While Shami was growing up, his father traveled across the Middle East and in the locality for his business, and through his father, Shami was exposed to the local villagers (fellahim), which were later treated as characters in his stories. A critical influence on Shami as a young teenager was Jurji Zaydan (died 1914)—founder of the Arabic Al-Nahda (Revival), modernizing of the Arabic language, one of the founders of the University of Cairo, and father of Pan-Arabism.
