Candidate Number: 049134-0004 Ahmed 1

Zainab Ahmed
Mr. William Garcia
IB Literature 4B
12 May 2015
IO Reflection
These IOs helped me learn a lot about Cairo, Egypts political situation before and during
World War I. Egypts government has been struggling to have control over themselves and also
allow the peoples voice to be heard so they will be satisfied, and the struggle continues even
today. However, to understand the novel Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz, we needed to learn
about the political struggles of the past.
Two presentations, the first given by William, Nicho, and Nelson, and the second given
by Zaid and Girish, talked about how Egypts political situation was during this time period.
According to them, England had control over Egypts government even while Egypt was
technically independent and the Egyptian parties that opposed this control were unable to do very
much about it. They had noticed Egypts flourishing Suez Canal and their many different goods
that would be perfect for an economic boost back in England, so they took control and
thoroughly enjoyed the pot of gold that was Egypt. The British soon relinquished their official
reign in Egypt a couple years after the end of World War I in 1922, but they werent so willing to
let go completely. They decided to help Egypt transition into a fully independent country by
staying in Egypt, when in reality, were still enjoying the benefits of having almost the same kind
of control. They were able to keep all their people in Egypt and stayed until the early 1950s.
Egypt was a great help to the Allies powers against the Axis powers in World War I. It
was able to not only provide a way into the actual battle ground, which was Libya, but was also

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able to provide the British army with loyal spies to take information from the battleground back
to the military base back in Egypt. At the same time, Egypts economy was thriving from all the
trade happening as a result of the war. Many goods were traded, a lot of money earned off of
providing lodging to the soldiers, and restaurants remained full. The British also began offering
money to Egyptians to come and work for them. These Egyptian soldiers needed the money
almost desperately and were very loyal to the British army, which was a great asset to them.
In the end, I learned a lot about how Egyptian politics were in the period before and
during World War I.

[Word Count: 400 words]

Zainab Ahmed
Mr. William Garcia
IB Literature 4B
12 May 2015

Candidate Number: 049134-0004 Ahmed 3

Arrogance in the Alley
Naguib Mahfouz, a Nobel Prize Award winning author, demonstrates in his novel Midaq
Alley that arrogance is a quality that will backfire on a person and cause them to unintentionally
harm themselves. He is able to prove this by displaying how arrogance leads to ruin, arrogance
can lead to physical trauma, and arrogance leads to misleading confidence.
Before analyzing the novel, it is important to investigate Islams view on arrogance.
Islam is very clear about its beliefs through not only the words of the last prophet, Muhammad,
but through their holy book, the Quran. There are multiple quotes throughout the book pertaining
to the matter of arrogance, but the quote most direct is, Walk not on this earth with conceit and
arrogance. Verily, you can neither rend nor penetrate the earth, nor can you attain a stature like
the mountains in height (17:37). Quite clearly, the Quran is telling the world to not be arrogant,
because that will, in reality, not get a person anywhere near where they would like to be. The
simile in this quote, where a persons stature is compared to the height of mountains shows how
high the arrogant man or woman believes himself/herself to be. And then it goes to say that the
arrogance would not allow you to gain that wanted stature. The message of this quote is that
arrogance is something that should be avoided and although makes one feel like they are better,
bring them lower in the eyes of God, and would cause harm to the person in the end. And
Mahfouz, an Islamic author is using Islams belief about arrogance to support his own belief that
arrogance is a double-edged sword.
Mahfouz believes that arrogance will lead to eventual ruin. This is displayed through his
character Hamida, whose distinct beauty causes her to believe she is better than the poor men of
Midaq Alley who repeatedly ask for her hand in marriage. This is seen in the quote, ...A vicious
look came into the girl's eyes and shattered her beauty. She shouted in full, angry scorn, That

