The Cairo Trilogy

"I think first of all that it is a great literary treat. I believe it is a really captivating novel. But I think the real importance of The Cairo Trilogy is that arguably if you want to choose one city within the whole of the Arab world that is representative of the history of the Arab world in the past few hundred years I would say that it is Cairo. Damascus might be a contender but I think Cairo would be my choice. Because it has been at the centre of almost every single political, religious, and social movement that has shaped the Arab world for the past 1,300 years. Egypt – and Cairo at its centre – emerged as the most important province in every single Islamic empire, from the one that has emerged out of the Arabian Peninsula after the death of the Prophet Mohammed, to the Umayyads and Abbasids in the few centuries that followed. It was the capital of three key Islamic empires. It was the centre of defending the Islamic world against the Crusaders and the Mongols. It was the capital of the Mamelukes. It was by far the most important Arab province in the Ottoman Empire. And throughout that illustrious history, its heritage became the cultural reservoir of the region. We also need to take into account that the existence of the 1,000-year-old Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam’s pre-eminent seat of learning, in Cairo meant that the city became associated with creativity, scholarship and learning. Tens of thousands of scholars from all over the Arab world (and actually the entire Islamic world) would come to Cairo over the centuries to study for few years before returning to their countries as religious – or potentially political – leaders. That widened the impact of Egypt’s influence. And very recently, Arab liberalism and the notion of a modern Arab state came out of Egypt – in the early 19th century. The Arabs’ first real encounter with modern Europe was in Egypt’s experience with Napoleon’s invasion of the country, and later its attempt at building a modern state in the mid-19th century. And the fact that Nasserite Arab nationalism emerged out of Cairo had also cemented that positioning. So arguably this city has been the centre of almost every single social and political trend that dominated the Arab world throughout the past 1,000 years. In my view, what Mahfouz has done brilliantly is to dissect the rich life of the middle class of that multifaceted city and presented it to his readers; he made the readers experience what it feels like to be a middle-class family in the first half of the 20th century in Cairo. This was a very interesting time because Cairo was slowly shedding its conservative Islamic heritage and more or less embracing Westernism. Through tracing the three generations of the family at the centre of the novel you see the change. Absolutely, and you not only see the moment that they are living in but also the heritage that they carry. For example, without going into too many details, in the first part of the novel you see how the father, who is a very solid patriarch, represents to a large extent Cairo’s Islamic heritage from the era of the Mamelukes and the Ottomans in the way he behaves. His image is contrasted by the characters of his different sons, who are shaped by the interaction with modernity. We not only see different characters but also different Cairos throughout the development of the novel."