人神之間：諾貝爾大師馬赫富茲的宗教與科學之辯證

Of God and Men: Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz’s Dialectics of Religion and Science

1994 年10 月14 日，諾貝爾文學獎得主埃及作家納吉布·馬赫富茲在自家附近遭到宗教激進份子的刺殺攻擊。他當時已是年邁的83 歲，頸部受到嚴重刺傷，但是幸運地保住了一命。 據兇嫌供稱是因為不滿馬赫富茲部分作品中的宗教意識，所以行兇。荒謬的是，兇嫌連馬赫富茲的作品都沒有讀過，他是因為受到伊斯蘭極端組織的命令而行兇。這個事件，在當時的伊斯蘭地區以及世界各地，又再度引發了宗教思想與自由的意見表達之間的激烈爭論。馬赫富茲於1988 年獲得了諾貝爾文學獎，是當今僅有的一位以阿拉伯文寫作而獲此獎項的作家。他1911 年出生於埃及的首都開羅，在他2006 年過世時，已出版了35 部小說、16 部短片小說集、數十部劇本，以及許多報章雜誌的論文。而本論文特別要討論的是出版於1956-57 年的作品「開羅三部曲」（The Cairo Trilogy）以及1959 年出刊的《我們街區的孩子們> （Children of the Alley）。這兩部作品除了它們的成熟的文學技巧以及豐富的的文學意涵之外，更重要的是它們文字當中所反應出來的宗教意識。在馬赫富茲的許多作品當中都「隱含」著一些宗教訊息。「隱含」，是因為宗教在伊斯蘭世界是個敏感的議題。作家們如果不想成為宗教極端份子的攻擊對象，就必須很技巧地處理宗教議題。馬赫富茲在「開羅三部曲」的故事當中，穿插了許多宗教與科學在現代社會中的衝突與影響。而在《我們街區的孩子們> 中，他利用宗教寓言的方式來影射國家內部的衝突現象以及揭示獨裁統治與社會中的不公不義。這本小說也因此激怒了許多宗教學者和團體。馬赫富茲特別是因為這本小說而遭到了刺殺攻擊。因此，為了了解馬赫富茲對於宗教和科學在現代社會中應有地位的看法，本篇論文將以前述的兩部小說為主軸，並藉由許多第一手的專訪資料來分析並探討他所認為的理想社會中的人神關係。

On the 14th of October 1994, the Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt by an Islamic extremist. Even though he was already 83 years old, luckily he survived the attack. The assassin claimed that he stabbed Mahfouz because he was displeased with some of Mahfouz’s works. This event opened up again the vehement debate on the controversial issues between religion and freedom of expression. Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize in 1988 and was the only Arab writer until now who had received this honor. He was very prolific, and had written many novels, short stories, plays and essays for magazines and newspapers. In this paper, I will focus the discussion on two of his earlier novels, The Cairo Trilogy (1956-57) and Children of the Alley (1959). These two novels, with their demonstrated skillful writing techniques and diversified literary elements, have contained rich religious implications that have become the center of many readers’ attention. In The Cairo Trilogy, Mahfouz discusses, among others, the state and status of religion in the Egyptian society, and advocates the introduction of science into people’s everyday lives. In Children of the Alley, he employs a religious allegory to reflect on the various issues from which the society has been suffering, such as tyranny and injustice. This novel, with its much innuendo about the authoritative status of religion in a modern society, infuriates many religious scholars and groups and has caused his assassination. Therefore, in order to understand Mahfouz’s position on the place of religion and science in a Muslim community, this paper will concentrate on the analysis of the above-mentioned two novels, and further utilizes many first-hand personal interviews to shed light on his thoughts on the ideal divine-human relationships in a modern society.