Celebrated by intellectuals and enlightenment champions everywhere in the Arab world, Salama Moussa (1887-1958) divides opinion within the Coptic community whence he emerged. Some believe he held the key to the emancipation of the Egyptian citizen, others dismiss him as a “communist infidel”. But, surprisingly considering his message for our fundamentalism-addled times, Moussa has received little attention since his death 60 years ago. Speakers during Moussa's memorial evening (from left) Mohamed Attia, Fayez Farah, Marcelle Makram, Al-Ahram Weekly reporter, Ramy Atta Last month during a memorial evening at the Christian Youth Association, home to a Salama Moussa library containing 40 of the late thinker's books including many first editions and to the only bust of him in existence, association president Marcelle Makram praised Moussa as “a man of his time” who taught the values of enlightenment, while deputy chief editor of Al-Akhbar Mohamed Attia described him as one of most underrated figures in modern Egyptian history, whose example and books are more relevant than ever now. For his part the Shorouk Academy mass communication professor Ramy Atta stressed Moussa's encyclopaedic knowledge, his role in the development of a free modern press and his belief in journalism as a way to cultivate and address an enlightened public opinion. Mohamed Attia, Fayez Farah front of Moussa's statue A week later, I paid Salama Moussa librarian Gezira Fahmi a visit on the second floor of the association headquarters, where Moussa used to spend time and where his books invest the space with the pleasant scent of aged paper. Fahmi explained that the library was Moussa's brainchild and he established it, donating his own books to begin with. He envisioned a cultural hub at the then very active Christian Youth Association, where he volunteered from 1923 to his death, organising seminars and giving talks. Eventually the then association secretary Naguib Qilada assigned him a monthly remuneration of LE5 (which had reached LE20 by the time Moussa passed away). Some of these were epoch-making events, famously attended by his friend and neighbour the legendary author Mai Ziada as well as students of Moussa's including some of the best-known cultural figures of the 20th century: among others, Abdel-Moneim Shawki, Milad Hanna and Abdel-Rahman Al-Khamisi. Gezira Fahmi Moussa tested out his ideas in these workshops before turning them into books like Successful Character, The Art of Love and Life, Self Education and Attempts. He would give a lecture (which required the approval of the Ministry of Interior during World War II, eventually driving Moussa to give up), listen to questions and objections, and perfect his ideas. Today, three books make up the perfect introduction to Moussa's life and work: his autobiography entitled The Education of Salama Moussa, his son Raouf's biography My Father Salama Moussa and the journalist Fayez Farah's book Salama Moussa's Thought and Struggle. “The birth of each of us is an adventure with destiny,” Moussa writes in the introduction to his autobiography. “We come into the world with fixed hereditary abilities from parents we do not choose, and we live in a medium where our egos are formed and out beliefs and behaviour patterns are dictated to us before we can change it. Events then occur to us periodically, determining the directions we take in life, and catastrophes hit us to which we adapt and whose consequences we accept. And, even though we are all forged in the human mould, each of us is a singular case, his fortunes written before he is born, be they good or evil. That is why each of our lives is a unique story worthy of being narrated and read.” Moussa was born on 4 January 1887 in Zagazig, Sharqiya in the Nile Delta, to a family that hailed from Assiut in Upper Egypt. His father was a rich landowner and civil servant, but he died when Salama was only two. And so Moussa grew up in a house rarely visited, and then only by family, which helped to turn him into a bookish introvert early on. Early on he had access to what rudimentary education was available, and certain, negative experiences were to remain with him: wearing an earring as a child, in an attempt by his mother to present him as a girl and so avoid the evil eye — superstition; or being beaten up for calling his sister by her name on the street, which was then improper behaviour — patriarchy. These issues would become lifelong concerns of his. After obtaining his primary school certificate in 1903, Moussa moved to Cairo to attend the Khedival Secondary School, where he could indulge his insatiable appetite for reading. He obtained magazines like Al-Muqtataf and Al-Gamia, while books by Farah Anton among others introduced him to French literature, philosophy