Al-Sanhuri min khilal awraqeh al-shakhsiya (Al-Sanhuri through his Private Papers), Nadia Al-Sanhuri and Tawfiq Al-Shawi eds., Cairo: Dar el-Shorouq, 2005. pp371 The publication of the personal papers of Abd Al-Razzaq Ahmad Al-Sanhuri (1895-1971), or Al-Sanhuri Pasha as he is better known, could not have come at a more opportune time. Founder and dean of the law schools at Cairo and Baghdad universities in the early and mid 1930s, Al-Sanhuri is a household name across the Arab world, where students of his students teach law, and where his works, especially his encyclopaedic work in ten volumes, Al-Wasit fi Sharh Al-Qanun Al-Madani (Encyclopaedia of Civil Law), are essential reference materials for generations of legal practitioners. Though almost 35 years have passed since his death, Al-Sanhuri's name has not lost its sacred ring. For the Arab legal profession, he represents what his contemporary Taha Hussein represents for Arab letters: the profession's elder statesman. And what better time to read the private papers of one of the founding fathers of modern Egyptian law than now, when all eyes are fixed on Egypt's jurists who have recently threatened to boycott the supervision of this autumn's presidential and legislative elections unless sufficient guarantees --including a new law for the judiciary -- are accorded. Any one familiar with the modern history of Egypt will immediately recognise the judges' gesture for what it is: a wake-up call. The complex relationship between members of the legal profession and the 1952 regime is beyond the scope of this review and the means of the present reviewer. This is not the place, either, for an appraisal of the life and works of this legendary jurist and scholar, arguably the most distinguished Arab jurist of the 20th century, who drafted many of the laws of many of the newly independent Arab states. Instead, readers interested in the life and work of Al-Sanhuri are advised to consult Enid Hill's monograph Al-Sanhuri and Islamic Law: The Place and Significance of Islamic Law in the Life and Work of Abd al-Razzaq Ahmad al-Sanhuri, Egyptian Jurist and Scholar (Cairo Papers in Social Science Volume 10, No.1, published by the American University in Cairo Press in Spring 1987). Those interested in the history of the various confrontations between the officers of the July regime and the judiciary can also consult material produced by jurists, foremost among them Tarek Al-Bishri, former deputy president of the Majlis al-Dawla (equivalent to the French Conseil d'Etat ), Egypt's administrative court and advisory body to the state on matters of the constitutional legality of legislation. Al-Bishri's article in this month's edition of the Cairo review Wejhat Nazr specifically deals with the latest stand-off between the judges and the government, as expressed in last month's emergency meeting of the Judges' Association, explaining why the judges are angry and what they are demanding. However, one particular incident in that difficult relationship is of prime importance to this piece and was the reason behind this reviewer's interest in Al-Sanhuri's private papers at this juncture. On 29 March 1954, at the height of the March Democracy Crisis -- or the struggle between the then president of the Egyptian Republic, Mohamed Naguib, on the one side, and most of the officers of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) led by Gamal Abdel-Nasser, on the other -- when the political path the country would follow was being decided, the RCC mobilised its supporters and staged a demonstration outside the headquarters of Majlis al-Dawla, which was holding a general assembly meeting presided over by Al-Sanhuri, then president (Chief Justice) of the Majlis. The demonstrators outside shouted "down with democracy, down with ignorant judges," and Al-Sanhuri, having come out onto the terrace to enquire what the matter was, was beaten up by thugs masquerading as members of the angry masses. Historians of the period are divided about the real aim behind this farce, and whether it was meant to intimidate those pressing for the restoration of democracy and the return of the army officers to their barracks, judges included, or whether a more sinister outcome was expected: the physical liquidation of Al-Sanhuri, who had initially supported the July regime and had helped draft the King's abdication document in 1952, but was now dragging his feet. One had hoped to find a first-hand account of this incident in