Power and counterpower in Naguib Mahfouz’s Khufu’s wisdom (1939) and Sons of our alley (1959): a new historicist study

Abstract

Notions could be warriors in a battle, totally ready to fight against other notions, without shedding the blood of their utterers. Naguib Mahfouz’s two allegory-based novels Khufu’s Wisdom (1939) and Sons of Our Alley (1959) were banned when they were first published. The reason was that they symbolize some religious figures and that was interpreted as religious abuse. Accordingly, Mahfouz became a subject of an issued fatwa of death sentence that led to an unsuccessful assault in 1994. This paper attempts to prove that Mahfouz’s main target behind using religious symbols was to criticize and attack some political figures. Mahfouz’ aspirations of a classless society, a democratic system, freedom of speech and acceptance of diversity did not come true after the revolutions of 1919 and 1952. This paper tries to analyse the two novels neither through the allegorical nor the religious level, but through Greenblatt’s New Historicism and Foucault’s theory of Power. The two narratives display myriad types of counterpower that are able to challenge and defy coercion and oppression. The paper aims to find an answer to which extent the oppressed can stand out against the single power wielding and defeat the oppressors’ invincible coercion.

Keywords

• mahfouz, naguib
• arabic novels
• history and criticism
• new historicism
• theory of power
• oppression