Introduction
‘Alī Mubārak was born in a small village in northern Egypt in 1824. In the opening passages of his autobiography, he recounts a childhood so filled with misadventures that he might well be termed an Egyptian Tom Sawyer. He leaves his teachers when they beat him, frustrates all of his father's efforts to educate him at home, works at five different occupations, runs away from home and from various employers, is brought home against his will several times, lies to his parents and employers alike, lands in prison once, is placed under “house arrest” by his parents, and, finally, against the will of his entire family, enrolls in a government elementary school and is selected to become a student at one of the new European-style secondary schools in Cairo—all by the age of twelve![1]
Eventually he was sent to France as part of an educational delegation that included two sons of the Egyptian ruler Muḥammad ‘Alī and studied there for five years (1844–50), first in Paris and then in Metz. On his return to Egypt he embarked on a tempestuous political career during which he fell in and out of favor with members of the royal family and, over several decades, held the posts of minister of public works, minister of education, and minister of charitable foundations for various periods. He was an ardent reformer and modernizer who personally helped to redesign Egypt's central irrigation system, railway system, and institutions of higher education. His two best-known literary works are his encyclopedic historical and geographic description of Egypt in twenty volumes, al-Khiṭaṭ al-Tawfīqiyya, and his four-volume didactic novel, ‘Alam al-Dīn, neither of which is available in translation.
Mubārak's autobiography appears in his Khiṭaṭ—a genre of geographic description that originated in the Middle Ages in which the author describes cities and villages, arranged alphabetically, and cites their major monuments and characteristics, important historical events that occurred there, and the biographies of famous persons who were born, resided, or died there. The whole is thus a combination of geographic, historical, and biographical knowledge and is one of several genres that reflect the universalist encyclopedic impulse typical of medieval Islamic scholarship.
Mubārak includes his own life story precisely where it should be found: under the entry for his natal village, al-Birinbāl al-Jadīda (New Birinbāl). He opens his account quite modestly by stating that since he has listed all other persons of note under their appropriate headings, he shall therefore proceed to include his own life story under that of his birthplace. The account is rather lengthy and is recounted in the first person. Mubārak's writing is rather modern in taste regarding which aspects of his childhood he chooses to recount to his readers and at the same rather traditional in literary style. It is almost ironic that this distinctly modern autobiography, which presages much of what was to happen in that genre of Arabic literature over the next century, came into being within the framework of one of the last examples of the khiṭaṭ genre. The only subsequent example of the khiṭaṭ genre of real significance has been Khiṭaṭ al-Shām (The Description of Syria), by Muḥammad Kurd ‘Alī (1876–1953). Following the example of Mubārak, he included a short autobiography in his Khiṭaṭ, published in 1928, but later produced a greatly expanded, more modern version titled Mudhakkirāt (Memoirs) in four volumes published between 1948 and 1951. Selections of this later work have appeared in an English translation by Khalil Totah.
In his autobiography, ‘Alī Mubārak never allows the latter part of his life to be foreshadowed in the chronological unfolding of his narrative. The reader is always left in suspense about how various trials and tribulations will be resolved. Mubārak is also liberal in his portrayal of feelings. At one point when he is lying sick in the hospital and thinks that he might die, he portrays his father's leave-taking as follows: ℌHe looked at me and I looked at him, he kissed me and I kissed him, he wept and I wept, and finally he said farewell and went on his way, him sighing and me crying. Our state was like that described in the verse:
Each hardship he endures, however, leads him (at least in his autobiography) to derive some positive lesson from what he has undergone and to face the future even more resolutely.
Could perhaps the sorrows which now beset me Conceal behind them approaching release?
‘Alī Mubārak's autobiography provides a fascinating account not only of the internal politics of Egypt during a dramatically eventful period but also of an exuberant personality whose early poverty and simple origins fostered a deep desire to provide basic education and modern technological advances to the masses.