ABSTRACT
Najib Mahfuz's scale of values can be depicted geographically as extending from the desert in the east to the water in the west. The special ennobling and protective quality of the desert, has been acknowledged by the ancient Near East world-view since Biblical days, and is equally admitted in Islamic thinking. Sharrshara is a typical Mahfuzian character; he is haunted by his past, and devotes his whole life to erasing the shame of it. Samara falls in love with the good-looking cinema actor Rajab al-Qadi. Naturally Zahra's disappointment is very deep at finding that Sirhan has only wanted to use her, and has actually arranged to marry a middle class girl of a respectable family. In both novels the events are being watched very closely by an inactive observer who sympathizes with the heroine of the story. Treachery is symbolized by insincere opportunists, unprincipled young men and women who get lost in the tangle of their own confused catch-phrases.
