Letter from an Egyptian Jewish Deist on Why He Will Not Convert to Islam

Born in Cairo and educated in Italy, Ya‘qub Sannu‘ (James Sanua), best known in Egyptian letters by his Arabic pen name Abū Naẓẓāra, or “the man with glasses,” was the son of an Egyptian Jewish mother and an Italian Jewish father, the latter of whom served as an adviser to the Egyptian prince Ahmad Yakan Pasha (1864–1933). Impressed by the talents of the young Sannu‘, who was already fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, Italian, French, and English by age twelve, Prince Yakan sent him to Livorno to study political economy, science, fine art, and international law at the age of fourteen. Returning to Egypt in 1855, Sannu‘ became an educator and writer. In 1870, he opened Egypt's first modern theater and pioneered the staging of dramas in colloquial Egyptian Arabic (rather than literary Arabic). In 1877, Sannu‘, by that time an outspoken Egyptian nationalist, founded the satirical journal Abū Naẓẓāra Zarqāʾ (The Man with the Blue Glasses), which criticized the government of Khedive Ismāʾīl. Exiled to Paris, he continued to write in colloquial Arabic, publishing his journal under various titles to evade confiscation at the hands of authorities in Egypt, where issues of his journal circulated clandestinely for many years. Sannu‘ continued to publish until 1910.