1. The bulk of Shâdî ‘Abd al-Salâm’s cinematic corpus, including his documentaries, testifies to this. Shâdî ‘Abd al-Salâm expressed to me on numerous occasions the appeal and importance of Pharaonic Egypt for his own work. See also Claude Michel Cluny, Dictionnaire des nouveaux cinémas arabes (Paris: Editions Sindbad, 1978), pp. 91–94.

2. See, for example, John L. Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 96; also Gilles Kepel, Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986).

3. Israel Gershoni and James P. Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs: The Search for Egyptian Nationhood, 1900–1930 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 164–190.

4. See, for example, Douglas and Malti-Douglas, Arab Comic Strips, pp. 9–26, 154–155. Many modern Egyptian writers, from the Nobel Laureate Najîb Mahfûz to ‘Alî Ahmad Bâkathîr, have exploited Pharaonic Egypt in their work.

5. See, for example, Allen Douglas, “ ‘La Nouvelle Droite’: The Revival of Radical Rightist Thought in Contemporary France,” Tocqueville Review—La Revue Tocqueville 4 (1984): 361–387.

6. Tawfîq al-Hakîm, Izîs (Cairo: Maktabat al-Adâb, 1985). The play was first published in 1955.

7. Nawâl al-Sa‘dâwî, ‘An al-Mar’a (Cairo: Dâr al-Mustaqbal al-‘Arabî, 1988), pp. 115–132.

8. Nawâl al-Sa‘dâwî, Izîs (Cairo: Dâr al-Mustaqbal al-‘Arabî, 1986).

9. Ibid., pp. 5–16.

10. When discussing these ancient Egyptian figures, I shall retain the most common Western spelling of their names.

11. Ibid., p. 15.

12. The legend is an important part of ancient Egyptian lore. See, for example, Grant Showerman, “Isis,” Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. James Hastings et al., vol. 7 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1961), pp. 434–437. For slight variants, see Adolf Erman, A Handbook of Egyptian Religion, trans. A. S. Griffith (Boston: Longwood Press, 1977), pp. 25–36; and Roger Lancelyn Green, Tales of Ancient Egypt (New York: Henry Z. Walck, 1968), pp. 21–50.

13. See, for example, Jane Marcus’s discussion in Virginia Woolf and the Languages of Patriarchy, p. 80; Evelyn Haller, “Isis Unveiled: Virginia Woolf’s Use of Egyptian Myth,” in Virginia Woolf: A Feminist Slant, ed. Jane Marcus (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), pp. 109–131; Lerner, Creation of Patriarchy, pp. 154, 159; Rosemary Radford Ruether, Womanguides: Readings Toward a Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985), pp. 5–7, 13–18. See also Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, trans. Earl Jeffrey Richards (New York: Persea Books, 1982), pp. 76ff.

14. Tawfîq al-Hakîm has written “Tût,” but the description fits the god Thoth, and we assume that is to whom he is referring.

15. This name is probably a rendition of Typhon, the Greek name for the god Seth. I am grateful to Dr. Jan Johnson for this information.

16. Al-Hakîm, Izîs, p. 58.

17. Ibid., p. 62.

18. On the importance of book covers, see Gérard Genette, Seuils (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1987).

19. Al-Sa‘dâwî, Izîs, p. 73.

20. Ibid., p. 87.

21. Al-Hakîm, Izîs, p. 142.

22. Al-Sa‘dâwî, Izîs, pp. 50–51.

23. Al-Hakîm, Izîs, p. 21.

24. Ibid., p. 40.

25. Ibid., p. 112.

26. Al-Sa‘dâwî, Izîs, p. 73.

27. Ibid., pp. 76–77; ellipses in the original.

28. Lerner (Creation of Patriarchy, p. 159) refers to Osiris as Isis’s “brother-spouse.”

29. Al-Sa‘dâwî, Izîs, pp. 66–67.

30. See, for example, ibid., pp. 55, 64.

31. Al-Hakîm, “Bayân,” in al-Hakîm, Izîs.

32. Al-Hakîm, Izîs, p. 137.

33. Al-Sa‘dâwî, Izîs, p. 11.

34. See Malti-Douglas, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Word, chap. 1.

35. Al-Sa‘dâwî, Izîs, p. 17.

36. Alf Layla wa-Layla, Bûlâq ed., 1:2; Kitâb Alf Layla wa-Layla, ed. Mahdi, 1:56.

37. On the voyeurism in the Nights, see Malti-Douglas, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Word, chap. 1.

38. Al-Sa‘dâwî, Izîs, p. 65.

39. Ibid., pp. 96–97.

40. Ibid., p. 99.

41. Ibid., p. 101.

42. Ibid., pp. 101–102.

43. See Hunayn ibn Ishâq, “Qissat Salâmân and Absâl” (translated from the Greek), in Ibn Sînâ, Tis‘ Rasâ’il (Cairo: Maktabat Hindiyya, 1908), pp. 158–168. Henry Corbin summarizes the story in Avicenne et le récit visionnaire (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1954). For a full discussion, see Malti-Douglas, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Word, pp. 97ff.

44. I am using Muhsin Mahdi’s edition of the Nights here; see Kitâb Alf Layla wa-Layla, ed. Mahdi, 1:64. For a full discussion of this incident and the sexual politics of the frame, see Malti-Douglas, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Word, chap. 1.

