Afkar Dhidd al-Russaas; Mahmoud Awad; Dar al-Shorouq; Dar al-Maaref; Cairo; 2009
“I can give you my heart…and become a lover; my food…and go hungry; my wealth…and be poor; my life…and be a memory. But I cannot give you my freedom. My freedom is my lifeblood…my intellect…my bread of life. If I give it to you I become one of a herd…someone with a past but no future.”
The words, used in the preface to his book Afkar Dhidd al-Russaas (Bulletproof Thoughts), were written by Mahmoud Awad (1942 – 2009), who departed from our world on 30 August after a life full of struggles.
Despite being the gifted writer that he was, Awad frequently found himself the target of skirmishes with colleagues or superiors who were threatened by his sharp audacious beliefs. Awad was dubbed “the songbird of the press” for his poetic-like expressions and passionate language.
Rejected
Bulletproof Thoughts unveils the deep and liberal mind of Awad, who sought to discover why Egyptian thinkers were frequently rejected by the community. Awad believed that Qassem Amin’s crime was to call for women’s emancipation in defiance of the utter dominance of men, while al-Kawakbi’s crime was to call for the people’s freedom in defiance of the hegemony of the State. Aly Abdel-Raziq called for freedom of religion, defying the king; whereas Taha Hussein’s sin was to ask for the freedom of expression, defying political regimes. The predicament is always the same and the punishment does not change in every case. Amin was ostracised; Kawakbi was murdered; Abdel-Raziq was deposed; and Hussein was expelled from his job. In all, society claimed its verdict: all were guilty; all were traitors and atheists. This was no surprise to intellectuals. Authority in Arab society has always had its exclusive measures, which often conceals and sometimes reveals.
Double standards
Authorities often think of fear as patience; frigidity as sanity; development as insanity; modernity as ungodliness; thinking as crime. In double standard milieu; all norms are disrupted: weakness is a blessing; cowardice is valuable; courage is offence; silence is wisdom; ignorance is virtue; rebellion immorality and difference treason. In that weird world it is not strange to see woman regarded as an animal; the ruler becomes god; people work as slaves and terrorism serves as a law. That was the style of Mahmoud Awad; a few sharp words directed at a specific target. The words flow as soft music but leave a deep effect and more thoughts to ponder about.
In his forward to Qassem Amin’s book Woman’s Emancipation, Amin gives a descriptive outlook about the relation of man to woman in the 19th century. Awad reveals that a woman was just a follower—a man whose voice was suppressed. Society has dressed woman in piles of clothes and put a veil on her face and imprisoned her in frames. It was believed then that this was the only means to guarantee a woman’s virtue. But it proved wrong all along. People choose what they are, and no force can drive them to be virtuous if they do not want to. It was Qassem Amin who called for dismantling the wall that stood as a barrier between woman and society. And for this Amin was regarded as a rebel—if not a criminal. Only many years after he died did people begin to consider his writings in depth.
Silenced in death
In 1900, Abdel-Rahman al-Kawakbi compiled his articles in a book entitled The Natures of Totalitarianism and the Conflicts of Slavery, but it was Amin who revived his book when he shed light on Kawakbi’s life and his flight from the Ottoman sultan Abdel-Hamid. After Kawakbi’s revelation of autocratic rule, he took his due punishment and was silenced by poison.
Bulletproof Thoughts is the title of the third chapter of Islam and Ruling Principles by Sheikh Ali Abdel-Raziq, who claimed that the religious state had nothing to do with the caliph’s succession. The book was published at a critical time when revolution in Turkey dethroned Caliph Abdel-Hamid and King Fouad was looking forward to replacing him. When the book was published, many religious Muslims turned against Abdel-Raziq and several books were published that used the issue of religion for the promotion of politics. Abdel-Raziq was consequently prosecuted and was dismissed from al-Azhar.
Mahmoud Awad concludes his journey of bulletproof thoughts with On Jahili (pre-Islamic) Poetry by Taha Hussein, published in 1926. Hussein wrote that most of the Jahili poetry was actually written after the spread of Islam and therefore these poems represent the life of Muslims more than the life of people before Islam. Hussein believes that what is left of Jahili poetry is only a small part of it, and does not hold any significance in delineating the features of the pre-Islamic era.
Upsetting the status quo
After the publication of the book, the al-Azhar sheikhs were disturbed, as was the king and the parliament, because Hussein questioned the accepted norms of the past. Al-Azhar considered the book an attempt to stir up a rebellion against religion, while the king thought freedom of thought would mean a later freedom of politics.
After analysing these writings, Awad came to realise that doubt is a painful feeling and that this is why society does not accept the person who begins to question long-accepted norms. When doubts arise, people no longer trust either in themselves or in their history, or in their own strength.
The book discusses the issue of freedom of expression. There is one issue the book disregards, however: the issue of the writer, Mahmoud Awad, who was prohibited from writing in the daily newspaper Akhbar al-Youm by pressures from the senior editors Moussa Sabri and Ibrahim Saeda, who felt threatened by his talent. Awad filed a case in court, protesting against his suspension from work. The case was procrastinated for many years and Awad never received his due rights. May God bless all talented people who fight for what is right to their last breath.
