"The Lamp of Umm Hāshim": The Egyptian Intellectual between East and West

Author(s): M. M. Badawi
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Journal of Arabic Literature, Vol. 1 (1970), pp. 145-161
Published by: BRILL
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182863 .
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 THE LAMP OF UMM HASHIM:
THE EGYPTIAN INTELLECTUAL BETWEEN EAST AND
WEST

TheLamnpof Umm Hashim is a collection of short stories by the

distinguished Egyptian writer Yahya Haqql. First published in 1944
it has been reprinted many times since.' Because of their peculiar
mixture of realismand fantasy,their humour and poetry, the strange
and haunting note of mysticism that runs through them, and not
least because of their impassioned and artisticallyfaultless style of
writing, these tales have alreadyattained the position of a classic in
modern Arabic literature.Moreover, they are all rich in culturaland
sociological significance:in this respect the most interesting perhaps
is the story which gives the collectionits name,a novellawhich occupies
half the volume.
Besides conveying the feel of traditionallife in Cairoat the turn of
the century, and indeed for many years to come, the tale of 'The
Lamp of Umm Hashim' belongs to the type of writing, which in the
field of the novel is known as the bildungsroman, i.e., the type that
deals with the education of the protagonist. The main character,
Isma9l, is a man who finds himself at the crossroads of civilization.
He was brought up on traditionalMuslim culture, which in its basic
features remainedlargely medieval. But as a young man of impres-
sionable years he was heavily subjected to the influence of modern
western culture, for he spent a number of years in England studying
medicine. The work treats in detail Isma'il's early background in
traditionalCairo, then in a brief manner his experiencesin Europe,
and finallywhat he decides to make of his life when he returnsto his
native country. It traces the spiritualdevelopment of this young man
and the changethat takesplacein his social,moraland mentalattitudes.
In so doing it indirectlyplaces one set of culturalvalues in juxtaposi-
tion to another, illustrates the tension and dramaticclash between
them and ends up with pointing to a possible resolution or synthesis.
The work, therefore, is a deeply moving account of the devastating
effect upon the soul of a sensitive and intelligent young man when
he is caught in the clash between two differentsets of culturalvalues.
1 Yahya Haqql, Qindil Umm Hdsbim,Iqra' series No. 18, Dar al Maarfif, Cairo,
1944. The edition used here is that of 1954.
Journal of Arabic Literature, I 10
146 THE LAMP OF UMM HASHIM: THE EGYPTIAN INTELLECTUAL

But although he is a psychologically convincing character, Isma 'Il

is more than an individual. 'The Lamp of Umm Hashim',' as the
title itself suggests, is a symbolical work, in which the characters,
no less than the Saint's lantern which gives the work its name, are
partly designed as symbols or types of varying degrees of abstraction.
To this generalization the character of Isma'il is no exception.
Ismacil, in fact, stands for Egypt at the turn of this century-the time
during which the events of the tale take place. The tensions and
stresses to which he is subjected are the tensions and stresses to which
modern Egypt was exposed; the agonizing choice between eastern
and western values, which Isma'il finds he has to make, is the very
choice which faced modern Egypt. Isma'il's salvation is, therefore,
the kind of salvation which the author envisaged for the whole
culture of his country. To the student of modern Arab culture it
may be of some interest to examine the way in which an enlightened
Arab writer, at a significant stage in the development of modern
Arab consciousness, conceived his own tradition, and the assumptions
which he held as regards the values of the west. He may care to
analyze the precise nature of the compromise between the two conflict-
ing sets of values which the author offers in order to see how valid
or viable it is. He may even fruitfully compare it with some other
solutions attempted at a later stage, e.g., the one which Najib
Mahfiz, another equally distinguished Egyptian writer, but represent-
ative of a younger generation, suggests in his novels, both realistic-
ally and in an allegorical form. In pursuing his investigation, however,
the student must bear in mind that here he is dealing, not with a
sociological treatise or a discursive piece of writing which attempts
a diagnosis of the social and intellectual ills of the Arab east and
suggests effective remedies, but with what is primarily a work of art,
which, as such, is concerned not so much with offering solutions as
with raising important, sometimes ultimate questions.
To prepare the ground for this discussion it is necessary at this
stage to give a detailed account of the work. At the beginning we
are given the background of Ismacil's father, Rajab cAbdullah. He
was born and brought up in an Egyptian village, against a background
of simple piety, not free from superstition and saint worship. As a
boy he used to be taken periodically to Cairo, in order to visit the
Mosque of Sayyida Zaynab and to seek her blessing. When as a

