Prophets and Priests of the Nation: Naguib Mahfouz's Karnak Café and the 1967 Crisis in Egypt

This quote from a character in the 1974 novel Al-Karnak (Karnak Café) by Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006) sums up the reaction of millions of people in Egypt and the Arab world to the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Why did this war shatter their worldviews? A military defeat may occur for purely military reasons, in this case the better preparation of Israeli troops. Why should it cast doubt on a whole way of life? The answer to this question lies in the social and cognitive structure of nationalism, which I examine in a moment of crisis, after the 1967 war, when it became necessary for nationalist intellectuals to debate issues that had previously been taken for granted. Al-Karnak, which was made into a highly profitable and controversial film, provides a good starting point for studying these debates. However, it is important to understand them as products of the nationalist project of which Mahfouz was a part. I first analyze the history of that project, explaining its raison d'être and its success by the 1960s.