a ship,” he said, “one that’s ploughing its way through a turbulent channel stirred up by ferocious winds. The waves keep pounding, and the wind howls. The ship heaves up and down and to the left and right, shaken to its core and buffeted hither and yon. In such circumstances can the captain simply turn his back on the steering wheel and stare at the horizon in fond hope?

“At this stage in our history we are passing through the straits of death, enveloped by misery on every side. So let’s make use of those miseries as ammunition for our thoughts about the future. Ivory towers certainly have their particular delights, but for the time being we must resist our own egotistic tendencies.”

“So, while you’re busy rescuing the downtrodden from the pits of animal status, you’re sacrificing the humanity of intellectuals and destroying their spirits!”

“I specifically said, ‘for the time being.’ Just think of the wartime situation we’re now in, and the way that religious scholars — the most moral of people — have turned into outright criminals.”

“But you have your own store of outrageous ideas — the universe and the atom!”

For the first time Ahmad Rashid let out a loud laugh. The game players all looked up.

“You laughed!” said Boss Nunu. “So tell us what it’s about.”

The two of them said nothing, and eventually the game players went back to their games.

“Knowledge is indispensable for the true revolutionary,” the young lawyer went on, “not to bury ourselves in its contemplations but rather to liberate ourselves from the bonds of illusion and humbug. There was a period when religion was able to liberate us from idolatry, but now it’s the turn of science to liberate us from the bonds of religion.”

At this point, Sulayman Bey Ata lost his temper, a normal occurrence when he managed to lose a twenty in a game. Sayyid Arif decided to tangle with him. The whole thing soon degenerated into a vicious slanging match in which all the resident debauchees were eager to participate. Thus ended Ramadan’s first evening of conversation.

With the arrival of midnight Ahmad Akif stood up to go home.

“I’m going home too,” said Boss Nunu as he stood up. “I want to get my coat. The weather’s very wet and chilly close to dawn.”

They walked together.

“Why don’t you stay awake until dawn?” he asked Ahmad as they were walking.

“Between midnight and dawn I normally read,” Ahmad replied wearily.

“You read books?”

“Yes. That’s all I read.”

“What’s the point?”

“It’s my hobby, Boss Nunu!” Ahmad replied with a smile.

“But any hobby is supposed to have some point to it. Do books make you live longer? Stop you getting sick? Stave off the inevitable? Avoid hardship? Fill your pockets?”

By this point Ahmad was feeling so superior, he was thrilled. “I fully intend to write a book as well!” he went on with a smile.

“That’s even worse! Are you a journalist, or what?”

“Suppose I said yes?”

“Impossible!”

“Why?”

“Your parents are decent folk!”

That made Ahmad laugh so loud that it released all the evening’s dark tensions. “But I really am going to write a book,” he said.

“There are more books in the world than people. Just take a look at the Halabi Bookstore just below the Egyptian Club. It has so many books — good heavens! — if you stacked them all side by side, you’d have more than all the students at al-Azhar! Why go to all the bother of adding yet another title to the pile?”

“Okay, okay. But every book has its own qualities.”

“You should develop some other hobby that won’t cost you so much effort.”

“Such as what?”

“You don’t know? Have a guess.”

“I’ve no idea, Boss.”

“People call it Ramadan’s best entertainment and life’s greatest joy.”

“So what’s it called?”

“It comes out of the ground, but its true pasture is above the clouds.”

“Amazing!”

“You’ll find it either in a prison cell or by the Sultan’s throne.”

“There’s nothing in the world like that.”

“Craved by pauper and minister alike.”

“That much?”