The Dreams

Glossary

Azbakiya: The name of both a large park in central Cairo and the district surrounding it. Established ca. 1476 by a local dignitary, the Amir Azbak — after whom it is named — around a small lake, for nearly five centuries it remained one of the wealthiest and most desired quarters in Cairo. The lake disappeared in the early nineteenth century, and most of the area’s grandeur by the latter part of the twentieth.

Bayt al-Qadi Square: Naguib Mahfouz was born into a middle-class household at 8 Bayt al-Qadi Square (Judge’s House Square) at the corner of Darb Qirmiz (Crimson Lane) in the old Islamic quarter of Cairo on December 10, 1911. (The birth was not registered until the following day; hence he observed his birthday on December 11 each year.) The “judge’s house,” built some time before 1800, stands at the southwest edge of the square next to the ruins of the ornately decorated palace of the fifteenth-century amir Mamay. The name refers to its service as a courthouse during the last century of Ottoman rule in Egypt (1517–1914).

birth-feast of Husayn: Part of the popular Egyptian tradition of fêting the birthdays of holy persons, the largest one is that for the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Husayn (Hussein). Many thousands gather around the Husayn Mosque (where it is claimed the saint’s head is kept) in al-Gamaliya for the occasion. The date of the celebration varies each year in accordance with the lunar-based Islamic calendar.

Christopher Village: Apparently an invention of Mahfouz’s mind, perhaps inspired by St. Christopher’s Village, a budget tourist hotel in London. Mahfouz had successful surgery in that city to remove an aneurism in his abdominal aorta in 1991, the first and only time he had been to the United Kingdom.

fuul: Broad beans — also known as horse beans — an indispensable part of the Egyptian diet, including the late author’s.

gallabiya: A long, loose garment commonly worn by Egyptians.

Ghuriya: Part of the main north — south thoroughfare in the Islamic district of Cairo, named for the surviving façades of a mosque and mausoleum built in 1504–05 by the Sultan Qansuh al-Ghuri, who died in 1516 vainly resisting the Ottoman conquest of Egypt and the Levant, which inexorably followed in 1517.

al-Hagg Ali: “Pilgrim Ali,” a person known to Mahfouz in his native district of al-Gamaliya, who at least into the mid-1990s apparently owned much property in Bayt al-Qadi Square (see above).

Harafish: In this instance, a group of friends — mostly actors, artists, writers, and musicians — to which Naguib Mahfouz belonged since roughly 1942, and which until recently met every Thursday evening without fail. The word itself is the plural of harfush, which originally may have been defined as “a person without a skilled trade.” By the nineteenth century, it generally meant “poor person,” or even “riff-raff.” One of the Mahfouz group’s most prominent members, the late actor Ahmed Mazhar (1917–2002) — who is thought to have given the weekly association its name — said that a harfush is “the agent provocateur found at the edge of every demonstration.”

Husayn district: Named for the Mosque of al-Husayn, which it surrounds, this is part of the larger district of Gamaliya, itself the northern (and largest) section of the former royal city of the Shiite Fatimid dynasty (969–1171). Known as al-Qahira, the Fatimids’ exclusive seat of power eventually formed the core of what became modern Cairo.

kunafa: Vermicelli baked in sugar, honey, and melted butter.

jellaba: A North African garment similar to the Egyptian gallabiya (see above), though usually featuring a hood.

jubba: A wide-sleeved, long outer garment, open in front.

mahmal: Until the advent of easy motorized travel, it was customary for Egyptian and other Islamic rulers to send a camel-borne litter, or mahmal, to Mecca bearing an elaborately embroidered cloth to decorate the Kaaba, or sacred cube-shaped black stone in the holy sanctuary, during the annual Muslim pilgrimage.

rabab: A primitive, usually one-to-three-stringed instrument frequently used to accompany the recital of heroic folk epics, ballads, and other songs.

Rose of the Nile: A name given to differing varieties of aquatic plants that grow in the Nile through the length of Egypt.

shaykh of the hara: A resident put in charge by the authorities to watch over the affairs of a neighborhood (hara, which also means alley or side street) in traditional parts of Cairo.

Shaykh Zakariya Ahmad: Celebrated singer, ‘ud player (see below), and composer (1896–1961), and a close friend of Naguib Mahfouz. Trained at Egypt’s principal Islamic school, al-Azhar, he authored a number of highly popular works sung by Egypt’s greatest diva, Umm Kulthoum (1904?–75), and also created numerous operettas.

Shukuku: Mahmud Shukuku (1912–85) was a popular Egyptian comedian, actor, and singer of monologs. He appeared in over one hundred films between 1944 and 1976.

Sidi Gaber: The first train stop in Alexandria. Mahfouz compared his advanced stage of life to that of a person pulling into Sidi Gaber Station, knowing that the final destination is but a short time away. (See Naguib Mahfouz at Sidi Gaber: Reflections of a Nobel Laureate 1994–2001, from conversations with Mohamed Salmawy, AUC Press, 2001.)

tagin: A dish of meat and vegetables baked in individual pots in a rich tomato sauce.

‘ud: A multi-stringed instrument, the Arab version of the lute.