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barber!... (Mahfouz, 143). Through the syntax and diction in this quote, it can be seen that
immediately she feels that her contract with this poor man is holding her back from an even
better life than which she had imagined for herself. The angry diction of words such as vicious,
shattered, scorn portrays her feelings toward him, which are angry. However, the syntax is
really what displays how she feels about the situation. It is in the way she calls Abbas That
barber!, which is a furious manner, as is learned from the diction. It shows how her contract
with Abbas is causing her so much anger and hate towards him, she is unable to even utter his
name. In this quote, Hamidas mother, Umm Hamida, is informing Hamida that an old wealthy
man has asked for Hamidas hand in marriage. Hamida is quite elated, until Umm Hamida
reminds her that she had already sealed her engagement with a young and loving barber named
Abbas. Despite his poor financial situation, he has gladly gone to war alongside the British in
hopes of returning with enough money to start a family with the love of his life, Hamida. And in
this it is seen that she feels that she deserves better than him by using his profession instead of
his name. The fact that she believes she is above him depicts her arrogance. It is this very
arrogance that causes her to go following a man who she believed would be better than even this
rich old man, that leads her straight to her life in a whore house, initiating a terrible life for her.
Therefore, Mahfouz is able to show using Hamida as an example, that arrogance would lead a
person to ruin.
Another character Mahfouz uses in his story shows that arrogance can lead to physical
trauma. He does this using his character Salim Alwan, the rich old man who asks Umm Hamida
for Hamidas hand in marriage. The following quote is a representation of his arrogance: ...He
spat on the floor as though expelling Abbas himself. Imagine a simple penniless barber trying to
compete with him!.. (Mahfouz, 140). The haughty diction in this quote is easily seen through

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words such as expelling and trying. All these words show that Salim Alwan believes he is in
a higher position than Abbas, and that since he is in the higher position, he is much better than
Abbas. He believes that Abbas is so low in status to him, that the man has become something that
he would have to expel from himself as though the man is disgusting and unworthy of being
acquainted with Alwan. That Abbas is so incompetent that he will never out him, and that it is
audacious that he, someone so low in comparison to Alwan, he would even think about trying
to outcompete him. In this quote, Alwan is thinking to himself about how Abbas managed to seal
an engagement with the beautiful Hamida, before he was even able to bring himself to ask her
mother for her hand. It is his anger and jealousy of Abbas, a man whom he already believed was
beneath his station, that causes his arrogance to fluctuate in an unseemly manner, and betray
Abbas by reaching out for his fiance. Mahfouz demonstrates that his arrogance caused him to
harm himself by causing him to suffer a fatal heart attack right before his marriage to Hamida,
therefore ending Alwans story with his own death. Thus Mahfouz is able to display that
arrogance can lead to possibly fatal physical trauma.
Mahfouz displays his belief that arrogance can lead to misleading confidence. He does
this by using the character Hussain Kirsha who leaves Midaq Alley confident that he would
return gloriously wealthy and happy. This can be seen in the quote ...Shake off this miserable
life, close up your shop, leave this filthy alley behind(Mahfouz, 20). The negative diction in
this quote through words such as miserable, close, and filthy that Kirsha is using to
describe his own home, shows that he feels he is better than it and deserves better. His arrogance
is what gives him false confidence in the British army where he believes he will get the key to
fulfill all his dreams: wealth. He leaves the alley, following his own advice, and goes to work for
the British military. He comes back utterly empty handed, as can be seen in the following quote,

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...There was nothing to do but return to Midaq Alley (Mahfouz, 126). The syntax in this
quote, the placement of the words, implies that Kirsha had come back to Midaq Alley with less
than with which he had gone. That he had nothing to do but return to the very place he truly
believed would most definitely escape. And consequently, Mahfouzs belief that arrogance
causes misleading confidence in a person has been perfectly executed.
In the end, Mahfouz is able to display his beliefs in his novel Midaq Alley surrounding
arrogance using his religion of Islam, that arrogance causes people to unintentionally harm
themselves. It can lead them to ruin, to have to suffer significant physical trauma, and give them
misleading confidence.
[Word Count: 1217 words]

Works Cited
Mahfouz Naguib, and Trevor Le Gassick. Midaq Alley. New York: Anchor, 1992. Print.
The Noble Quran. Trans. Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali, Muhammad and Muhsin Khan, Muhammad.
Riyadh: Darussalam, 1996.