1 Umm Hashim or Zaynab was the granddaughterof the Prophet Muhammad.

 THEI LAMP OF UMM HASHIM: THE EGYPTIAN INTELLECTUAL 147

young man he moved to Cairo in search of work he chose to live

near his cherished mosque. In the mosque square he set up a grain
shop and lived with his family within the precincts of the Saint's
mosque and under her protection. The Saint's feasts became their
feasts and the calls of the muezzin their only clock.' Of the three
sons Rajab 'Abdullah had, two received the inexpensive traditional
religious education, but by the time the youngest, Isma'il, was
ready for school, his father could afford the high cost of secular
education. Before sending him to a secular school, however, Rajab
CAbdullahmade sure that the boy had first received a solid religious
grounding and had learnt the whole of the Koran by heart. Since
secular education was regarded as the gateway to social and financial
success Isma'il soon became the centre of his family's hopes, and for
the sake of his well-being no sacrifice by the rest of the family was
considered too great.
Isma'il's whole life was encompassed by the district and the
Square of Sayyida Zaynab which left their deep imprint upon the
mind of the growing boy. He was familiar with every nook and
cranny of the square, with all its sights and sounds and smells, e.g.,
the 'school' of male and female beggars, the blind condiment seller
who would never sell to anyone before reciting the religious formula
of buying and selling, the pot-bellied seller of pickles with his barrels,
the street-car which seemed like a carnivorous monster that exacted
its daily toll of innocent lives, the clatter of weighing scales, the
laughter from the coffee-houses, the rough guffaws of hashish smokers,
the rows of men, women and children, who sat on the ground leaning
against the wall of the mosque, or lay asleep on the pavement, and
above all, the Mosque itself, with all the beautiful tales of mystery and
supernatural power which the pious imagination of succeeding
generations had woven round it. Most of these tales were told to
Isma'il by the Mosque attendant, Sheikh Dardirl, whose character
is delineated by the author with exquisite humour and deep affection.
To Sheikh Dardiri men and women flocked to ask him for a drop of
the oil from Umm Hashim's lantern to treat their eyes or the eyes of
some loved one. But the consecrated oil, Isma'il was told, would
cure only those whose perception shone bright with the light of
faith. On certain hallowed occasions, when the Saint was visited by
a number of other saints, all arriving on horseback with green banners

" Ibid., p. 6.
lO*
148 THE LAMP OF UMM HASHIM: THE EGYPTIAN INTELLECTUAL

flying over their heads, and the perfume of roses and musk arising
from the cuffs of their sleeves, in order to hold court and look into
the complaints of men-the mosque lantern would shine with a
blinding light and its oil would then possess the secret of curing all
disease.
So much for the background of Isma'il's early childhood, which,
as we shall see, was to play a dramaticpart in his life.
Although his religious upbringing and his simple peasant origin
seem to have helped him to do much better at school than the pam-
pered children of the bourgeois, Isma'il failed to obtain a good
enough result in the final school examinationto enable him to enter
the school of medicine on which he and the whole of his family
had set their hearts. Since Rajabwas determinedto push his son to
the front rank, he acted, but not without much hesitation, heart
searchingand loss of sleep, on the advice of a friend who suggested
that Isma'il should go abroad to study medicine in Europe. Signi-
ficantly his final decision was made as a result of a dream in which
he heard 'a soft voice advising him to trust in God and go forward
with His blessingl I In an amusing manner the author describes
briefly the diverse reactionsof the membersof the family to the idea
of Isma'il's departurefor Europe, their fears and anxieties and the
naive but charming picture each of them had formed of 'abroad'.
The mother, for instance, 'imagined the strange lands of 'abroad'
to be like the top of a high flight of steps leading to a land covered
with snow and inhabited by people who possessed the cunning and
tricks of the devil.' 2 Before the fixed date of departurethe family
assembled, gloomy and silent, and with tearful eyes. The father
advised his son to observe strictly his religion and warned him
especially against the dangers of associating with European women.
He also declaredhis and his wife's intention to marryhim to Fatima
al-Nabawiyya,his orphaned cousin who lived with them, and they
did in fact go through the ceremony of engagement. Later Isma'il
went out to bid farewell to his friends, passing through the Square
on his way. His feet led him to the shrine in the mosque, where he
found Sheikh Dardiri standing with his head bent, as if completely
overcome. 'The image of this man, standingby the silent shrineunder
the light of the oil lamp, his hand resting on the railing or wiping

