SOURCE: Mikhail, Mona N. “Broken Idols: The Death of Religion as Reflected in Two Short Stories by Idris and Mahfuz.” In Critical Perspectives on Modern Arabic Literature, edited by Issa J. Boullata, pp. 83-93. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1980.

In the following essay, which was originally published in 1974, Mikhail examines the portrayal of religion in Yusuf Idris's “Tabliyya min al-Samā’” and Mahfouz's Hikāya bilā bidāya wa lā nihāya.

It is with the “death of God” … that most modern literature is concerned: not so much with the denial of a metaphysical assertion as with the dismissal of certain values and restraints a belief in God had earlier sustained.¹

This article will examine the manifestations of the loss of faith in both the traditional concept of God and in institutionalized religion within the framework of the writings of Idrīs and Maḥfūz. Both Idr...