and (revolutionary) politics. He read Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau. He delighted in the stories of Maupassant and Alexandre Dumas. Through the National Party newspaper Al-Liwaa, he also grew acquainted with the work of the day's most celebrated writer Ahmed Lotfi Al-Sayed, a patriot whose activism was essential to the 1919 Revolution. Together with Yaqoub Sarrouf, Anton and Al-Sayed were “the three figures who forged my mental character: the first directed me on the path to science, the second opened up to me the horizons of European literature and the third made it possible for me, as a non-Muslim, to be a patriot in Egypt”. Moussa's family Enduring the military strictures of education at the time, Moussa witnessed the coexistence of such signs of the future as the automobile with unchanging evidence of the past like the water-carrier who brought people drinking water. As well as the pro-independence Al-Liwaa, he read the two other newspapers: the pro-Khedive Al-Muayid and the pro-British Al-Moqattam but supported the nationalist leader Mustafa Kamel who, having believed in the Ottoman legacy, was disillusioned with the behaviour of the monarch towards the end of his life. The unjust hanging of fellahin who had clashed with occupation soldiers in Denshwai in 1906 left him deeply distressed, so much so that he went without food for a few days. On his graduation Moussa, who having a monthly income of LE30-35 from his father's properties, did not need employment, travelled to Paris, where he suffered from culture shock despite all that he had read (works by such Egyptians as Rifaa Al-Tahtawi, Qassem Amin and Mohamed Abdou as well as French literature). But there was enough culture, art and knowledge there for him to withstand the apparent sensual excess. And, impressed by women's freedom, rationalism and aesthetic tastes, he was eventually quickly to European ways. Moussa later spent four years in London, during which time he witnessed the Suffragettes' protests of 1910 and the spread of socialist thinking. He recalled going out on the street hat-less in a rebellious gesture reflecting the spirit of those days. He had planned on moving onto Germany to study German as well as French and English, but he eventually gave up on that third language and concentrated instead on studying the works of Bernard Shaw and HG Wells and (in translation) Ibsen and Nietzsche. He also discovered Darwin, Marx and Freud in those days. According to his son Raouf, “Salama Moussa lived an austere, strict life devoid of excesses or desire. He accepted this because it was a duty, ate that because it was beneficial. He wasted no time on idle chatter or mere amusement or pastime. He never went to the cinema.” Due to financial difficulties and the attempt to establish a publishing house, back in Egypt — compared to others of the Pioneers Generation — Moussa did not have an easy life. He had financial difficulties and occasionally came up against the zeitgeist, but he never lost his good spirits or his kindness to his family and students. As Naguib Mahfouz recalled (in Ibrahim Abdel-Aziz's book My Mentors), Moussa used his magazine Al-Magalla Al-Gadida to defend persecuted writers even when he had serious disagreements with them. He reminded his readers of Abbas Mahmoud Al-Aqqad — otherwise an arch-rival — in every issue while Al-Aqqad was in prison. He defended Taha Hussein when the latter was dismissed from his job at the university in 1934 for his rationalist position, prophesying Hussein's eventual triumph. He also warned of the Zionist threat to Palestine, urging the Arabs to mobilise in order to avoid what he rightly saw as their inevitable defeat as early as 1934. Even then he could see the Arab-Israeli conflict would not be so much a military as an “agricultural, social and economic” one. His vision for globalisation was admirably secular and rationalist. Starting in 1914, Moussa also published 14 issues of the national unity magazine Al-Mustaqbal, which was then stopped by the British. He was among the first to participate in Al-Azhar's millennial celebration in 1927, and he founded the Egyptian for Egyptians association, promoting national industry and the use of Egyptian-made products, which with support from the great nationalist economist Talaat Harb resulted in the Company for the Sale of Egyptian Products which survives to this day. Moussa also championed such struggles as workers' insurance and unions, population control, caring for the environment and the young, and replacing the monarchy with a democratic republic. Indeed, it is crucial to follow Mahfouz's advice that the best way to honour Moussa is to keep his books in circulation. Thankfully his entire corpus is now available online at hindawi.org.
