As-Sufūr
As-Sufūr (Arabic: السُفور, lit. 'The Unveiling') was an Egyptian weekly avant-garde literary magazine published May 21, 1915—October 22, 1922, with few, irregular publications into 1925.[1][2][3]
It was founded by a group of writers: Mohammed Hussein Heikal, Mustafa 'Abd ar-Raziq, Mansur Fahmi, and Taha Hussein.[4] Abd al-Hamid Hamdi was the editor-in-chief.[5]: 36
Name
[edit]The word sufūr (سُفور 'unveiling') in Arabic is the opposite of hijāb (حِجاب 'veiling'). In the introductory text of the magazine's first issue, the editor Abd al-Hamid Hamdi clarified the choice of the word for the magazine's title:
—Abd al-Hamid Hamdi in the first edition of as-Sufūr
History
[edit]When the Ottoman Empire entered World War I, Britain, under British Army Officer John Maxwell, enacted legislation on November 2, 1914 that subjected the Egyptian press to censorship.[6] This created a paucity in the Arabic press and caused many papers to cease publication.[6] Among the periodicals affected was Ahmed Lutfi es-Sayed's newspaper Al Jarida.[6] When the conditions drove Ahmed Lutfi es-Sayed away from the paper, some of his writers—Abd al-Hamid Hamdi, Mustafa 'Abd ar-Raziq, Mohammed Hussein Heikal, Mansur Fahmi, and Taha Hussein—sought to resist.[4] They attempted to buy the rights to Abd ar-Rahman al-Barquqi's magazine al-Bayan, but negotiations were unfruitful.[6] Instead, the writers established a company and to publish as-Sufūr under Abd al-Hamid Hamdi, who assumed fiscal responsibility for the paper.[6]
The first edition was published May 21, 1915 with eight pages.[6] Its 307th edition was published October 22, 1922, after which it published irregularly in 1923.[6] It was officially forced into decommission as its license was revoked for about a year and a half after publishing content deemed to have transgressed its social-literary bounds into something political.[6] It published a few editions in 1925 before disappearing for good.[6]
Muhammad Taimur published short stories in as-Sufūr from 1917.[7] It was later acquired by members of al-Madrasa al-Haditha for 50 Egyptian pounds and edited by Ahmed Khairi Sa'id, serving as a precursor to the movement's magazine Al-Fajr (1925-1927).[8]
Sections
[edit]Editions of as-Sufur were typically organized into the following sections:
- Introduction
- Society
- Critique
- Literature
- Comedy
- Stories
References
[edit]- ^ "مجلة السفور.. حكاية ثقافية عمرها 100 سنة وأكثر". اليوم السابع (in Arabic). 2017-05-15. Retrieved 2022-11-01.
- ^ Palmer, M. Reeves (April 1918). "AS-SUFUR?"The Unveiled" (A weekly newspaper for Moslem women)". The Muslim World. 8 (2): 168–171. doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.1918.tb01637.x. ISSN 0027-4909.
- ^ "جريدة السفور... حين أصدر الرجال صحيفة تدعم حقوق النساء". رصيف 22. 2022-10-31. Retrieved 2022-11-01.
- ^ a b حافظ, فاطمة (2018-03-04). "جريدة السفور وعلمنة المجال الاجتماعي". إسلام أون لاين (in Arabic). Retrieved 2022-11-01.
- ^ Baron, Beth (2007). Egypt as a woman : nationalism, gender, and politics. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-25154-0. OCLC 141382545.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i المُلا, أحمد صلاح (2019-10-01). "جريدة". حوليات أداب عين شمس. 47 (أکتوبر- دیسمبر (ب)): 196–233. doi:10.21608/aafu.2019.92881. ISSN 1110-7227. S2CID 226578594.
- ^ Hafez, Sabry (1993-01-14), Badawi, M. M. (ed.), "The modern Arabic short story", Modern Arabic Literature (1 ed.), Cambridge University Press, pp. 270–328, doi:10.1017/chol9780521331975.009, ISBN 978-0-521-33197-5, retrieved 2022-11-01
- ^ "مجلة الكلمة - "أحمـد خيـري سـعيـد"". www.alkalimah.net. Retrieved 2022-11-01.