I Ibid., p. 20.
2 Ibid., p. 20.
 THE LAMP OF UMM HASHIM: THE EGYPTIAN INTELLECTUAL 149

his face, was his last memory of Cairo before leaving.' 1 The author
describes Isma'il diffidently climbing up the gangway of the boat, a
young man with the gravity of age, slow and slightly corpulent,
everything about him suggesting that he was a peasant, lonely and
ill at ease in these strange surroundings. Among the luggage he
carried was a pair of wooden clogs, which his father had insisted he
should take with him, for he had heard that ritual ablution was
difficult in Europe because of the practice of wearing shoes indoors.
This clumsy and awkward figure of a peasant is contrasted with
the neat and sophisticated young man who, with a bright face and
head held high, was briskly making his way down the gangway of
the boat seven years later. Now Isma'il is a qualified doctor-an eye
specialist, and much has happened to him in the meantime. A great
transformation has taken place in his character and outlook. Even
his physical appearance has changed: his face has lost its roundness
and his cheeks have grown a little hollow. His flabby lips that hardly
closed before are now compressed with determination and self-
confidence. Much of the change that had occurred in his character
was due to the influence of Mary, a fellow student who for some
time was infatuated with the dark young man from the east. Mary is
obviously a symbol of western civilization. She stood for lust for
life, constant activity, freedom from the shackles of tradition, in-
dividuality, complete self-confidence, science and humanism, realistic
thinking about concrete problems, belief in this world and appreciation
of art and the beauty of nature. In short, she represented the complete
opposite of the values that had been operative in his life: he was
dull, inactive, weak and sentimental, with an inordinate respect for
authority and tradition, for social ties like marriage, divorced from
reality and given to 'other-worldly' pursuits like the contemplation
of heavenly things, instead of natural beauty, and inhabiting a world
of religious superstition.
This change in Isma'il's attitudes, however, did not occur easily
or without a high price. As the author puts it, in the beginning,
'Ismacil's soul used to wince at Mary's sharp words and groan under
her attacks.' 2 One day he woke up to find his soul completely in
ruins. Religion appeared to him to be no more than a superstition
designed to subjugate the masses, and man incapable of finding his

1 Ibid., p. 24.
2
Ibid., p. 32.
150 THE LAMP OF UMM HASHIM: THE EGYPTIAN INTELLECTUAL

strength and hence his happiness except by detaching himself from

the crowd.
His nerves could not stand the shock of finding himself alone
and utterly lost. He fell ill and stopped attending college. But it was
Mary who saved him from disintegration. She took him on a holiday
to Scotland, and he managed to weather the crisis, emerging from it
with a new self, confident and secure. His lost religious faith was
replaced by a stronger faith in science. Instead of thinking of the
beauty and bliss of Heaven he now thought of the beauty of nature
and of its secrets. Perhaps the greatest proof of his recovery was
that he now began to shake off Mary's domination. He ceased to
behave like a pupil towards his master, but treated her on equal
footing. Later he was neither surprised, nor unduly pained, when he
saw her turn from him to another fellow student, one of her own
race and colour. Like all artists she was bored with her work once
it was completed.
Isma'il was full of idealism and enthusiasm when he returned to
Egypt. His love for his country had grown during his absence.
But the stronger his love for Egypt grew, the more impatient he
became with the Egyptians. Yet he felt they were his own people
and they were not really to blame. They were the victims of ignorance,
poverty, disease and age-long oppression. He had vowed to try to
remove the wrongs he could see. Mary had taught him to be independ-
ent and never again would they be able to feed him on their superstition,
illusions and outworn customs. He knew that his relationship
with his people would be one long struggle, and he was already eager
to plunge into the first battle.
But Isma (1ldid not plan to devote his life entirely to the disinterested
service of his country. He felt that he owed an enormous debt to his
father and that he ought to pay back at least part of that debt. He had
made up his mind to turn his back on Government service and to
set up a private clinic in the best residential district of Cairo. When
he had acquired enough money, he was going to let his father retire
and buy some land for him in their native village so that his father
might spend the rest of his days there, quietly and without any more
drudgery. But what about Fatima al-Nabawiyya? He felt a little
disturbed at the thought of marrying her, but he decided that the
matter had better be left for the time being.
Ismacil did not have to wait long for the first battle. As soon as
he arrived and saw his mother he was shocked by her apparent lack
 THE LAMP OF UMM HASHIM: THE EGYPTIAN INTELLECTUAL 151

