Egyptian poet known as the “poet of the Nile.”

Ḥāfiẓ was a lawyer and later a lieutenant in the Egyptian army, from which he retired in 1901. During the next 10 years he wrote his well-known odes denouncing imperialism and wrote his nationalistic poems. His superb skill as a reciter of poetry won him a prominent place in society, and he became director of literature (1911–31) in the national library at Cairo. Ḥāfiẓ's true talent may have been in prose, as can be seen from his unfinished work Al-Buʾasāʾ (1903; “The Miserable Ones”).