Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad

Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad (28 June 1889 – 12 March 1964) was an Egyptian writer, poet and literary critic, nicknamed "the Giant". Born at Aswan and educated almost entirely by his own reading, he co-founded the Diwan school of poetry, sat in parliament, and wrote more than a hundred books, among them the Abqariyyat ("Geniuses") biographies of early Muslim figures. ^{1 2}

He was born at Aswan on 28 June 1889 — the Arabic article gives the Hijri date 29 Shawwal 1306. ^{1 2} His father, a government clerk in charge of deeds records, was originally from Damietta, and his mother was of Kurdish origin. ¹ He completed only his elementary schooling and educated himself by buying books, spending his whole weekly allowance on them; he read in religion, history, geography and philosophy and became well read in English, French and German literature. ¹

With Ibrahim al-Mazini and Abd al-Rahman Shukri he founded the Diwan school of poetry; their book al-Diwan attacked the prince of poets, Ahmed Shawqi, and set out the school's rules. ^{1 2} The Arabic article describes his famous literary and intellectual battles with Shawqi, Taha Hussein, Zaki Mubarak, Mustafa Sadiq al-Rafi'i and others. ²

Al-Aqqad was an outspoken political thinker: he was jailed between 1930 and 1931 for criticising the government, wrote Hitler fi al-Mizan ("Hitler in the Balance") in June 1940 denouncing Nazism, and fled to Sudan in 1942 for fear of German reprisals. ¹ He sat in the Egyptian parliament as a Wafd member and later in the Chamber of Deputies, and opposed both fascism and communism. ¹ President Gamal Abdel Nasser awarded him the State Appreciation Award in Literature in 1958. ¹

He authored over a hundred books and several thousand articles. ¹ The Abqariyyat series treats seven figures — among them Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali, Khalid ibn al-Walid (may God be pleased with him), Muhammad and Christ — reading each character through a chosen key; the museum holds his Abqariyyat al-Imam Ali as a source. ¹ His other works include the novel Sarah, a philosophical study of the Qur'an, and studies of Averroes and of democracy in Islam. ¹

He died at Cairo in March 1964 — the Arabic article gives 26 Shawwal 1383, corresponding to 12 March 1964, while the English article's infobox and death section give 13 March — and his body was carried to Aswan and buried there the same day. ^{2 1 3} A street in Cairo's Nasr City district bears his name, and an Egyptian television series of the early 1980s dramatised his life under the title al-Imlaq, "The Giant". ¹