of personality: 'she is simply a mass of negative goodness'.' Fatima

al-Nabawiyya's two plaits of hair, her cheap glass bracelets, her
movements and indeed everything about her proclaimed loudly that
she was a peasant girl from the heart of the country. Was that the
girl he was going to marry? He knew at once that he would have to
go back on his word. He also understood from the bandage she was
wearing that her diseased eyes had grown much worse since he left.
A glance at his father was sufficient to show him that he was a man
full of cares, he had in fact fallen upon evil days, even though he
never mentioned his financial worries in his letters to his son, but
continued to send him his allowance while they were almost starving
at home. Isma'il looked from the corner of his eyes at the interior of
the house: it was much smaller and darker and less comfortable than
he could remember. Did his people still use an oil lamp? he asked
himself. He could not help wondering how on earth he was going
to bring himself to live with his people in that house.
Before retiring to bed his mother decided to put some drops in
Fatima's eyes. Hearing Fatima groan with pain as she felt the drops,
he asked his mother what was in the bottle. On being told that it was
oil from Umm Hashim's lamp, which his friend Sheikh Dardiri had
kindly brought for them, he jumped to his feet at once, as if stung
by an adder. He went up to Fatima, removed her bandage and examined
her eyes. He found them badly damaged by trachoma, but if given
the right kind of treatment, he thought they would be cured, and this
hot burning oil was sure to make them worse. Then follows a scene
which turned the joyful occasion of the reunion of the family into a
cause for mourning and grief. Horrified at the state of Fatima's
eyes Isma(il screamed at his mother, accusing her of ruining the girl's
eyes with her superstitions. Enraged by his mother's utter lack of
comprehension, he spoke most disrespectfully of the Saint. Silence
fell on the house at once. The distressed father, who had come out
of his room to find out the cause of the shouting, and heard Isma'il's
words, simply said to him: 'Is that all you have learnt abroad? Is all
our reward that you should come to us an infidel?' 2 Ismalil's nerves
could not stand much more, especially as everyone around him
looked at him pityingly, as if he had gone out of his mind. Picking up
his father's stick, he ran out of the house, determined to deal ignorance
and superstition a mortal blow, even if that should cost him his life.
1 Ibid., p. 37.
2
Ibid., p. 42.
152 THE LAMP OF UMM HASHIM: THE EGYPTIAN INTELLECTUAL

On his way to the Mosque Isma'il had to cross the Square, which
as usual swarmed with people. These, he now felt, could not possibly
be human beings. In a passage, which possesses the satirical intensity,
the savage indignation of Swift, the author describes Isma'il's feelings
towards them: "they were like vacant and shattered remains, pieces of
stone from ruined pillars in a waste land: they had no aim other than
standing in the way of a passer-by. And what were those animal
noises they made and that miserable food which they devoured?
Isma'il examined their faces, but he could only see the masks of a
profound torpor, as if they were all the victims of opium. Not a
single face wore a human expression. Those Egyptians, he thought,
were a chattering revolting race, hairless and beardless, naked and
bare-footed, with blood for urine and worms for stools. They re-
ceived blows on their elongated napes with but a smile of humility
that distorted the whole of their faces. Egypt herself was nothing but a
sprawling piece of mud, lying senseless in the middle of the desert.
Above it clouds of flies and mosquitoes were buzzing and on it a
herd of lean buffaloes moved knee-deep in mud." 1
Quickly he escaped from the stifling crowd and ran into the
mosque. This is how the shrine of the Saint appeared to him now:
"Instead of fresh air, rose thick vapours of barbaric perfumes.
There was the lamp hanging above, dust sticking to its glass and
soot having turned the chain into a black line. It gave off a stifling
smell of burning. It emitted more smoke than light, and even the
faint ray of light it did give was only a sign of ignorance and super-
stition. Near the ceiling hovered a bat, which made his skin creep.
Around the tomb leaned people like logs of wood, propped up against
it. They stood there paralyzed, clutching at the railing. Amongst
them was a man begging of the Saint to do something for him,
which Isma'il could not fully understand, but he gathered that the
man wanted her to punish an enemy of his, to bring destruction on
his home and to orphan his children. Turning to a corner Isma'il saw
Sheikh Dardirl surreptitiously hand to a man, wearing a woman's
handkerchief for a bandage on his head, a small bottle, as if he were
smuggling something. Unable to bear it much longer, and hearing the
clangour of innumerable bells in his head and his eyes swimming,
Isma'il stood up on his toes and, aiming the stick at the lamp, he
with one blow, broke it to pieces, the bits of glass flying all over the

I Ibid., pp. 43-44.

