The Egyptian General Book Organisation has revived the prestigious intellectual magazine Al-Fikr Al-Mo’aser (Contemporary Thought)¸ after a 42-year hiatus The new chief editor of the magazine is Said Tawfik, professor of philosophy and aesthetics at Cairo University and the current head of Egypt’s Supreme Council for Culture.

The magazine, which was released for the first time in January 1965 and that stopped at the beginning of the 1970s, was initiated by the late Egyptian renowned thinker Zaki Naguib Mahmoud, who is considered one of the main contributors in the academic field of Arab philosophy in the 20th century.

The landmark magazine of its time was previously run under chief editor Fouad Zakari, one of Egypt’s most well known philosophy professors.

The new issue is devoted to the notion of the "civil state," which has been a point of controversy in Egypt since the outbreak of the January 25 Revolution and the subsequent clash between Islamist and liberal forces.

The keynote of the new issue is written by Said Tawfik.

The issue is divided into three sections: "The Concept of the Civil State," "Religion and the Civil State," and "Challenges to the Civil State."

Renowned philosophy professors Hassan Hanafi, Anwar Moghith and Ali Mabrouk, sociologist Ahmed Zayed, and a number of Arab writers are among contributors to the new issue.