Volume 36, Number 1 · February 2, 1989
The Shroud of Mahfouz
By Anton Shammas
In the acceptance speech he sent to the Nobel Prize committee to substitute for his presence, Naguib Mahfouz asked the permission of his far-off audience to present himself as the son of two civilizations 'that at a certain time in history have formed a happy marriage'—the civilization of the Pharaohs and that of Islam. Then he told an abrupt little story about each. After a victorious battle against Byzantium, he said, the Muslims gave back prisoners of war in return for a number of books of the ancient Greek heritage in philosophy, medicine, and mathematics. 'This was a testimony of value for the human spirit in its demand for knowledge,' Mahfouz said, 'even though the demander was a believer in God and the demanded a fruit of pagan civilization.'
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