 THE LAMP OF UMM HASHIM: THE EGYPTIAN INTELLECTUAL 153

place, while he cried: I.. I.. I.." 1 He could not finish his sentence.
The crowd rushed at him, he was beaten up and trodden on. He would
have been lynched, had not Sheikh Dardiri recognized him and
delivered him from the wild and furious mob, telling them that he
was the son of Sheikh Rajab cAbdulla, a child of the neighbourhood
and that he was obviously possessed.
Ismacil was carried to his house. He spent a number of days in
bed, talking to nobody. When he recovered a little from his injuries,
he toyed with the idea of going back to England and settling there,
away from "this accursed land." But he felt as if his body was tied
to this house which he could not bear and to the Square he loathed.
One morning, however, he woke up to find himself resolved to
treat Fatima's eyes. He had treated successfully many similar cases in
Europe before. He applied his medicine to Fatima's eyes for some time
without seeing any noticeable improvement. He doubled his care,
took her for consultation to his colleagues at the school of medicine,
who all approved of his method of treatment. But Fatima's eyes
became much worse and finally one day she woke up to find herself
completely blind.
Isma'il ran away from home: he could not stay there facing Fatima,
whose blindness, the author says, "was a proof of his own blindness." 2
"Nor could he bear the reproachful looks of his parents. He sold his
books and some of the equipment he had brought with him from
England, and rented a room in a boarding house, run by a Greek
woman, to whom only money mattered. Certainly, Europeans in
Egypt, he thought, were made of a different stuff from those he had
encountered in Europe. She exploited him and made his life generally
so difficult that he was driven to roam about in the streets from
morning to midnight.
It was during his wanderings that his reconversion took place.
It happened gradually. At first he found himself in the evenings
gravitating towards the Mosque Square near his parents' house.
He began to feel some sympathy for the people in the square, who,
he thought, were more sinned against than sinning.
Although every night, before going to sleep, he thought of some
device to escape back to Europe, the following day he would find
himself back in his usual spot in the Sayyida Square. When the holy
month of Ramadan came it did not occur to him to fast. Yet he felt
I Ibid., pp. 44-46.
2 Ibid., p. 49.
154 THE LAMP OF UMM HASH-IM: THE EGYPTIAN INTELLECTUAL

an unusual atmosphere in the Square, something new in the air; it

was as if the world had cast off its old robes and put on new ones.
Isma'il wondered why he had failed, but could not find an answer
that would satisfy his intellect. However, he found himself spending
more of his time in the Square, gradually accepting its people, enjoy-
ing the jokes he could hear, and, in general, feeling the ground
becoming more solid under his feet. He could now detect a virtue in
the ability of the Egyptians to keep their distinctive character and
temperament, despite the change of rulers and the vicissitude of
events. Here, he thought, were no separate individuals, but a whole
people united by a common faith tempered by time. Far from being
devoid of all human expression, their faces now acquired a meaning
hitherto unnoticed by him. Moreover, he found in his people the
peace and tranquillity which appeared to him to be lacking in the
west, where 'there were only hectic activity and anxiety, an unflagging
war and the sword ever drawn.' 1 He reached a stage in his acceptance
of his own people where comparison with the west was not only
unnecessary, but also meaningless. 'But why compare at all?' he
thought, 'Surely a lover does not draw comparisons?' 2
It was not long now before the moment of full revelation came.
It occurred on the Night of Power (the night on which, according to
Muslim belief, the Koran was sent down), which he had been brought
up from childhood to cherish and venerate. While he was loitering in
the Square his attention was suddenly drawn to the sound of deep
breathing echoing throughout the Square, which as a child he was
told only those blessed with a clear conscience could hear. When he
raised his eyes he beheld the dome of the Mosque flooded with a
bright light emanating from the lantern of the Saint. He saw at
once that the light of which he had been deprived for years had come
back. Now he realized why he had failed. He had nursed his pride
and rebelled; he attacked and, overreaching himself, he fell. Now he
knew that 'there could be no science without faith.' 3 Fatima had
never really believed in him, but in the power of the Saint.
Isma'il entered the mosque, walked reverently to the shrine which
had now regained the beauty he used to see in it, asked Sheikh
Dardirl for some of the lamp oil which the Sheikh gladly gave him,
telling him that it was particularly holy, because it was not only the
1 Ibid., p. 53.
2
Loc. cit.
3 Ibid., p. 54.
 THE LAMP OF UMM HASHIM: THE EGYPTIAN INTELLECTUAL 155

