Cairo Modern (2 page)

Ma’mun Radwan realized that evading Ahmad Badir
would be difficult and yielded. “I say what my Lord said. If you want to know my personal take on it: woman is man’s solace in this world and a level path toward solace for the next.”

Ahmad Badir turned to Ali Taha and with a nod of his head asked his friend to speak. The young man said, “A woman is a man’s partner in life, so they say, but—in my opinion—it should be a partnership with identical rights and obligations.”

Turning toward Mahgub Abd al-Da’im, Ahmad Badir asked jocularly, “And what does our dear devil think?”

Mahgub Abd al-Da’im replied theatrically, “Woman is … the safety valve on the boiler.”

They all laughed as they normally did when they heard one of his notions. Then they asked Ahmad Badir, “And you, what do you think?”

The young man replied dismissively, “A journalist should listen and not speak, especially nowadays.”

T
hey turned at the avenue’s first intersection and headed toward the governorate building. Ma’mun Radwan was the tallest, although Mahgub Abd al-Da’im was almost as tall. Ali Taha was of medium height and stocky, and Ahmad Badir was quite short with a very large head. Ma’mun Radwan wanted to conclude their day’s pursuits in the best possible way before greeting the day of rest. So he said in his tremulous voice, which seemed to rise straight from his heart, “Talking about women has distracted us from the topic at hand. What’s your final word on the debate we just attended?”

The debate had been about principles: whether they are necessary for mankind or should be dispensed with. Addressing Ma’mun Radwan, Ali Taha said, “We both agree that man needs principles. They’re the compass guiding the ship.”

Mahgub Abd al-Da’im said calmly and gravely, “Tuzz.”

Ali Taha, however, ignored him and continued to address Ma’mun. “Although we differ about the nature of these principles.…”

Shrugging his shoulders, Ahmad Badir observed, “As always!”

Ma’mun, whose eyes glittered with a fleeting light when he was excited—as at present—remarked, “All we need are the principles that God Almighty decreed.”

Mahgub Abd al-Da’im commented as if astonished, “I’m stunned that a man like you believes in legends.”

Ali Taha continued, “I believe in society, in the living human hive. Let’s respect society’s principles—on condition that we don’t sanctify them—because they ought to be renewed, from one generation to the next, by scholars and educators.”

Then Ahmad Badir asked him, “What principles does our generation need?”

He responded enthusiastically, “Belief in science not a spirit world, in society not paradise, in socialism not competition.”

Mahgub Abd al-Da’im’s critique of this statement was, “Tuzz, tuzz, tuzz.”

So Ahmad Badir asked him, “And you, Mr. Mahgub: What do you have to say about the debate?”

He replied calmly, “Tuzz.”

“Are principles necessary?”

“Tuzz.”

“Not necessary?”

“Tuzz.”

“Religion or science?”

“Tuzz.”

“For which of them?”

“Tuzz.”

“Don’t you have some opinion?”

“Tuzz.”

“Is this ‘tuzz’ an opinion?”

Mahgub replied with feigned calm, “It is the ultimate principle.”

Ma’mun Radwan turned to Ali Taha and said, more to state his opinion than to influence anyone, “God in the heavens and Islam on the earth. These are my principles.”

Ali Taha smiled and repeated Mahgub Abd al-Da’im’s previous comment, “I’m stunned that a man like you believes in legends.”

Mahgub chortled, “Tuzz.”

Casting a swift look at the others as they walked along, he said, “Amazing! How can a single hostel house all of us? My head is full of hot air, Mr. Ma’mun’s noggin is a flask with ancient legends sealed inside it, and Ali Taha is a display of contemporary myths.”

The other two ignored his comment, because they never knew when he was serious or joking and because it was tedious to debate with him, since by clowning around he evaded their attempts to pin him down.

When they could see the student hostel at the corner of Rashad Pasha Street, Ahmad Badir said goodbye and set off for the newspaper where he worked in the evening. The other three continued to the hostel to prepare for their Thursday night excursions.

T
he hostel at the corner of Rashad Pasha Street was an imposing fortress with an extensive, circular courtyard at its heart. Each of the building’s three stories was a circular series of suites of rooms that opened onto a narrow corridor overlooking the court. The three friends occupied adjoining rooms on the second floor. Ma’mun Radwan went to his cramped chamber and began to change clothes. His room was furnished with a small bed and a wardrobe on the opposite wall. Between these, beneath a little window, there was a medium-sized desk with books and reference works on it. The young man loved books passionately. Thus the moment his eyes fell on Lalande’s dictionary of philosophy, his lips relaxed into a delicate smile that revealed his love and enthusiasm. All the same, he lost no time. He performed his ablutions and then the afternoon prayer. Next he donned his best clothes and left his room for the street. He carried his trim body in an attractive military fashion as he set forth. He was slender without being emaciated and so light-skinned that his complexion was shot with red. His best feature was his large black eyes, which shone with a luminosity that bespoke insight, beauty, and intelligence. He marched forward, his focus distracted by nothing, his feet pounding the pavement smartly and his eyes directed toward a single goal.

