The Arab school of MILAN - Named after the recently deceased Nobel laureate Nagib Mahfuz, the Italian Arab school in Milan, after a month of closure, has reopened its doors, with its one hundred students, who will attend eight elementary and middle classes. Sponsored by the Egyptian consulate of Lombardy (which offers textbooks in Arabic), the institute aspires to be a "non-denominational, multiethnic and multicultural" school, given that the teaching hours are both in Egyptian and in Italian, the programs are double, and at the end of the year the students will have to take exams both in public schools in Milan and at the consular authorities ", explains President Mahmoud Othman, president of the Insieme association, promoter of the initiative, founded by some parents who had the children enrolled in the Islamic school in via Quaranta, which was "clandestine", unauthorized, and which was closed by order of the prefect of Milan, two summers ago. The new school has clearly distanced itself from the old Islamic school and loudly declares itself "secular", so much so that those who take advantage of the religion class - two a week - can opt for both the study of the Koran and the teaching of the Christian faith according to the Coptic rite, as used in Egypt.