Al-Sanhuri's memoirs, as well as answers to many of the questions surrounding the early years of the 1952 regime. But unfortunately Al-Sanhuri's papers covering the period between 1952 and 1969, the date he became ill and stopped writing altogether, do not occupy more than 30 pages of the present volume. Yet, what the book lacks in this regard, it more than makes up for in others. Indeed, it is a thought-provoking and engrossing read for any one interested in the question of how we, the Egyptian people, reached the stage at which we now find ourselves. As one follows Al-Sanhuri's formative years, as a student and young attorney in Egypt during the early years of the 20th century (1910-1920), or in France, where he studied law (1921-1926), one cannot help but gasp in amazement at the breadth and depth of the intellectual formation and preoccupations of the youth of the Egyptian nation at that time. One cannot help, either, thinking of the rupture that happened sometime around the middle of the century, leading to the squandering of much of this intellectual wealth. For, following the above-mentioned incident outside Majlis al-Dawla in 1954, Al-Sanhuri left public life to the detriment of future generations of law students and professionals, who thus did not have the opportunity to grow in his shadow. Some have argued, however, that, just as every cloud is said to have a silver lining, it was this exit from public life in general, and from politics in particular -- Al-Sanhuri was also a politician who twice served as a minister under the Sa'dist governments of the 1940s -- that made him concentrate on writing legal works, including his celebrated ten-volume Al-Wasit, eight volumes of which were compiled between 1954 and 1969. Of the slim section of Al-Sanhuri's book dealing with the tumultuous years following the July 1952 revolution, most of the entries are short, consisting of little more than a few, often cryptic, sentences. The first entry after 23 July 1952, for example, is dated 12 August 1952 and reads as follows: "It is my birthday today; may God lead my steps to all good things. It is a good omen that today I shall be attending the first session of the committee in charge of deciding the ceiling for land ownership in Egypt. May God lead my steps to what is good for all." Similarly, on 1 November 1952 Al-Sanhuri writes: "Read the text of the Sudan Agreement in the papers ... I thank God for the circumstances that have prevented me from participating in concluding this agreement, for it seems to hand the Sudan to Al-Mahdi". The source of Al-Sanhuri's dissatisfaction, as the editor of the book, his son-in-law Tawfik Al-Shawy, explains in a footnote, was his sympathy with those Sudanese who demanded the unity of Egypt and the Sudan, rather than those, like Al-Mahdi, who wanted the Sudan's independence. Another five months elapse before the next entry dated 7 April 1953, in which Al-Sanhuri talks about the development of the Arabic language -- he was, and remained until his death, a member of the Arabic Language Academy. Surprisingly, the following entry, a brief note dated 10/11 August 1953, only talks of his birthday and the Arab Studies Institute he had founded in Cairo, while there is no mention of the republic that was announced in Egypt in June 1953. Regrettable as this is, it probably marks the beginning of the confrontation between Al-Sanhuri and the July regime, many historians having argued that he was not in favour of declaring a republic at this date. The next entry is dated 15 May 1954, almost a month and half after Al-Sunhari was attacked outside the Majlis al-Dawla, and the ten lines making up this entry are quite tragic. Al-Sanhuri seems not to want to commit himself by using his own words, and instead he quotes from Ahmed Shawqi, Egypt's former Poet Laureate and a prominent figure in the Egyptian nationalist movement, as well as from the Prophet Mohamed. From Shawqi he quotes a line in a poem written as an obituary for a famous Jurist, Ahmed Abouel-Fotouh, where Shawqi says: "Ahmed, after you the law will be vague, its articles crowned with black." From the Prophet, he quotes the lines addressed to God when Mohamed was thrown out of Al-Taif, children stoning him as he left: "O God, I complain to you in the weakness of my strength and my not knowing what to do, and how discounted I have become in the eyes of my people." Perhaps Al-Sanhuri meant these lines to be understood as describing his case too. By Mona Anis
