1887 - 1958
Egyptian socialist essayist.
Salama Musa was born into a Coptic, well-to-do, landed family in Zaqaziq, a town in Egypt's Nile delta. While still in high school, Musa left Egypt for Europe, where he studied in France and England. In England, he met and was influenced by several prominent members of the Fabian Society, including H. G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw. Fabianism was a doctrine that combined economic socialism with an emphasis on social and moral regeneration through the cultivation of traditional moral values such as culture, decency, and order.
Returning to Egypt, Musa sought to spread this doctrine, urging his readers to leave behind Asian civilization and to embrace European - specifically, British - civilization. Other themes he dealt with were the scientific spirit, the theory of evolution, and social democracy. He founded Egypt's Socialist Party in 1920 and established a journal, al-Majalla al-Jadida (The new magazine), a forum for radical critiques. In several of his works, Musa also developed the theme that the Coptic period was the apex of Egyptian civilization and that the Copts were the true present-day descendants of the ancient Egyptians.
Bibliography
Egger, Vernon. A Fabian in Egypt: Salamah Musa and the Rise of the Professional Classes in Egypt, 1909 - 1939. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1986.
— DAVID WALDNER
