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Overview

The author, the occasion of the essay and its type, and the general intellectual direction it represents.
The seven ideas of the essay, one by one, with a plain explanation of each.
Vocabulary and its meanings, the styles and images in the essay, the traits of the writer’s manner, and the values drawn from it.

"The Will of Change" (Zaki Naguib Mahmoud) — an intellectual-philosophical essay
├── Idea 1: the will IS the act that reaches the goal and clears its obstacles (like correlative pairs)
├── Idea 2: every act is a change — stone to wall, water to pipes, ink to writing, iron to rails
├── Idea 3: no clash between individual and group: shared frame, free movement inside it
├── Idea 4: shift the question from "is it a will of change?" to "what do we change?"
├── Idea 5: unify public and private in the mind — not a finger-tip's width otherwise
├── Idea 6: move the seats of pride — be proud of obeying the law, not of escaping it
├── Idea 7: change = replacing a lower state with a higher one; the measure = how many citizens benefit
└── Vocabulary · images · the logical method · values · traps

Lesson 1: The Will of Change by Dr Zaki Naguib Mahmoud · 1 / 15

First: the author

Dr Zaki Naguib Mahmoud a great Egyptian writer, thinker and philosopher — born in Damietta governorate and died in 1993.
He took his PhD in philosophy from the University of London, so he joined Arabic culture to Western culture.
He made many contributions that enriched the Arabic library, and his concern was to make thought and logic the basis of renaissance.

He wrote in philosophy, in logic, and in the simplification of thought, combining the precision of the philosopher with the fluency of the writer.
He is reckoned among the most prominent voices calling for binding thought to action and for modernising Arab life.

Lesson 1: The Will of Change by Dr Zaki Naguib Mahmoud · 2 / 15

Second: the occasion of the essay and its intellectual direction

The essay was written at a stage when the people had achieved a victory and had let loose their will — so the remaining question was: what do we do with this will?
The writer means to move people from passing enthusiasm into organised work that changes values and conditions.
Type of essay an intellectual, philosophical essay (maqāl fikrī falsafī) that relies on definition, logic and examples.
Its intellectual direction the real will is act and change, and true change begins with changing values and standards.

Lesson 1: The Will of Change by Dr Zaki Naguib Mahmoud · 3 / 15

Third: idea one — the will is the act itself

The content of the idea

The will is itself the work that realises the goal and removes what obstructs it.
On condition that the goal is your own goal — otherwise you become a machine pressed into service in the hand of the owner of the goal.
So saying “the will to act” adds nothing to saying “the will” — for there is no will without an act.

The writer likened the relation between will and act to things that complete one another: the parent and the child, right and left, the far and the near, the higher and the lower.
Neither side of these has its meaning except through the other and likewise the will is not a will unless it becomes an act.

Lesson 1: The Will of Change by Dr Zaki Naguib Mahmoud · 4 / 15

Fourth: idea two — every act is a change

The content of the idea

Comparison aspect	Main idea	Keywords
You do not perform the act in a vacuum; you perform it in the world	so things change and your relation to them changes	thingschangeyourrelation
The examples he brought	the stone moved from the mountain into the wall of the house the water from the river into the pipes of the homes the ink from the bottle into a writing some reader reads the barren land was planted and the iron became rails	stonemovedmountainwall

Comparison aspect	Main idea	Keywords
Every will is an act, and every act is movement and change
•	So the phrase “the will of change” adds nothing new it only clarifies the meaning of the will by bringing out one element within it	phrasewillchangeadds
The living human is a rational, purposeful being	in his will he is an agent and in his act he is one who moves one who sets others moving one who changes and one who is changed	willagentmovessets

Lesson 1: The Will of Change by Dr Zaki Naguib Mahmoud · 5 / 15

Fifth: idea three — the individual and the group (freedom inside the frame)

The problem

Many claimed that the individual’s share in a collective effort clashes with his freedom to choose his own path.

There is no clash if we distinguish between the frame (al-iṭār) that sets the rules of the road and the steps taken inside that frame.
The frame is shared by everyone; the movement inside it is free .

Comparison aspect	Main idea	Keywords
The players of football and chess	one set of rules that no one may break yet each player is free to move the ball or the piece as he wishes	rulesbreakfreemove
The rules of grammar	a writer may not make the subject accusative or the object nominative — and still he freely chooses his subject and his style	writermakesubjectaccusative
The principles of logic	one may not claim that a traveller covering two hundred kilometres in two hours is served by a train running at twenty kilometres an hour nor that a plan costing two hundred million is covered by fifty million	claimtravellercoveringhundred

The citizen is free in his way of going and his style of life, so long as his activities keep to the principles and goals set by the group — of which he is one member.

Lesson 1: The Will of Change by Dr Zaki Naguib Mahmoud · 6 / 15

Sixth: idea four — from “is it a will of change?” to “what do we change?”

