Al-Sayyid Ahmad Holds His Own

"It was based most of all on his innate desire to continue to be loved and enjoy a fine reputation." On page 223 in the last two paragraphs of the page, Naguib Mahfouz displays the books moral theme: reputation and order. In this section of the book, the children were getting close friends of the family to convince Ahmad to bring back Amina. While doing so he believes that his neighbor, Umm Maryam, tries to hit on him. Though he fights temptation, he doesn't give in but instead chooses his fine reputation to uphold.

Throughout the book, Ahmad's reputation and order/place within his community and household, comes up frequently with precise illustrations displayed in order to get the theme across like on page 223. "Umm Maryam represented nothing more to him than a delicious kind of food, which threatened his digestion, he could easily turn down in favor of some of the other tasty but wholesome dishes that covered the table." This example of illustration is exact in portraying the them of reputation and order. Ahmad referring to Maryam as a food that would "threaten his digestion," meant that she would threaten his reputation, and he'd rather not go for that "dish."

Leading a Double Life

In my opinion, nothing is more aggravating than a person who tries to portray themselves as something they are not. In Palace Walk, a lot of these men are living double lives. Take Ahmad for example. From the beginning of the book he doesn't allow his family to see what he's really up to at times and does a pretty good job at hiding it from them. He goes out and sleeps with various women who aren't his wife and still claims to be a devout muslim. Finally, Yasin catches him in the act cheating on his wife, but instead of Yasin seeing the error of his father's ways he decided to emulate him. He decides that it's okay to live a life where he sleeps with various women, goes out and spends his money and drinks, all because his father does it. We've seen Yasin since the beginning of the book as someone who has admired his father so much, and it's inevitable that he'd want to be like him in every way possible. But, when Fahmy began lying about who he was and also leading a double life, it's apparent that this must be something that their family does. Ahmad wants Fahmy to stop participating in demonstrations dealing with the English, but Fahmy is so involved with doing this that he ends up disobeying his father , which will eventually lead to his death.
The passage that showed me that they really live this kind of life is found on page 424, when Fahmy shows us just how much this family doesn't mind lying about what they need to in order to get away with certain things. Fahmy thinks, “Lying was not considered contemptible or shameful in this household. Living in their father's shadow, none of them would have been able to enjoy any peace without the protection of a lie...None of the had scruples about it...” Fahmy talks about how many things that their family has done they've lied to Ahmad about it and they don't feel any remorse about it. But, my concern is why don't they? They consider themselves to be devout, faithful muslims, yet from most of the men in the book, we see them living lives that are contrary to what they should be doing as well-practicing muslims. I did research on the way that muslims view lying to see if they were actually living the way they should. I found a website written by a man named Dr. M. Amir Ali who was a man who came to the United States to spread the word of Islam to rid people of their pre-conceived notions and stereotypes of the religion. He wrote many articles on Islamic values and did a specific section for the views of falsehood. He writes, “Allah's messenger did not hate anything as strongly as he hated falsehood. If he received information that a particular man told a lie, he used to throw away that man's respect and honor from his heart...” So if Allah's own messenger did not tolerate lies, why would a good muslim truly want to do something like that.
Works Cited
1. Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace Walk (Cairo Trilogy). New York: Anchor, 1990. Print.
2."Falsehood." The Article Collection of M. Amir Ali, Ph.D. Web. 25 Mar. 2010. .

A father's Influence

Lauren F. Clemons


Yasin is the son of Ahmad and his first wife, whom both Ahmad and Yasin aren't very fond of. The strained relationship between Yasin's mother and Ahmad began when they were first married and she proved to be a woman who was a little too free for his liking. He divorced her with the intent of getting back together with her later on, but she only wanted to come back if he would promise not to beat her (107). He grew so angry with her for not crawling back to him that he finalized their divorce and never looked back. Years later, Ahmad still grows angry just by hearing the mentioning of his first wife (106) which to me is strange because they've been separate for eleven years now. What could possibly still be the problem with Ahamd and his first wife.

Ahmad's a very arrogant man, who believes that women should just flock to him, no questions asked. He expected nothing less from his first wife, and made sure of that in their marriage. When he decided to divorce her, he only had the intent of carrying it out for a little while, but things didn't go as planned. He believed that she should come crawling back to him carrying no stipulations are conditions. When she did, he grew embarrassed. He thought he was high, mighty and powerful enough to get her back without having to work on himself. When he didn't get his way, he left her alone without even being able to keep a relationship with her son. To do this, just because she only agreed to come back if he wouldn't hit her strikes me as odd. If he really cared about her, then simply agreeing to keep his hands off her shouldn't have been an issue. But with Ahmad, being married is not for happiness, but it's because he wants to be a man. He wants to only allow his wife certain freedoms, and make sure she understands that he's the man. He couldn't allow her to come back into his house if she even thought she could tell him what to do. So he ran off simply because he coudn't have his way.

The passage that made me realize this about Ahmad is on page 106, when Mahfouz writes about Ahmad's anger he still has inside. The sheer embarrassment he felt could still be seen eleven years later. This passage is also when we begin to see how Ahmad's feelings about his first wife have rubbed off on his son. On page 107, Mahfouz writes, “The woman was at least forty, and Yasin was fully grown and aware of his ability to defend his honor from harm and humiliation,”. His mother's remarriage probably isn't necessarily an extremely controversial issue at this time since he also says a little before that sentence that this marriage is one of her more honorable mistakes. Mahfouz states that Yasin simply believes “this anticipated marriage seemed more outrageous than the previous ones and more calculated to cause pain” (107). He sincerely believes, like his father, that she's doing these things to dishonor them and embarrass them. Ahmad's beliefs have influenced Yasin to a point where he doesn't even seem to care at all about his mother. When he goes to visit her, he can't even morsel up any small act of love to show to her.