45. On torture, see, for example, Edward Peters, Torture (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), esp. pp. 169–171 for a list of modern techniques; Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), esp. pp. 27–59. For a study that deals with various forms of torture in premodern Arabo-Islamic discourse, see Fedwa Malti-Douglas, “Literary Form and Ideological Content of ‘Abbâsid Historiography: Al-Mu‘tadid in Chronicle, Biography, and Adab,” in Early Islamic Historiography, ed. Lawrence I. Conrad (Princeton: Darwin Press, forthcoming).

46. See Allen Douglas and Fedwa Malti-Douglas, “Literature and Politics: A Conversation with Emile Habiby,” in Mundus Arabicus 5 (1992): 11–46 (special issue, “The Arabic Novel Since 1950”).

47. Al-Sa‘dâwî, Izîs, p. 103.

48. Ibid.

49. Ibid.

50. Nawal El Saadawi, Personal Communication, March 27, 1993. El Saadawi wrote of this experience in al-Wajh al-‘Arî lil-Mar’a al-‘Arabiyya (Beirut: al-Mu’assasa al-‘Arabiyya lil-Dirâsât wal-Nashr, 1977), pp. 11–14. See also Nawal El Saadawi, The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World, trans. Sherif Hetata (Boston: Beacon Press, 1982), pp. 7–11, 33–43. See also Chapter 3 above.

51. Alifa Rifaat, “Bahiyya’s Eyes,” in Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories, trans. Denys Johnson-Davies (London: Quartet Books, 1983), p. 9; and Alîfa Rif‘at, “Man Yakûn al-Rajul,” in Alîfa Rif‘at, Man Yakûn al-Rajul, pp. 97–104.

52. Sulaymân Fayyâd, Aswât (Cairo: Kutub ‘Arabiyya, 1972).

53. See Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978), pp. 153–177; Evelyne Accad, L’excisée (Paris: Editions l’Harmattan, 1982); translated as L’excisée, trans. David Bruner (Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1989).

54. Alice Walker, Possessing the Secret of Joy (London and San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992), p. 285.

55. For important works on female genital mutilation, see Asma El Dareer, Woman, Why Do You Weep? Circumcision and Its Consequences (London: Zed Press, 1983); Michel Erlich, La femme blessée: essai sur les mutilations sexuelles féminines (Paris: Editions l’Harmattan, 1986); Hanny Lightfoot-Klein, Prisoners of Ritual: An Odyssey into Female Genital Circumcision in Africa (New York: Haworth Press, 1989).

56. Nawal El Saadawi, Personal Communication, March 27, 1993.

57. See, for example, Juliette Minces, La femme voilée: l’Islam au féminin (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1990), pp. 97ff.; and Nawal El Saadawi, “The Question No One Would Answer,” Ms., March 1980, pp. 68–69.

58. “Khafd,” EI2.

59. See, for example, Sharaf, Fatâwâ al-Nisâ’, pp. 43, 63.

60. For a typical Arabo-Islamic explication of this matter, see al-Tha‘âlibî, Thimâr al-Qulûb, p. 303.

61. Such a position would be consistent with a tendency in the literature to distinguish between a more severe operation, often referred to as “Pharaonic,” and a lesser one, whose proponents declare it to be in conformity with the sunna or Islamic legal tradition.

62. In Muhsin Mahdi’s edition of the Nights, the first royal wife consorts with a cook; Kitâb Alf Layla, ed. Mahdi, 1:57.

63. See Malti-Douglas, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Word, chap. 1.

64. Al-Sa‘dâwî, Izîs, p. 103.

65. Ibid., p. 100.

66. See Malti-Douglas, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Word, chap. 1.

67. Al-Sa‘dâwî, Izîs, p. 97.

68. Ibid., p. 99.

69. Ibid., p. 121.

70. For an important in-depth analysis of these matters, see Lerner, Creation of Patriarchy.

71. See, for example, al-Sa‘dâwî, Izîs, pp. 18, 23.

72. Ibid., p. 31; ellipses in the original.

73. Ibid., p. 54.

74. Ibid., p. 131.

75. Ibid., p. 131.

76. See, for example, Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 14, 162.

77. See, for example, Muhammad Mahmûd al-Sawwâf, Zawjât al-Nabiyy al-Tâhirât wa-Hikmat Ta‘addudihinna (Cairo: Dâr al-I‘tisâm, 1979). See also Hâshim ibn Hâmid al-Rifâ‘î, “al-Kalimât fî Bayân Mahâsin Ta‘addud al-Zawjât” ([Fez?], 1987). This is an offset publication I found in Fez in 1994 and which bears no publication data other than the date of publication.

78. See al-Sa‘dâwî, Izîs, pp. 30, 31.

79. See Esposito, Islam, p. 22.

80. See al-Sa‘dâwî, Izîs, pp. 34, 66. Although I have translated the descriptive al-a‘zam as Great, it is grammatically an elative and should be rendered as “the Greatest.”

81. Ibid., p. 99.

82. Ibid., p. 101.

83. Ibid., p. 134; ellipses in the original.

84. Ibid., p. 67.

85. Ibid., p. 84.

86. See, for example, Ridâ, Huqûq al-Nisâ’, pp. 45–48.

87. Al-Sa‘dâwî, Izîs, p. 43.

88. See, for example, Ibrâhîm ibn Sâlih al-Mahmûd, Kayf Taksibîna Zawjaki?! (Fez: Maktabat wa-Tasjîlât al-Hidâya al-Qur’âniyya, 1991).

89. Al-Sa‘dâwî, Izîs, p. 64.

90. Ibid., p. 132.