If every will is a will of change, then the question is no longer whether the will the people loosed on their victory day was a will of change.
The correct question is what is it that we change? And for what goal do we change?

The partial details are counted in their thousands the sick are healed, the ignorant are taught, the hungry are fed, the naked are clothed, roads are paved, vermin are destroyed, land is planted, and factories are built.
All of these fall under a limited number of principles, and those principles fall under the values and standards by which we measure what we want and what we do not want.
Whoever changes the values and the standards changes the face of life entire.

Lesson 1: The Will of Change by Dr Zaki Naguib Mahmoud · 7 / 15

Seventh: idea five — unifying the public and the private

The will of change will not take “so much as a fingertip’s width” out of our lives unless we make in our minds a complete unification of the public and the private.

We care for private property and neglect public property, by an inherited social tradition.
We see a great gulf between caring for one’s own son and caring for the distant fellow-citizen.
And between cleaning the house inside and cleaning the street.
And between private money and the money the state holds for everyone.
And between the private clinic run by the doctor and the public hospital run by the very same doctor in the name of the state.

Our concern is still confined to “I” and “we” — that is, the family and its borders.
As for “he” and “they”, which take in all the children of the homeland, they are still in our imagining as ghosts whom neither starving nor torturing can hurt.
What is required is that the meaning of “we” should widen to include all the citizens.

Lesson 1: The Will of Change by Dr Zaki Naguib Mahmoud · 8 / 15

Eighth: idea six — transferring the seats of pride

Comparison aspect	Main idea	Keywords
•	The second condition for change to succeed is that we transfer the places where pride is taken	secondconditionchangesucceed
The present state	a man boasts that he is not subject to the law to ordinary people are subject and the one above the law is counted high	boastssubjectordinarypeople
His example	if rations of meat sugar and oil are fixed the man of influence fills his house and the houses of his relatives with more than his due — because for him “rank” means escaping the rule of the law	rationsmeatsugarfixed
The state required	that a man should take pride in the measure of his obedience to the law of the state openly or in secret	shouldtakepridemeasure

Lesson 1: The Will of Change by Dr Zaki Naguib Mahmoud · 9 / 15

Ninth: idea seven — the standard of change and its result

Change is not merely swapping one condition for another without constraints; it is replacing a lower condition with a higher one — that is, rising upward.
The scale of “higher” is the number of citizens who benefit from the new condition.
What matters is that we know what do we change? and how do we change it?

What is to be changed is the values by which we measure the aspects of life.
And the way to change them is to choose for every situation the standard that secures the greatest amount of benefit, strength, dignity and enlightenment for the greatest number of people.

Lesson 1: The Will of Change by Dr Zaki Naguib Mahmoud · 10 / 15

Tenth: vocabulary and its meanings

Word (transliterated)	Meaning
yaḥūlu (between him and it)	It prevents, it stands in the way of
mutaḍāyifāt	Correlatives: things that complete one another each side meaningless without the other
mukhassakhah	Press into service drudge: made to work for another without will of its own
sharīṭah	On condition that, provided that
al-farsakh	A unit for measuring distance: three miles
qayd anmalah	“So much as a fingertip’s width” — an extremely small amount
yazhā	He takes pride, he exults, he is elated
al-sawād	The common people, the general public
bābān (arḍ baybān)	Waste barren land in there is no growth
al-iṭār	The frame: the general limits that regulate movement

Lesson 1: The Will of Change by Dr Zaki Naguib Mahmoud · 11 / 15

Eleventh: images and rhetorical styles in the essay

Comparison aspect	Main idea	Keywords
Simile	likening the will to the act to the parent and the child and to right and left — it brings the idea of necessary correlation within reach	likeningwillparentchild
Argument by sensory examples	the stone the water the ink and the iron — they make the abstract idea visible	stonewaterironmake
Personification and embodiment	the description of the ghosts whom starving and torturing cannot hurt — it lays bare people’s neglect of the public domain	descriptionghostswhomstarving
Contrast (muqābalah)	between “I and we” and “he and they” and between the public and the private — it locates the flaw	betweenpublicprivatelocates
Interrogation	“what do we change? and for what goal?” — it directs the reader to the heart of the matter	whatchangegoaldirects
Emphasis	“it will not take so much as a fingertip’s width… unless…” — a negated conditional that strengthens the idea	willtakemuchfingertip

Lesson 1: The Will of Change by Dr Zaki Naguib Mahmoud · 12 / 15

Twelfth: the traits of the writer’s style

Comparison aspect	Main idea	Keywords
The logical method	he begins with a definition then builds premises then draws out conclusions	beginsdefinitionthenbuilds
Reasoning by example	he relies on examples close to life — football and chess the train industry	reliesexamplescloselife
Clarity	his words are simple and his sentences tightly linked without forced ornament	wordssimplesentencestightly
Gradation in presentation	he moves from the definition to its application on the conditions of society	movesdefinitionapplicationconditions
Intellectual allegiance	he represents the current of thinkers who bind thought to action and hold that renaissance rests on changing values	representscurrentthinkersbind
Connectives	he is frequent in the logical particles — fa-idhā (so) in (if) lākin (but) wa-min thamm (and hence)	frequentlogicalparticlesidhā