Night of Power, but the night of the Visitation as well. Ismacil took
the oil straight to his parents' house, and went up to Fatima and told
her never to despair of being cured, since he had brought her the
blessing of Umm Hashim. Once more he applied his science of
medicine, but this time fortified by faith. He did not despair when he
found that the disease had become chronic, but persisted and persevered
and fought tenaciously until he could see a ray of hope. Vhen she
had completely recovered, the writer says, 'Isma'il sought in vain
both in his mind and heart for any feelings of surprise he was afraid
he might find.' 1
From now on the story of Isma'il becomes one of cultural and
moral integration, but not perhaps one of financial success. He no
longer felt uprooted in his own society. He later set up a clinic, not
in a residential area but in a poor district, in a house that was fit for
anything but receiving eye patients. His fee never exceeded a piastre
at a time. His patients were the poor and the bare-footed, not the
elegant men and women he had hoped to get when he returned
from England. His clinic swarmed with peasants, who brought him
gifts of eggs, honey, ducks and chickens. We are told that he performed
many a difficult operation successfully, using means which would
have made a European surgeon gasp in amazement: he held only to
the spirit and principles of his science, abandoning all elaborate
instruments and techniques. He relied first upon God and secondly on
his learning and the skill of his hands. He never sought to amass
wealth, buy land or own huge blocks of flats. His sole aim was to
help his poor patients recover at his hands.2
We also learn that he married Fatima, whom he taught to dress,
eat and behave generally like a civilized woman, and she bore him
five sons and six daughters. Towards the end of his days he grew
very corpulent, had a huge appetite, was given to laughter and
joking. His clothes were untidy, with cigarette ash scattered all over
his sleeves and trousers. Until this day, his nephew, the narrator,
says, the people of al-Sayyida district remember him with kindness and
gratitude, and then pray that God may forgive him his sins, the nature
of which, however, they would not disclose because of the great love
they bore him. But the nephew gathers that it is his uncle's fondness
for women that they have in mind.
After this crude account, which can hardly do justice to a work
1 Ibid., p. 56.
2
Ibid., p. 57.
156 THE LAMP OF UMM HASHIM: THE EGYPTIAN INTELLECTUAL

written with great artistry and deep feeling-we may now proceed
to ask a number of questions. Exactly what is the natureof the crisis
Isma'il goes through and from which he emerges triumphant?Here,
as in the case of many other literaryworks of merit, it is by no means
easy to find one clearand neatanswer.Thereare,however, a numberof
possible answers which, taken together, seem to me to give an adequate
account of the work. On one level one can say that what the author
is depicting here is the age-old problem of religious faith and doubt.
The experience Isma'il undergoes is that of a sensitive religious nature,
temporarily and not irrevocably robbed of its faith, and although the
faith is lost through an overexposure to reason and science, it is
regained mysteriously. Isma'il did not face a Pascal-like type of wager.
And indeed, in spite of the mystical vision that brings him back his
lost light, the dominant element in Isma 'il's nature, the element empha-
sized by the author, is his gregariousness. The problem, therefore, is set
in social terms. It is not the eternal silence of the infinite spaces that
terrifies Isma'il, but the silence of people around him, the absence of
communication with his own family, the discovery that he is an
outsider among his kith and kin. With Isma(il, therefore, religious
faith and acceptance of his own people went hand in hand, each of
them was a manifestation of the other; it is only when he recovered
his faith that he fully accepted his people, found purpose in life and
meaning in the lowliest human being in the Mosque Square.
But it surely would give only a partial view of the problem to
claim that it is simply one of faith and doubt expressed in social
terms. After all Isma(il did not spontaneously or independently lose
his faith and turn his back on his own culture. He did that only after
he had fallen under the influence of an alien culture. The contrast
between his behaviour and attitude before and after is brought out
most clearly in the neat structure of this work, namely through a
number of almost symmetrical and parallel themes and situations, all
centred on the mosque and the square. This aspect of the work, which
presents the clash between the cultural values of East and West,
places The Lamnpof Umm Hashim within the context of a larger
literary tradition in Egypt. This tradition, where serious literature is
concerned, goes as far back as al-Muwailihi's Hadith 'Isd Ibn Hishdm
(1907), a work which, in spite of its shortcomings, holds in many
respects a crucial position in modern Egyptian literature.' Al-
1 The original version of this work first appeared serially in the periodic.il
Mi.rbdhal-Sharqbetween 1898 and 1900.
 THE LAMP OF UMM HASHIM: THE EGYPTIAN INTELLECTUAL 157

Muwailihi's standpoint was a relatively simple one: it was mainly

ethical. He realized the enormous material and technological super-
iority of the West, recommended the use of some of its technology,
but gave a strong warning against the bad moral effects that would
and did result from a blind imitation of the West. Obviously in The
Lamp of Umm Hdshim, Yah.yaiHaqqi's attitude is much more sophisti-
cated. What he was most concerned about was the spiritual issues
involved in dealing with the West. Half way between the two comes
a novel by the well known writer Tawfiq al-Hakim, Bird of the
East (1938), which, despite the highly westernized nature of the
author's education, represents a violent reaction against Western
culture, and against the apparently ineradicable effects of this culture
in the East.' This novel by al-Hakim, in fact, invites comparison
with the work under consideration. In both works of fiction al-
Sayyida Zaynab appears as a major factor, although the mystical
feeling is undoubtedly much more genuine in the greater work The
Lamp of Umm Hdshim than in Bird of the East, in which the treatment
is more abstract and the ideas insufficiently realized in concrete and
individualized situations and characters. However, al-Hakim dedicates
his novel to Saint Zaynab whom he describes as his 'Chaste Patron'.2
The novel is set in Paris where a young Egyptian student, Muhsin-
obviously al-Hakim himself-is studying French culture. He falls
in love with a French woman, lives in a state of ecstasy for a few
days, after which he is rudely shaken from his dream, when she
leaves him to return to the Frenchman she really loves and with
whom she seems to have had a quarrel lasting those days she spent
with Muhsin. The story, presumably designed to show the contrast
between the infinite devotion of the man from the East and the
calculated utilitarianism of the woman from the West, forms only a
small part of the book, most of which is taken up with the meditations
of the hero's friend, the self-exiled dying Russian Ivanovich, on the
respective merits of East and West. Western civilization is regarded
as a curse, glorifying materialistic values, Europe's contribution lies
in science and technology which makes life much poorer, for real
life is the life of the spirit. Through the lips of Ivanovich al-Hakim
asserts the real superiority of the East, the cradle of all religions,

