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 [ ar], and Taha Hussein. ^[4] Abd al-Hamid Hamdi was the editor-in-chief. ^[5]: 36

Name

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:

History

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 [ ar], and Taha Hussein—sought to resist. ^[4] They attempted to buy the rights to Abd ar-Rahman al-Barquqi's [ ar] 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 ^[6] It was officially forced into decommission as its license was revoked for about a year and a half after publishing content deemed to have transgressed its social-literary bounds into something political.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 [ ar] 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

Editions of as-Sufur were typically organized into the following sections:

• Introduction

• Society

• Critique

• Literature

• Comedy

• Stories

References