Naguib Mahfouz was an Egyptian writer, who was awarded the Novel Prize for Literature in 1988. He was the first Arabic writer to be honored. Naguib Mahfouz was also a screen pay writer; many of his works have been made into foreign films.
Zaabalawi is about a man who has gotten really sick and is unable to find a remedy or cure for his sickness. The narrator’s father had told him about “a saint of God,” Sheikh Zaabalawi, who is able to cure any illness or disease. Therefore, the narrator made it his objective to find the mysterious Zaabalawi. During the narrator’s journey in finding Zaabalawi he encounters a variety of people. The first person he meets is a lawyer who practices religious law, who tells the narrator that Zaabalawi has left years ago. The narrator also meets a bookkeeper who tells him that Zaabalawi no longer lives in this building. Next the narrator takes a visit to a government official and a calligrapher thinking that he must know the whereabouts of Zaabalawi. After meeting with a musician, who is said to be a friend of Zaabalawi, the narrator learns that Zaabalawi is hiding from the police for false accusations. Finally, the narrator meets a drunken man at the bar. This drunken man gets the narrator to drink until he passes out. This causes the narrator to miss Zaabalawi completely. Apparently, Zaabalawi had appeared next to the narrator while he was unconscious.
In the story, the narrator never tells us what kind of illness he has; he merely just says that he has great pain. I think that the narrator’s illness in the story is a metaphor for his lack of spirituality and religion. The narrator searches for Zaabalawi because he needs guidance. I think that Zaabalawi is the figure of God in the story. Even though Zaabalawi has already cured the narrator, the narrator still insists on finding him. This represents the commitment he is making to God.
All of the people that the narrator encounters either have never heard of Zaabalawi or they no longer know of his current location. Moving from visit to visit the narrator learns a little more about the mysterious Zaabalawi. The narrator visits different people; do they represent something? At every one of the encounters the people tell the narrator that Zaabalawi is still alive and they share great things about Zaabalawi causing the narrator to seek harder. However, the narrator never actually gets to see Zaabalawi. This raises the question, whether Zaabalawi is an actual person or merely just an idea.
Questions:
- Who is Zaabalawi? Is Zaabalawi a real man, or just an idea?
- What do the people that the narrator visits in the story represent?