A Child from the Village

188 Pages·2005·0.533 MB·English

by  Sayed Qutb, William Shepard, John Calvert

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A CHILD FROM THE VILLAGE
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THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO PRESS
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First published in Egypt in 2005 by
The American University in Cairo Press
113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt
www.aucpress.com
Copyright © 2005 by Syracuse University Press
This edition published by arrangement with Syracuse University Press
Originally published in Arabic as Tifl min-al qarya.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without
the prior written permission of the publisher.
Dar el Kutub No. 8652/05
ISBN 977 424 954 2
Printed in Egypt
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To the author of The Days,1Dr. Taha Hussein Bey.
These, dear sir, are “days” like your “days,” lived by a village child;
some are similar to your days and some are different.
The difference reflects the difference between one generation and another,
one village and another, one life and another, indeed the difference between
one nature and another, between one attitude and another.
But they are, when all is said and done, also “days.”
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Sayyid Qutbwas born in 1906 in Musha, Asyut Province, Upper Egypt, the
village of the title. After an early career as a poet and literary and social
critic, he became a committed Islamist in the late 1940s, embarking on a life
of Islamist writing and activism that has earned him stature of modern
Egypt’s most influential radical Islamist thinker. He was eventually impris-
oned for his views, but continued to write until his execution by the Egypt-
ian government in 1966. He is now regarded in Muslim circles as shahid,or
martyr.
John Calvert is assistant professor of history at Creighton University in
Omaha, Nebraska, where he teaches courses related to the history of the
modern Middle East. He received his Ph.D. in 1994 from the Institute of Is-
lamic Studies at McGill University, Montreal. Since then he has published
several articles dealing with Islamist movements and thinkers, including
Sayyid Qutb.
William Shepardretired in 1999 from his post as associate professor of reli-
gious studies at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New
Zealand, where he had taught since 1978. He received his Ph.D. in the
comparative study of religion from Harvard University in 1973 and taught
at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, from 1971 to 1978. His main
area of research is modern Islamic thought. He has published two books,
The Faith of a Modern Muslim Intellectual: The Religious Aspects and Implications of the
Writings of Ahmad Amin(1982), and Sayyid Qutb and Islamic Activism: A Transla-
tion and Critical Analysis of “Social Justice in Islam” (1996), and numerous articles,
including several on Sayyid Qutb.
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Author’s Introduction xi
Translators’ Introduction xiii
1. The Magzub 1
2. The Gym Master 7
3. The Sacred School 15
4. Medical Mission 33
5. The Local Doctor 43
6. The ‘Afarit 59
7. Cultural Activity 78
8. The Law of the Thieves 97
9. The Confiscation of Weapons 106
10. The Harvest 113
11. Sorrows of the Countryside 125
12. The Journey 135
Notes 139
Glossary 147
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Acknowledgments
Ibrahim M. Abdel Halim, past president of the Canterbury Muslim
Association, provided considerable help with translation and ex-
plained many of the customs referred to in the book. Sawsan Mah-
moud, Nasser Alsharif, and Raed Jamil also gave some help with the
translation. Ann Quinn and Dorothy Zarifeh read the whole English
text and made important suggestions on wording and style. Elizabeth
Gill also read part of the text and made suggestions. We wish to ex-
press our appreciation to all of them.
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