Editing Naguib Mahfouz (section)

=== Political influence ===
Most of Mahfouz's writings deal mainly with politics, a fact he acknowledged: "In all my writings, you will find politics. You may find a story which ignores love or any other subject, but not politics; it is the very axis of our thinking".<ref name="El-Enany23">Rasheed El-Enany, ''Naguib Mahfouz: The Pursuit of Meaning'', Routledge, 1992, p. 23.</ref>

He espoused [[Egyptian nationalism]] in many of his works, and expressed sympathies for the post-World-War-era [[Wafd Party]].<ref name="paris"/> He was also attracted to socialist and [[democratic ideals]] early in his youth. The influence of socialist ideals is strongly reflected in his first two novels, ''Al-Khalili'' and ''New Cairo'', as well as many of his later works. Parallel to his sympathy for socialism and democracy was his [[antipathy]] towards [[Islamic extremism]].<ref name="aucp"/>

In his youth, Mahfouz had personally known [[Sayyid Qutb]] when Qutb was showing a greater interest in [[literary criticism]] than in [[Islamic fundamentalism]]; Qutb later became a significant influence on the [[Muslim Brotherhood]]. In the mid-1940s, Qutb was one of the first critics to recognize Mahfouz's talent, and by the 1960s, near the end of Qutb's life, Mahfouz even visited him in the hospital. But later, in the semi-autobiographical novel ''[[Mirrors (novel)|Mirrors]]'', Mahfouz drew a negative portrait of Qutb. He was disillusioned with the [[Egyptian revolution of 1952|1952 revolution]] and by Egypt's defeat in the 1967 [[Six-Day War]]. He had supported the principles of the revolution, but became disenchanted, saying that the practices failed to live up to the original ideals.

Mahfouz's writing influenced a new generation of Egyptian lawyers, including Nabil Mounir and Reda Aslan.<ref name="El-Enany23"/>