Lesson 1: The Will of Change by Dr Zaki Naguib Mahmoud · 13 / 15

Thirteenth: the values drawn from the essay

That the real will is never separate from work.
That the individual has his freedom inside the frame of shared rules.
Caring for public money and public services as for private ones .
Respect for the law, and taking pride in obeying it .
That lifting the values is the road of renaissance, and that every change is measured by its benefit to the greatest number of citizens.

Lesson 1: The Will of Change by Dr Zaki Naguib Mahmoud · 14 / 15

Exam traps and key takeaways

Comparison aspect	Main idea	Keywords
•	The essay type is intellectual-philosophical (built on definition logic and examples) — not a subjective literary essay and not a purely scientific one	essaytypeintellectualphilosophical
Occasion	written after the people had won a victory and let loose their will the writer’s aim is to move them from passing enthusiasm to organised work that changes values and conditions	writtenafterpeoplevictory
Idea 1 in its exact form	the will is itself the work that realises the goal and removes its obstacles — provided the goal is your own otherwise you are a machine drudged for the owner of the goal. Hence “will to act” adds nothing to “will”	willitselfworkrealises
•	The correlatives list (parent–child right–left far–near higher–lower) is a simile of necessary mutual completion — a question asks what it proves and the answer is there is no will except as act	correlativeslistparentchild
•	Idea 2’s examples are all transformations of matter (stone→wall water→pipes ink→writing barren land→planted iron→rails) the conclusion: every act is movement and change so “will of change” only makes an element of the will explicit	Ideaexamplestransformationsmatter
Idea 3 is the frame/steps distinction	the frame is shared movement inside it is free. The three proofs are games (football chess) grammar (may not make the subject accusative or the object nominative) and logic (200 km in 2 hours is not done at 20 km/h 200 million is not covered by 50 million)	sharedmovementinsidefree
Idea 4 = the change of the question	from “is it a will of change?” to “what do we change and for what goal?” the ladder is countless details → a limited number of principles → the values and standards and changing values changes the whole face of life	willwhatgoalladder
•	Idea 5’s unit of measure is the phrase “not a fingertip’s width unless the public and the private are fully unified in our minds” the contrasts listed are son vs distant citizen house vs street private money vs state money private clinic vs public hospital run by the same doctor	Ideaunitmeasurephrase
•	“I and we” = the family and its borders “he and they” = all the children of the homeland still imagined as ghosts whom starvation and torture cannot harm. The demand is that “we” widen to include every citizen — do not read “we” as the nation in the current sentence	familyborderschildrenhomeland
Two conditions for change appear	unifying public and private (idea 5) and transferring the seats of pride (idea 6). The present boast is escaping the law (the ration example: the man of influence fills his house and his relatives’ houses beyond his due) the required boast is obedience to the law openly or in secret	unifyingpublicprivateidea
Change defined strictly	replacing a lower condition with a higher one i.e. rising and the scale of “higher” is the number of citizens who benefit — not the age of the new thing nor its cost	replacinglowerconditionhigher
The final formula to quote exactly	choose for every situation the standard that gives the greatest benefit strength dignity and enlightenment to the greatest number of people	chooseeverysituationstandard
Style signatures of Zaki Naguib Mahmoud	definition → premises → conclusions everyday examples plain unornamented wording gradation from concept to social application thought bound to action and heavy use of logical connectives — the opposite of rhetorical decoration	definitionpremisesconclusionseveryday

Lesson 1: The Will of Change by Dr Zaki Naguib Mahmoud · 15 / 15

Curriculum

Arabic Language

Unit 1

Unit 2

Unit 3

Unit 4

Lesson 1: The Will of Change by Dr Zaki Naguib Mahmoud

Lesson 1: The Will of Change by Dr Zaki Naguib Mahmoud

Overview

First: the author

Second: the occasion of the essay and its intellectual direction

Third: idea one — the will is the act itself

The content of the idea

Fourth: idea two — every act is a change

The content of the idea

Fifth: idea three — the individual and the group (freedom inside the frame)

The problem

Sixth: idea four — from “is it a will of change?” to “what do we change?”

Seventh: idea five — unifying the public and the private

Eighth: idea six — transferring the seats of pride

Ninth: idea seven — the standard of change and its result

Tenth: vocabulary and its meanings

Eleventh: images and rhetorical styles in the essay

Twelfth: the traits of the writer’s style

Thirteenth: the values drawn from the essay

Exam traps and key takeaways

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