Today that goal was his fiancée’s home in Heliopolis. Ma’mun approached affairs of the heart with the same integrity and propriety he observed in all his dealings. He
had asked for the hand of the girl, the daughter of a relative who was a high-ranking army officer, after first consulting his father. An agreement had been reached for them to marry once he finished his studies. Then he began visiting her home every Thursday. He would sit with the entire family and spend a few hours in pleasant conversation. It never occurred to him to invite his girl to the movies or to devise some stratagem for being alone with her. He simply did not believe in such modern heresies—as he put it—and deprecated them. Thus his conduct was well viewed and highly esteemed by the girl’s family, which was socially conservative in their embrace of time-honored tradition.

None of this prevented his heart from beating faster when he followed his customary route. So he reached the Giza road in a few minutes and boarded the tram. When he took his customary seat—his gaze untroubled, his posture erect—his good looks and nobility were evident. Had he wished to be a lothario like Umar ibn Abi Rabi‘a, he could have succeeded, but he possessed a unique blend of chastity, rectitude, and purity. He had a clean conscience and his mind was at rest. He was a pure heart who enjoyed authentic religion, deep-rooted belief, and firm morals. He had grown up in Tanta, where his father—a man of religion and moral fiber—taught in a religious institute. So he was reared in an environment that was almost Bedouin in its simplicity, religious fervor, morals, and strength. When he was young, something happened that deeply influenced his later life. He became so ill he could not attend school until he was fourteen. Thus he tasted the bitterness of solitude, experienced pain, and was refined in the furnaces of a trying ordeal. He was, however, able to study religion with his father and thus became an Islamic jurisprudent while a boy. When he entered primary school, he was an adolescent with an enormous heart, vibrant spirit, and lively intelligence. Even so,
he could be bigoted and rude. In fact, he suffered from episodes of wild cruelty. During these, his soul’s generosity was drained, and he would shoot up like a tongue of flame that engulfed everything it encountered and devoured anything that resisted. Then he would redouble his effort if working and plunge deeper into his devotions if praying. If he was debating something, his comments would become mean-spirited; he would be overwhelmed by despair and depression if he were alone.

In his simple life, the boy’s only outlet for self-fulfillment was his work. So he outstripped all his peers and was capable of worshiping for hours on end as his tongue praised God continually. During the last days of a school year he would study twenty hours a day. He earned top marks in the third year examinations and expected to take first place on the final-year exams. To beat out everyone else became one of his top priorities—along with Islam, Arab pride, and virtue. He would allow no one else to better his performance. This competitive streak, however, left no noxious residue in his breast thanks to his extraordinary strength, great self-confidence, and firmly rooted belief in God. He brought humanism to the highest degree, and for this reason did not allow his spirituality to degenerate into sterile asceticism or self-abnegation. He used to say, “Belief means being filled with divine power in order to implement God’s ideals on earth.”

He was a formidable young man, even if not universally liked, since his successes made him a target for the envious and his way of life was a silent rebuke to others. Moreover, he never outgrew his preference for solitude, which had been second nature for him since his illness. Additionally, his ignorance of the principles of sociability, his dislike for humor, and a passion for candor turned his comments at times into a
painful whiplash. Thus his detractors occasionally called him “the university bumpkin” or “the unexpected mahdi.” A student once said of him, “Mr. Ma’mun Radwan is Islam’s imam for our age. In ancient times, Amr ibn al-‘As introduced Islam to Egypt, through his brilliance. Tomorrow, Ma’mun Radwan will extinguish Islam in Egypt thanks to his insensitivity.” The young man remained devoted to out-shining others even though he frequently feared and hated this proclivity. Yes, he feared this sense of superiority and excellence and would ask God to protect him from this evil. All the same, he failed to overcome it. Therefore he could never truly admire an important personage. So when the king opened the university he candidly announced his disdain for the government officials who attended the ceremony. For this reason too he shrugged his shoulders dismissively whenever he heard students speak enthusiastically about men they referred to as leaders. He rejected all the political parties and refused affiliation with the “Egyptian cause.” With customary zeal, he would say, “There is only one cause: the cause of Islam in general and of the Arabs in particular.”

What was truly amazing was that he was not influenced by the trend toward atheism, which was fashionable among students at the university when he was there. This can be attributed to his relatively advanced age at the time of his enrollment at the university; he was twenty-three. By that time, he had come to believe deeply in three things he never renounced to the end of his days: God, virtue, and the cause of Islam. His vision was not distracted by the university’s new light. His faith remained a boulder against which the waves of psychology, sociology, and metaphysics crashed. With his faith he defied science and philosophy in general, enlisting them as pretexts for and constituent elements of belief. How
delighted he was to find preeminent philosophers under God’s sway: Plato, Descartes, Pascal, and Bergson. His sincere heart welcomed the synthesis that the twentieth century promised between science, religion, and philosophy. In contemporary thought, matter dissolved into electric charges more like the spirit than earlier concepts of matter. In contemporary thought, spirituality was reclaiming its hijacked throne. In contemporary thought, scientists were preoccupied with theology and men of religion drew inspiration from science and philosophy. So blessings on the devout young philosopher! The young man in Giza did, however, differ from the sick boy in Tanta. He had grown more open-minded and magnanimous. Thus it was possible for him to listen to Mahgub Abd al-Da’im’s buffoonery with a smile, to debate with Ali Taha about the relative merits of religion and atheism, and to accept the barbs of critics and scoffers—except when he became infuriated, his eyes flared, and that dread passion overwhelmed him.