Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd: a human with a gentle soul and a good heart. He had the forbearance and persistence to innovate and modernize. I would like to start with the last few pages from one of his esteemed books, "Speech and Interpretation", published in Casablanca. The pages describe his upbringing as follows, "I was born to a poor family in the village of Quhafa, near Tanta, and I cannot help but quote these lines written by Mansur Al-Hallaj, who was executed in 925 A.C. and were featured in Salah Abdul Sabour's famous, symbolic play "The Tragedy of Al-Hallaj". I'm a man stemming from a poor descent, Neither ancestry nor fortune can raise me to the sky, I exist amongst thousands of thousands, For a poor man once ran into humble arms, To extinguish the bitterness of ruthless days. "The father's a poor peasant languishing in a small, poorly yielding farmland and had a small grocery store. I was taught in Al Kottab (an old-fashioned method of education in Egypt and Muslim majority countries) and I memorized the Quran at 8. I graduated from middle school in 1957, and months later, my father passed away. Which forced me to take a shortcut and finish a high school diploma, specialized in wireless connections, in 1960. I was working in the wireless communication's field, but insisted on getting a higher education from home. I later got enlisted in the Faculty of Arts of the Arabic Department at Cairo University where I graduated with excellent grades and was hired as an assistant teacher. My academic life had begun. Like many of his peers, Abu Zayd joined then defected from the Muslim Brotherhood. "I was never an active member of a political party, though I was politically and intellectually closer to the National Progressive Unionist Party. I liked the liberal formula, the communist and nationalist direction and the non-conforming policies. But I never had a big role, although I contributed to their cultural seminars from time to time." Back to the early pages of the book where it read, "If there's ever a healthy conflict between ideas, the new ones are bound to drive the old out and surpass them. Old ideas tend to repeatedly claim sacredness and authenticity, while the new ones don't. The old bashes the new in an attempt to abolish it, turning the whole thing into a religious conflict instead of intellectual differences. Demagoguery helps to get the masses on the old ideas' side as well as cultural, educational and state institutions, accusing everyone of communism, secularism and atheism." Hence, the new is always in defense mode, compelled to move away from any sort of thinking that involves religion, which pretty much limits its ideas resulting in vapid, rancid statements that don't stimulate the intellect. Abu Zayd mentions Zaki Naguib Mahmoud, the Egyptian thinker who he dubs the "Enlightenment Symbol". "Zaki Naguib Mahmoud had an enlightened speech all of his own. It was a reflection of his European influences and had two dimensions: the belief in the value of liberty, and grasping the notion of evolution in our social lives." Abu Zayd added: "Liberty has been always a prerequisite in Egyptian lives though Evolution as a theory was not as familiar except for the Darwinist part of it." "The discourse of enlightened thought gained new grounds and deepened its roots in the Egyptian culture thanks to Ahmed Lutfi Al Sayed and Taha Hussein who emphasized on a sense of responsibility towards the freedom granted." He also said, "The Egyptian enlightened speech, in some aspects, conflicts with Western theses when it comes to Islam and Muslims, which are described by Salafis as ‘subversive to our culture and creed'." Abu Zayed was a revolutionary above all else. Until we meet again ..
