When the first issue of Al-Ahram came out on 5 August 1876, the founding brothers Bichara and Selim Tekla had every reason to celebrate. Originally designed as a four-page weekly, the paper was the culmination of a major investment of effort and money.
Apart from securing funding for the newspaper, part of the growing journalism movement under Khedive Ismail, the brothers had to complete considerable paperwork. This included obtaining authorization from the Khedive himself and preparing the content and design, work that had begun almost a year before publication.
In late 1875, the Teklas finally received authorization for Al-Ahram to appear “as strictly an apolitical publication”. On 15 May 1876, they proudly produced the first dummy issue, consisting of two pages on a single sheet. Two things were already clear to the founders: the paper was likely to attract a good audience because of its content and style, but it would take time to establish its name and secure enough circulation and subscriptions to become profitable.
At a time when the roughly five established newspapers were committed to a highly literary Arabic style, the Teklas decided to set standards for a new kind of journalism by modernizing the language. In doing so, they received considerable help from graduates and students of Al-Azhar, whose impeccable command of Arabic allowed them to develop a style that retained the quality admired at the time while remaining easy to read.
Mohammed Abdu, a leading Azharite and intellectual, was among the paper’s earliest commentators. In a contribution to the first issue on 5 August 1876, Abdu wrote that the paper was set to live up to the expectations associated with the monument it had chosen for its logo: the Pyramids of Egypt.
The Teklas worked hard to realize this ambition, and Al-Ahram secured a place in Egyptian journalism during its early years. Five years later, it had built enough credibility to become a daily, beginning on 3 January 1881.
According to Ibrahim Abdou’s leading history of the newspaper, published on Al-Ahram’s 75th anniversary at the request of Jebra’il Tekla, the second generation of the family, the founders had viewed Al-Ahram from the start as a press establishment rather than simply one newspaper. This encouraged them to issue several sister publications.
Among them was Sada Al-Ahram (The Echo of Al-Ahram), first published on 10 October 1876. It lost its licence only a few months later after publishing an article critical of the government’s fiscal policies. Abdou also documented three other publications: Al-Manarah (The Lighthouse), Hakikat Al-Akhbar (True Stories), and Al-Waqt (The Time), which respectively covered economic affairs, international relations, and domestic news. Al-Waqt also devoted considerable space to advertising.
In October 1879, the Teklas requested a licence for a new newspaper to be published in both Arabic and French. However, as no trace of it has been found, the project appears never to have materialized.
Although the Teklas had agreed from the beginning that Al-Ahram would be apolitical, they inevitably upset leading state and national figures, including Khedive Ismail himself. They also angered Ahmed Urabi by failing to support his revolt against Khedive Tawfik. Despite their unequivocal support for Tawfik, they later upset him as well.
These incidents occurred even though the Teklas generally sought to preserve the paper’s apolitical character. At the same time, Al-Ahram opened its pages to leading national figures, including Mustafa Kamel and Mohamed Farid of the National Party. In 1919, it sided with the Revolution and became one of the principal platforms for the views of the Wafd Party.
Later, Jebra’il Tekla and Antoun Al-Jamil, who became editor-in-chief in 1933, decided that the paper should have only a national affiliation, remaining independent of political parties and authorities. Al-Jamil successfully turned Al-Ahram into a space where the views of different political currents could be represented.
According to prominent historian Younan Labib Rizk, author of the multi-volume Diwan Al-Hayat Al-Mu'asira (Chronicles of Contemporary Life), it was Al-Jamil who first coined the term “national newspaper”, which became widely used in later decades to describe state-run newspapers.
The 23 July Revolution was a major moment for Egypt and for Al-Ahram. In the eight years before its nationalization, along with other newspapers, in 1960, Al-Ahram managed to adapt to the sentiments and norms of the new era. A major change came in 1957, when Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, a rising journalist with close ties to President Gamal Abdel-Nasser, became editor-in-chief.
Heikal gave Al-Ahram its new, well-equipped headquarters on Galaa Street, following its first home in Alexandria and its second on Mazloum Street in Cairo. He also gave the paper a strong political imprint through his exceptional access to political news. In keeping with Al-Ahram’s tradition of attracting leading commentators, Heikal brought many of the country’s most prominent intellectuals and writers to its sixth floor, which he dedicated to top commentators.
Beyond Heikal’s era, Al-Ahram remained the nation’s leading newspaper. As it marked its 150th anniversary on Wednesday, 5 August 2026, it remained exactly what the Teklas had hoped it would become: a major Egyptian press institution whose history has run alongside the modern history of the nation.
*A version of this article appeared in Al-Ahram Daily on 5 August 2026.
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