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Viewing Backwards: Egyptian Historical Television Dramas in the 1990s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2018

Joel Gordon
Joel Gordon*
Affiliation:
University of Arkansas
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Abstract

The 1990s marked an important moment in Egyptian television, when the country turned its attention increasingly (although never monolithically) toward historical drama as a means of recreating and reinterpreting modern Egyptian history. Mahfouz Abd al-Rahman and Osama Anwar Okasha, in particular, scripted long multi-year series aired during Ramadan, the peak season for television viewing, that covered decades of the late ninteenth century and pre-Nasserist history, in many ways re-writing public history, and making historical drama—and history—fashionable. I focus here on the former and his first mega-hit Bawabat al-Halawani (Halawani Gate). Biographical dramas, initially of artists, but later politicians, kings, and religious leaders would follow. As the Egyptian industry atrophied in the following decade these dramatists passed the mantle on to the Syrians, later the Turks, who broke the Egyptian monopoly and brought their own stories to the fore. But a rebirth may be in view.

Keywords

Middle East popular cultureRamadan televisionTelevision drama/serialsHistorical dramaEgypt
Type
Roundtable
Information
Review of Middle East Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , April 2018 , pp. 74 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © Middle East Studies Association of North America, Inc. 2018 

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References

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2 Ibid., 6.

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5 See for example, Armbrust, Walter, ed., Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which featured essays primarily on music and film; and the more recent, Hamdar, Abir and Moore, Lindsey, Islamism and Cultural Expression in the Arab World (London: Routledge, 2015)Google Scholar, which adds video games and features one chapter on religious channels in Lebanon.

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8 My own contributions were based upon a chance encounter with unscripted quiz show host Tarek Allam in a Zamalek garden. Gordon, Joel, “Becoming the Image: Words of Gold, Talk Television, and Ramadan Nights on the Little Screen,” Visual Anthropology 10 (1998): 247–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “Golden Boy Turns Bete Noir: Crossing Boundaries of Unscripted Television in Egypt,” Journal of Middle East and North African Intellectual and Cultural Studies 1 (2001): 1–18.

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11 Armbrust, “Synchronizing Watches,” 208.

12 My own viewing of the series, which I will discuss below, was spotty during stays in Cairo during seasons 1 and 2. I have watched the full series on DVD that appear to be recorded from a variety of Gulf-based satellite channels. I cannot determine when these episodes aired originally.

13 Abu-Lughod, Dramas; Walter Armbrust, “Synchronizing” and “When the Lights Go Down in Cairo: Cinema as Secular Ritual,” Visual Anthropology 10, no. 2–4 (1998): 413–42.

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22 Abu-Lughod, Dramas, 15.

23 Ibid., 14–18.

24 Fakharani has acted regularly in major TV dramas ever since, but appeared in only a handful of movies.

25 Cited in Gordon, “Nasser 56/Cairo 96,” 171.

26 It ran twenty-four, forty-one, and thirty episodes over the three non-consecutive seasons.

27 I was pointed toward Abd al-Rahman by the late Younan Labib Rizk, a senior historian of modern Egypt. He, along with other scholars, took issue with the author's dramatic license; see Dhikri, Muhammad Abu, “Wa asatidhat al-tarikh lahum raʾi fi ahdath Bawabat al-Halawani,” al-Akhbar, 28 February 1996Google Scholar.

28 The old-fashioned surname (meaning “dawned” or “brightness”) gained popularity due to the series. Nkrumah, Gamal, “What's in a Name,” al-Ahram Weekly 684, 1–7 April 2004Google Scholar, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2004/684/li1.htm, accessed 1 June 2017, also notes other popular names from other historical series, including Layali al-Hilmiyya.

29 We know little about her real origins, save that she was named Sakina. In Abd al-Rahman's treatment, this is the name given her by her abductors. She also dies in the series in the early 1870s, whereas historically she died in 1891.

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32 Ibid., 164–65; the quote is directly from al-Rafiʿi.

33 Blunt, Secret History, 30–31, has a much more favorable view of Ismaʿil Siddiq (Sadyk).

34 Ibid., 14.

35 Ibid., 30–31.

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38 Mahfouz Abd al-Rahman wrote the screenplay for Halim (2006, dir. Sharif Arafa), which starred Ahmad Zaki as the singer. The serial al-Andalib (The Nightingale) aired during Ramadan 2006; it was watched widely but to mixed reviews.

39 This is a personal reflection based on travels in Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Morocco and Turkey.

40 Dina Ezzat, “TV Series about History of Egypt's Jews Misleading, Says Albert Arie,” al-Ahram Online, 27 June 2015, http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/133801/Egypt/Politics-/TV-series-about-history-of-Egypts-Jews-misleading,.aspx, accessed 31 May 2017.

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