In memoriam: Abbas Mahmoud Al-Aqqad (28 June 1889-12 March 1964) The 25th anniversary of the death of the luminary Abbas Mahmoud Al-Aqqad, writes Salonez Sami, is an occasion to remember not only his seminal contributions as writer, historian, poet, philosopher, translator, and journalist but, more importantly perhaps, his consistent pro-democracy stand. While battling with Greek mythology, Arabic poetry and the modern sciences, he used his writing to spread his liberal beliefs. Al-Aqqad is famously self-educated. He attended only the first four years of elementary school, but he managed to establish himself as one of the most formidable intellects of his time and, perhaps because of the chip on his shoulder, was notoriously exacting of his academically qualified intellectual adversaries. He edited several newspapers, including Al-Dustour and Al-Bayan in the early 1900s, during which time he was the first to interview the great statesman Saad Zaghloul, a personal friend of whom he wrote an impressive biography, on the latter's accession to the position of prime minister in 1908. In 1905 he began to publish poetry, eventually producing political commentaries in verse. In 1920 he experimented with the journal format to produce a kind of autobiography. Jailed for a few months in 1930 for defending the Wafd Party, he did not flee to Sudan until the German troops advanced on Egypt in 1942. His books on the subject include a biography of Hitler and a study of Nazism. In 1931 Aqqad wrote the fourth Egyptian film, Song of the Heart, whereupon he began his illustrious career as a biographer of the great Islamic figures, the 'abqariyat (or geniuses, begun in 1942) as well as such luminaries as Benjamin Farnklin and Francis Bacon. The 'abqariyat remain among the best selling books in Arabic. In the 1950s Aqqad's salon became the hub of literary life (see picture with Mai Ziyadah, another luminary of the period whose salon is legendary). In 1956 Aqqad became the head of the Higher Council of Literature and the Arts; by then he was widely recognised as the Human Encyclopaedia. His last published work, The Diaries, appeared in 1963.
