(b.1901)

Is a distinguished surgeon and scholar, a member of the Arabic Language Academy of Cairo, a former Rector of Ein Shams University, Cairo, and former President of the Egyptian Academy of Sciences.

He studied medicine and surgery in Egypt and England in the twenties, and he started his professional career as a country doctor. He is very familiar with European thought, and was one of the people who were especially active in the twenties in the search for new directions for Arabic literature and thought.

In 1955 he produced a history of Arab medicine and written reflections on human knowledge and history in Wihdatul-ma"rifa (The Unity of Knowledge), At-tahlilul bioluji lit-tarikh (A Biological Anaiysis of History).

He is best known for his novel Qarya dhalima (1954) which has been translated into English as City of Wrong by the Rev. Kennett Cragg, and has also been translated into French and Spanish. The work consists of a set of dialogues debating the problem of conscience, and the central event around which this Moslem thinker ranges these discussions is the Crucifixion.

Read Arabic Short Stories

Reference: Arabic Short Stories, 1945-1965. Edited by Mahmoud Manzalaoui. The American University in Cairo Press, 1985.
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