“One (Mustafa Kemal Ataturk) is a hero, the other (Mahatma Gandhi) is a Prophet (nabi),” wrote celebrated Egyptian journalist Abbas Mahmoud al-‘Aqqad in Abtal al-Wataniyya (Nationalist Heroes), a book published in 1923. The book contained five nationalist heroes revered in Egypt and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was one of them.