Midaq Alley
Key Ideas and Its Significance
Religion
Marriage
Upward Mobility
Egypt Nationalism
In the book Midaq Alley, Naguib Mahfouz is talking about life in Egypt during the 1940s. It is focusing on several different concepts which are relevant in the Middle East today. To fully understand the importance of these insights requires examining key insights from the book. This will be accomplished by carefully examining key ideas and analyzing their significance. Together, these elements will highlight how those philosophies are related to contemporary concepts. (Mahfouz)
In the book, Midaq Alley is considered to be a poor run down street inside Cairo. It is set in 1940, as the British Army is stationed in Egypt to protect it from being overrun by Nazi Germany. It is focusing on life in the alley and how the various characters are interacting with each other. This sets the tone and location of the novel. These scenes, allow the reader to understand the environment and the hopes / frustrations of the various characters. (Mahfouz)
Key Ideas and Its Significance
There are several key ideas in the book which are directly linked to various ideas in the Middle East today. The most notable include: religion, marriage, upward mobility and Egyptian nationalism. These elements offer specific insights that are showing trans-generational attitudes and ideas. This offers specific insights about the mindset of Egyptians and other Middle Eastern societies today. (Mahfouz)
Religion
Religion is an important part of daily life in the novel. This is represented through use of Islam and various characters to serve as mouthpiece for key ideas. These include individuals such as: Radwan Hussainy...
I take an oath of loyalty to the table / coated with white Formica, a cup full of pens, the ashtray / I dreamed that the State had passed out of existence / and with our children / we'd settled down in the three volumes of the / dictionary."(Shabtai, 39) Also, in Our Land he dramatically deplores the ugliness of his land. The poem is even more telling because
Thorough reviews of the Q'uran have revealed that it actually forbids sexual oppression of women. Several and well-entrenched customary practices in the region, however, violate women's basic human rights. These practices include honor crimes, stoning, female general mutilation, and virginity tests. Women researchers and activists did not find a basis for these practices in the Q'uran (Ilkakaracan). Modernization in the 19th and 20th centuries, the foundation of nation-states and the
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Mahfouz was the first Arab to ever win the Nobel Prize for literature, while Orhan Pamuk was the first Turkish individual to win a Nobel Prize at all. In contrast to Mahfouz who criticized his nation's government only indirectly, Pamuk's open criticism of Turkish government practices outside of his fictional universe made him something of a cause celeb for human-rights organizations and writers' unions. Rather than praise, right-win Turkish patriots
Isma'ilis believe only the descendants of Ali and Fatimah can be considered the rightful caliphs. As the center of power weakened in Baghdad, Persian nobles ignored the caliph and established their own kingdoms. Toward the end the Abbasid only had Iraq under their control. In 945 the Buyids invaded Iraq and forced the caliph to recognize their prince, called a sultan, as ruler of Iraq. Another problem started much
Symbolism of the Veil In almost any modern social environment, not dictated by the standards and restrictions associated with a non-secular institution it is difficult for most people, not just women to imagine living life behind the screen of a veil. Though it may seem that this is true only of western states that is just not the case. The reality of the fundamentalist resurgence of the legalism of the Islamic
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