Al Tariq, different interpretation

Mahfouz's central character, Saber, suffers from a common delusion. He wishes merely to stretch out his hand and reach for the goods available within life. Saber has the choice of two women in his life - one, Karima, who he uses for instant sexual gratification; the other, Elham, who he loves sincerely. His choice of women mirrors the choice of career he faces. Throughout the story, Saber is faced with a choice. He can take an easy road depending on desperate measures (the search for a vanished father through the city streets, the murder of an old man), which leads to untold wealth. He can take another easy road to crime and desperation. Furthermore he can work. It is significant in the novel that the third option is one that Saber barely considers.

The choice he and Karima take guides them to their dooms. Mahfouz holds up the other woman, Elham, the narrative's angelic influence, as a model of what that third option can achieve. From a situation relatively similar to Saber's, Elham becomes a sensible, industrious young woman with a capacity for greatness within her.

This theme, which is not merely Mahfouz’s, but echoes through American and European literature, is strengthened by the intensity of the atmosphere. What Mahfouz depicts is a cosmopolitan world in which his main character abandons striving for strife.

The last sense in which Mahfouz's protagonist is typical is in the way he is really searching for meaning in a world without it. If he stands in the tradition of James Cain, he also stands in the tradition of Dostoevsky. Saber has no particular ideology. When asked whether he is for East or West, he replies he is for war.

Despite an obvious liking for luxury, the only desires that Saber expresses are sexual. In a way, his search for a father is a search for purpose — a purpose that Elham offers him, but unlike in Crime and Punishment, there is no happy ending.

In this case, Raskolnikov sees the opportunity only when its too late. His search for his father finishes at the moment he is to be hung, which is also the moment he realises he should have taken Elham's offers, not Karima's.