Shaaban's prayer

By Naguib Mahfouz

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We used to have a prayer whenever the month of Shaaban came. It would begin with the words, "God most bountiful, upon whom no one bestows anything. God of majesty and grace." After this, we would say any other prayer we wanted.

I want to pray to God now that Shaaban is here. It will be a prayer that people's lives become easier and the government's recent economic measures successful. I also pray that the upcoming parliamentary elections in 2005 will be preceded with the cancellation of the emergency law and giving free reign to the formation of political parties and the publishing of newspapers. When this happens the elections will be truly said to have been free and fair. We will have taken a huge step towards democracy that no one can deny.

Compared to how we were years ago, I can safely say we have attained significant steps along the road to freedom and democracy. But we must not regard them as final since democracy is an evolving process. It is not a set of measures to be undertaken once, after which political life remains as is. We have moved from one condition to the other, with the country's situation differing vastly from what it once was. New measures are needed to reinforce democratic practice and political action. Both are timely and are needed to preserve our society's stability and attain progress.

Because of this I can think of nothing better than to pray to God during Shaaban.

May He listen to our prayers.

Based on an interview by Mohamed Salmawy.