Isma'il Ahmad Adham ( ar, إسماعيل أحمد أدهم ''Ismā'īl Aḥmad Adham''; 1911 – July 1940) was an Egyptian writer and literary critic who was born in the Ottoman Empire and lived in

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...

. He claimed to have been educated in Russia and to have received his PhD in Mathematics from the University of Moscow in 1931. Adham wrote reviews of the poetry of Egypt's most celebrated writers of the era, such as

Khalil Mutran Khalil Mutran ( ar, خليل مطران, ; July 1, 1872 – June 1, 1949), also known by the sobriquet ''Shā‘ir al-Quṭrayn'' ( ar, شاعر القطرين, links=no / literally meaning "the poet of the two countries") was a Lebanese poet ...

, and worked as an editor for the poet and publisher

Ahmed Zaki Abu Shadi Ahmed Zaki Abu Shadi ( ar, أحمد زكي أبو شادي, ; February 9, 1892 – April 12, 1955) in Cairo, was an Egyptian Romantic poet, publisher, medical doctor, bacteriologist and bee scientist. Family Abu Shadi's father, Muhammed Abu Shad ...

. He was one of the few writers of Egypt's old regime to openly declare his

atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...

, which he attempted to promote through his infamous

manifesto A manifesto is a published declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government. A manifesto usually accepts a previously published opinion or public consensus or promotes a ...

''Why am I an Atheist?'' ( ar, لماذا أنا ملحد؟ '). This essay provoked heated responses from

theist Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of a supreme being or deities. In common parlance, or when contrasted with ''deism'', the term often describes the classical conception of God that is found in monotheism (also referred to ...

writers of the period, putting Adham in the limelight. Adham apparently suffered from depression, and fed his melancholy by reading

Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the prod ...

and Kierkegaard. Adham drowned at the age of 29 in the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

in July 1940. His cadaver was found floating, a

suicide note A suicide note or death note is a message left behind by a person who dies or intends to die by suicide. A study examining Japanese suicide notes estimated that 25–30% of suicides are accompanied by a note. However, incidence rates may depe ...

addressed to the police in his pocket. In the note, Adham explained that he committed suicide because he hated life, and he asked that his body be cremated instead of buried.

References

External links

"Blasted Backlash," by Gamal Nkrumah. Al-Ahram Weekly, 3–9 April 2008, Issue No. 891

"Islamic viewpoints: New secularism in the Arab world," by Ghassan F. Abdullah. Center for Inquiry. 1911 births 1940 deaths Emigrants from the Ottoman Empire to Egypt 20th-century Egyptian writers Egyptian atheists Former Muslims turned agnostics or atheists Suicides by drowning 1940 suicides Egyptian male writers {{Egypt-writer-stub