1 The Arabic title is 'U.sfir minal-Sharq. The edition used is that of Kitab
al-Hilal, No. 77, Cairo, 1957.
2 In Arabic: ila hdmiyati
al-ldbiraal-SayyidaZaynab.
158 THE LAMP OF UMM HASHIM: THE EGYPTIAN INTELLECTUAL

for even in the sphere of religion Europe is a bad influence: e.g.,

it corrupted Oriental Christianity, although by some strange kind
of reasoning the author wishes us to believe that Western art (e.g.,
Beethoven's music) came from the same source as Eastern religion.'
The dying Russian preaches a return to the East as the only salvation
for mankind.
Al-Hakim's antithesis between the spirituality of the East and the
materialism of the West is by no means original, and is itself partly
influenced by the West's own denunciation of its culture (which for
well known political and philosophical reasons was fashionable in
the thirties) and in fact has been repeated ad nauseam since. Like-
wise, the superiority of the East to the West, which is the corollary
of this antithesis, has been repeated by many Egyptian writers, from
Dr. Muhammad Husayn Haykal to Ahmad Amin, although there are
honourable exceptions who, like Taha Husayn, exploded this fallacy.2
Recently Dr. von Grunebaum claimed that this reaction against the
West, or as he puts it, this hostility to the West marks a distinct
typical phase, the final phase of Westernization in which the Arab
Middle East 'with westernization very largely completed in terms
of governmental reforms, acceptance of the values of science, and
adoption of Western literary and artistic forms, regained self-confidence
expresses itself in hostility to the West and in insistence upon the
native and original character of the borrowed product.'3 Dr. von
Grunebaum and others draw parallels to the modern Arab situation
from the intellectual history of Russia in the 19th century. Clearly
there is some truth in this. But, we may ask, is TheLamp of Umm Hdshim
merely a product of this cultural trend? I think not, for, unlike
al-Hakim, HJaqqidoes not use, as his chief theme, the relative merits
of East and West. He does not set out to prove the superiority of
Eastern to Western values, or to preach to the whole of mankind
the need to choose this or that set of values, or a combination of
them. For one thing, IHaqqi's work, in spite of its symbolism, which
at times is by no means subtle, is far less impure than al-Hakim's.
Ilaqqi does not directly preach at us. His primary concern is his
1
CU4ffr min al-Sharq, pp. 172-173 and p. 192.
2
See Muhammad Husayn Haykal, A/-Sharq al-Jadid, Cairo (1962), Ahmad
Amin, A/-.Sharq wa'l Gbarb,Cairo, 1955 and Taha Husayn, Mustaqbal al-thaqdfa
fi Misr, Cairo, 1938. On this point see Albert Hourani, Arabic T1/oughtin the
Liberal Age 1798-1939, O.U.P., 1962, pp. 330 ff.
3 G. Von Grunebaum, Modern Islam, the Search for Cultural Identity, London,
1962, p. 248.
 THE LAMP OF UMM HASHIM: THE EGYPTIAN INTELLECTUAL 159

