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Unaware of my presence, she gave the impression of putting much thought into proceeding falteringly toward an unknown destination. Many wrinkles testified to a long, hard life. She did not remind me of anyone especially, but her lack of purpose called to mind the dilemma and desolation of those who people Mahfouz’s world. The dead-end alley shown on the cover jacket of this book is a photo I took in February 2007 when I visited Old Cairo. The photo is an area known as “Palace of Desire” which is the name of the second book of Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy. The people and the environment that I discovered on my walking tour of this area were the same people and scenes that I had seen through the pages of Mahfouz’s novels.
Understanding some of the language and nuances enabled me to read Mahfouz’s novels without too much curiosity about its foreign names and greetings. The term Allah weaves its way through so much Arabic language and conversation because Islam makes up the very fabric of the culture and the language itself. God’s name is invoked for almost any occasion. It’s not unusual to hear words such as inshallah (if God wills it), asallam alaykum (in God’s name, I welcome you), maasallama (good-bye), mashallah1 
, an Arabic phrase evoked by Muslims to indicate appreciation for an aforementioned individual or event in daily discourse. Each of these words and many more are rooted in Allah, or God. Arabic terms and phrases appear sparingly in the translated versions of Mahfouz’s novels, but even so, the terms and phrases are clearer to me now that I’ve become acclimated to certain words. One word that I will mention, inshallah, means “if God wills it.” The nuance associated with it differs from its literal meaning. Because of the word’s overuse, many people do not really use it in a positive way. An example illustrates how native speakers associate the phrase with time. I asked a taxi driver if he would wait for me to complete a bank transaction, and he said he’d be back in ten minutes, inshallah. However, this was his polite way of saying he would not be back. In other words, God did not will it. When planning a meeting in the Arab world, expatriates often overlook the Arab attitude toward time. In frustration, one of us might ask if a particular meeting will start on time. The answer will generally be “Yes, inshallah,” but invariably it won’t start on time. When Mahfouz uses these words in his novels, we easily comprehend the culturally intended comment rather than the literal translation.