Hypocrisy of Religion in Palace Walk

            In the novel Palace Walk written by Naguib Mahfouz, Al-Sayyid Ahmad is shown as a very religious man who is quite strict with his wife and children. He does not allow his wife to leave the house without him and uses Islam as the reason. However we can clearly see his hypocrisy through his late night exploits. The interactions that al-Sayyid Ahmad has with his children show the hypocrisy of his religion.

            Yasin—who is the oldest son of al-Sayyid from a first marriage—seems to have the closest relationship to his father, and is constantly worried about the reputation of his mother who he considers “a bitter humiliation” (77). After divorcing his father, she has begun to see many other men—something that both Yasin and his father find “degrading and demeaning” (77). At one point when the two are speaking about the impending nuptuals between her and a new man, al-Sayyid asks his son “didn’t we vow to consider her a person who never existed?” (107) which implies that they are so ashamed of her that they don’t even acknowledge her anymore.

            When al-Sayyid Ahmad’s son Fahmy decides he would like to marry a girl who lives next door to the Ahmad family, his mother is ecstatic—she would love to have such a respectable addition to their family—but his father is outraged that his son would make such a bold decision. When speaking with his wife about it, he says “what could corrupt a schoolboy to the extnt that he would make such an outrageous request” (128), showing that he does not approve of young boys being so determined one way or another. He also believes that his son has seen this girl (which is forbidden). He says “I didn’t know I had sons who were sneaking looks at the respectable women of our neighborhood” (129) which is especially hypocritical since he is doing much more than “sneaking looks” at other women.

            We do not see very much interaction with his daughters Aisha and Khadija or his youngest son Kamal (at least this far in the novel), but we do see their interactions with Amina who very much respects (or more likely fears) her husband and always relays his beliefs to the children. The daughters have a good relationship with their mother, and cherish eating breakfast because “it was one of the rare times in which the three women were alone” (29) and they could gossip and tell secrets that they would not tell their father. They never show any interest in gossiping with their father—let alone telling him their secrets. This disconnect shows that he is not as interested in his female children but instead prefers his sons.