literary creation: the character of Isma'il. For Isma'il the only way out
of the impasse was by coming to terms with the people with whom
he had to deal. Ismacil was particularly fortunate: for he had the strong
faith of his childhood, which had created a powerful bond between
him and his people and to which, in spite of the intervening alienation,
he was able to return. Whatever generalization one can justifiably
make from this one concrete example can be no more than this: to
be truly effective it is essential for an imported remedy to be related
somehow to local culture. Moreover, Haqqi does not present the
simple question of the opposition between the spirituality of the
East and materialism of the West. Instead, we find a more sophisti-
cated treatment in which psychological differences, differences in
patterns of behaviour are brought out and commented upon. For
instance, despite her obvious symbolism, Mary is still a much more
credible character than the young French woman in al-Haklim's
novel.
But what is the precise nature of the compromise Haqqi offers in
the particular case of Isma'il? Or, to put it in perhaps unfairly literal
terms, what does he actually do with the oil? Does he treat Fatima's
eyes with it, concurrently with his use of proper medicine? If so,
does he actually believe in the medicinal power of the oil? Do we
take that then to be the mark of atavism, of his reversion to type?
Or does he use the oil purely as a means of obtaining Fatima's
confidence and trust in him, as a means of suggesting to her that she
is after all getting the right kind of treatment? Here the author leaves
us very much in the dark. To say that there should be no science
without religion is very fine. It was Einstein, I believe, who once
said that 'religion without science is lame, science without religion is
blind'. But when it comes to the actual case under consideration all
kinds of ambiguities arise. Isma'il can hardly believe in the medical
effectiveness of the oil without doing violence to the principles of
his medical training. Nor can he use the oil consciously as a means
to win Fatima's confidence without detracting from the spiritual
significance of his moment of illumination. But perhaps we are not
meant to consider the matter so closely and we should be satisfied
with the general idea that science needs the support of religion, even
though the particular symbol used here is rather an unfortunate one,
since it stands not so much for religion as for harmful superstition.'
1 It is interesting to note that in his book Dirdafdfi'l Riwdya al-Misrryya (Cairo,
1964) the Egyptian critic 'All al-R5'i denies that Isma'il has used the oil (p. 173).
160 THIE LAMP OF UMM HA SHIM: THE EGYPTIAN INTELLECTUAL

However, in emphasizing the importance of religion, Hjaqqi differs

from his younger contemporary Najib Mahfaz, who both in the
Trilogyand to some extent in the allegorical Awldd HaritndI seems to
imply that in the modern world religion has been replaced by science,
that the scientist is the prophet of to-day-although in Mahfuz's
later works there is a noticeable preoccupation with mysticism.
One final question remains to be asked. Why did the author choose
to make Isma'il study medicine, in particular? We could say, of course,
that the tradition of sending Egyptians to Europe to study medicine
is an old one, going back to Muhammad'Ali's time, and, unlike other
technical studies, the study of medicine had an unbroken history.
But there seem to be other reasons. That Isma'il is an eye specialist
has its place in the symbolical scheme of the work, which is hinted
at in the author's remark that 'Fatima's blindness is a proof of his
own blindness', i.e., that before Isma'il could restore light to other
people, it is necessary for him to see the real light himself. Besides,
medicine, more than most professions, is closely related to the question
of values. In England Isma 'il's professor used to tell him that his
country had great need of him, for it is the country of the blind.
Here there is no question of the materialism of the West, but a profound
realization of the ethical values underlying modern medicine. The
professor's words, in fact, did not fall upon deaf ears. For what Isma'il
ultimately did was to put his training at the service of the common
people. 'He never sought to amass wealth, buy land or own huge
blocks of flats. His sole aim was to help his needy patients recover.' 2
Herein lies an indictment of an earlier generation of Egyptian doctors
who mastered the technique of western medicine, but failed to see
the values underlying it, and whose behaviour helped strengthen the
view of the materialism of the west. Unlike such doctors, Isma 'i
became famous not in the rich residential districts of Cairo, but in
the neighbouring villages. Unlike them, Isma'il was able to see and
absorb the moral values underlying Western techniques of medicine
precisely because of the solid moral and religious education he
received at home, because of his early background which the author

Al-Ra'i, however, does not, indeed cannot, offer any proof for the truth of his
assertion, for the matter is kept deliberately vague by the author.
I The Trilogy, al-Thuldthbyya, was written between 1947 and 1952 and comprises
the following volumes which were first published in this order: Baynal-Qasrayn,
1956; Qair al-Shawq, 1957 and al-Sukkariyya, 1957. Awldd Hdritna was published
in 1959.
' Qindil Umm Hdshim, p. 57.
 THE LAMP OF UMM HASHIM: THE EGYPTIAN INTELLECTUAL 161

emphasises so much. ln other words, it is because Isma'il had a

strong sense of the values of his own tradition, that he could see the
values of the West. As Professor Gibb says in his provocative essay,
'The Reaction in the Middle East against Western Culture, '(Printed
in his Studieson theCivilitationof Islam)'Values can only establish
relationship with other values'.1 Haqqi is careful to point out that
Isma'il does not follow the West blindly, he is not enamoured of
western techniques for their own sake. But he held only to the spirit
and principles of his science, abandoning all elaborate instruments and
techniques. He relied first upon God, secondly on his learning and the
skill of his hands. Here we are meant to see a true marriage of the
values of the East and the West.

Oxford M. M. BADAWI

1 of Islam, London, 1962 p. 333.

H.A.R. Gibb, Studieson the Civili.Zation