Children of Gebelaawi Read Online Free

account of both the original sources.
    The translation here offered is aimed at the general reader
    with no prior knowledge of the Arab world; no words have
    been used that cannot be found i n a good English dictionary.
    A few words need a little explanation. 'Trust' has been used to
    xviii
    Introduction
    translate waqf, the technical term for property held i n trust
    under Islamic law to provide an income in perpetuity either
    for an institution, such as a mosque or school, or, as i n this
    novel, for the descendants of a particular family. The rationale
    for such a trust is that it avoids the division of the property
    between various heirs, which would otherwise be required by
    Islamic law. Mahfouz worked for many years as a civil servan t
    in the Ministry for Religious Trusts.
    The key term futuwwa is translated as 'strongman'. Its
    original meaning is 'young-manliness' , from the word Jata,
    'young man ' . In the middle ages it became the name of
    something between a gui ld and an order of chivalry, but by
    modern ti mes this had degenerated and most strongmen had
    become the protection-racketeers met with in Mahfouz's work.
    It is i mportant, however, not to use a word such as 'gangster' ,
    which necessarily implies someone bad, because ambiguity is
    needed, especially when the term is applied to Gebelaawi and
    Qaasim.
    Hara is translated as 'alley', and it is worth insisting on the
    fact that this is correct. Several learned critics have imagined
    that it means 'quarter' or 'district' , and one has even claimed
    that it is the whole of the old city. Any attentive reader wi ll
    agree that i n this book 'alley' is right; it is a single thoroughfare
    (chapter 67) , short enough for someone at one end to follow
    what goes on at the other (chapter 104) , and narrow enough
    for conversation to take place across it ( chapter 97) . Its people
    live in appanments opening on to the stairways to the central
    courtyards of tenement-houses. These form two facing terraces, and their flat roofs provide alternative routes from one end of the Alley to the other ( chapters 33, 60, 83) .
    The hookah that the men of the Alley use for smoki ng
    hashish is not the heavy narghile, which stands on the floor or
    on a table, and which is smoked through a flexible tube. It is
    a smaller version, in Esryptian Arabic the gow, 'coconu t', from
    the shape of the brass reservoir that is held in the hand of the
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    Children of Gebelaawi
    smoker. A vertical stem carries the smoke from the clay bowl,
    on which the drug is placed with glowing charcoals, down to
    the bottom of the water in the reservoir, and a bamboo pipe
    draws the smoke up to the smoker's lips.
    I have taken slight liberties with some of the foods and
    drinks, replacing them with the nearest equivalent familiar
    outside the Arab world. Buza is translated as 'ale'; it is an
    illegally brewed drink, based on stale bread soaked in water.
    Proper names have presented the most difficult problem,
    and several solutions have been adopted side by side. Place
    names have been given a standard guidebook spelling, except
    that the jebel ofjebel Muqattam has been speltwith aj i n order
    to retain the form familiar in English .Jebel, usually translated
    'mountain', is such an important word in the book that the
    Arabic form has been preferred; 'mountain' in any case has
    the wrong associations for readers from more humid countries; besides, Jebel Muqauam rises only a few hundred feet above the level of Cairo.
    Given names have usually been transliterated, using a
    system that reflects standard Arabic pronunciation. Most readers will not want to be bothered with the fact that in Cairoj and Q are replaced by G and the glottal stop.J can be pronounced
    as i n 'jam ' and Qas a throaty variety ofK. Most long vowels have
    been represented by doubled letters: AA as in 'bazaar', EE as
    in 'beet', 00 as in 'boot'. Departures from the strict system
    have been allowed in a number of cases. In particular,