Al-Hilal was founded by Jurji Zaidan in 1892. It is the longest continuously published periodical in the Arab world. In 2017 it celebrated its 125 years of publication and continues to be published to this day.

Al-Hilal played and continues to play a central role in the cultural and intellectual history underpinning the Arab and Egyptian renaissance (Nahda). In recognition of this role the Library of Alexandria in 2012 digitized the Al-Hilal issues as part of its project on the Memory of Modern Egypt.

These are now being posted on the Zaidan Foundation website in PDF form for the first time with the assistance of Dr Ismail Serageldin, Librarian, and the Library of Alexandria which is gratefully acknowledged. All the Al-Hilal issues from its inception in September 1892 to February 2007 — 115 years – are presented and divided into 217 folders as follows:

Major Articles

Click below to read major articles that were written by Jurji Zaidan between 1892 and 1914 and published in Al-Hilal.

These articles were compiled in Mukhtārāt Jurjī Zaydān and published in book form by Dar-al-Turath in Beirut in 1969.

Read the Articles

Complete Novels

Next comes 14 files with complete novels that were serialized in Al-Hilal — 11 of which were part of Jurji Zaidan’s twenty historical novels covering Islamic history from pre-islamic times until the Ottoman Empire. The links to read any of these eleven novels are included below.

1899 ‘Adhrā’ Quraysh [The Virgin of Quraysh]

1900 17 Ramaḍān [The 17th of the Month of Ramadan, year II H: the Battle of Badr]

1900 Ghādat Karbalā’ [The Maiden of Karbala]

1902 Al-Ḥajjāj bin Yūsuf [Al-Ḥajjāj bin Yūsuf, Ruler of Iraq, and the Revolt of ‘Abd Allāh ibn Al-Zubayr]

1903 Fatḥ al-Andalus [The Conquest of Andalusia]

1904 Shārl wa ‘Abd al-Raḥmān [Charles Martel and ‘Abd al-Rahmān: The Battle of Poitiers]

1905 Abū Muslim al-Khurasānī [Abū Muslim al-Khurasānī and the Birth of the ‘Abbasid Caliphate]

1908 ‘Arūs Farghāna [The Bride of the Ferghana Valley]

1909 Aḥmad bin Ṭūlūn [Aḥmad bin Ṭūlūn, Ruler of Egypt]

1910 ‘Abd al-Rahmān al-Nāṣir [‘Abd al-Rahmān al-Nāṣir, Caliph of Cordoba]

1911 Al-Inqilāb al-‘Uthmānī [The Ottoman Revolution]

Al-Hilal Issues between
1892 – 2007

September 1892 to May 1946:

55 annual files with 28 additional Index files for the first 28 years. Issues that do not have a separate Index folder very often have an index at the end of each issue.

January 1947 to December 2006:

118 Bi-annual files almost all of them consisting of six issues each; and one additional file for the final year 2007.