Islam in The Yacoubian Building
September 25, 2007
The Yacoubian Building (2002) by Alaa al Aswany pulls no punches when it comes to its portrayal of Egyptian society. Corruption is present at every level.. and the best one can do is get out. The following is a short diatribe against the state of life in Egypt:
If there were any justice in this country, someone like you would get educated at state expense. Education, medical treatment, and work are the natural rights of every citizen in the world but the regime in Egypt is determined to abandon the poor like you to ignorance so it can rob them. [183]
These words are put into the mouth of a character, but they accurately summarize the events of the novel. This does not amount to a Faulkner-like "I hate the South"; it is a steady accusation of institutional failure.
Islam is not spared. Two of the several interlocking stories illustrate al Aswany's views of Islam.. and can even be said to present something of a theory of Islam.
The first is the story of Taha el Shazli, a young man who grows up the son of the doorman for the Yacoubian building.. one of the decaying yet classic structures of downtown Cairo. Despite his low social position Taha is a high achiever in school and works toward entrance to the police academy. On his final interview one of the questioners asks about his father's occupation.. and when Taha is refused entrance to the academy it is clear that his low social position was the cause.
His hopes for advancement dashed, Taha starts classes at Cairo University. Here he falls in with a crowd of poor students that gravitate to the mosque and religion:
...in fact from the first moment, just as oil separates from water and forms a distinct layer on top, so the rich students separated themselves from the poor and made up numerous closed coteries formed of graduates from foreign language schools and those with their own cars, foreign clothes, and imported cigarettes.... The poor students, on the other hand, clung to one another like terrified mice... [90]
Through his acquaintances among this group of poor students Taha is introduced to the thought structures of Jihadist Islam. I won't say more about what happens to Taha, but for al Aswany the key motive for Taha's turn to an extremist form of Islam is his experience of state sanctioned corruption. Islam becomes a way for him to hold his head high.. and functions also as a social net for a class of poor and rural types.
The second story that illustrates Islam is that of Hagg Azzam. In this case we see a businessman who owns a store on the first floor of the Yacoubian building. Hagg is wealthy, but he wants more.. and to get more he is going to run for a place in the Assembly. To get this place Hagg must get the approval of a corrupt man who acts as gatekeeper for the "elections" in Egypt. Commenting on this gatekeeper the narrator states:
...it is also true that [the gatekeeper] is endowed with a real talent for politics that would necessarily have enabled him to assume the highest positions of state even in a democratic society. The same authentic talent, however, like so many talents in Egypt, has been diverted, distorted, and adulterated by lying, hypocrisy, and intrigue... [81]
That is perhaps the single strongest denunciation of Egypt in the book.. and it can't get much stronger. The point seems to be that Egypt perverts its genuine people.. forces them to lie and thereby ruins them. That is the nature of the gatekeeper with whom Hagg must deal.. and it also becomes the story of Hagg.
Islam enters this story as Hagg seeks to justify his demand that his second wife get an abortion. He brings along a Sheikh to make his argument.. and the Sheikh dutifully makes it sound as if the abortion will be fine.. and even falls within the laws of God. This same Sheikh, we are told, is prominent on the lecture circuit with his defense of the American presence in the Middle East during the first Gulf War. This is an Islam that is the mirror opposite of the radicalism that Taha embraces. It is an Islam that, like Hagg, has been "adulterated by lying, hypocrisy, and intrigue."
No positive narrative of Islam is written into The Yacoubian Building to counter these two views of Islam. I am not always sure about the extent to which I believe al Aswany in his portrayal of Islam. The class-based theory of Islam that arises in the story of Taha does not fit what I have seen and read. But it is a compelling view of the way religion is deformed by a political/social sickness. The outsiders are pushed to extremism and the insiders are made into hypocrites. Islam as it is presented in this novel thus mirrors the lines from Yeats: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
