“The Story of Isa ibn Hisham, or the Period of Time” by Muhammad al-Muwaylihi (1858-1930) is the most striking work of Egyptian educational prose, which has not lost its relevance to the present day. Written in the style of the medieval Arabic maqama, “The Story” incorporates features of a modern European novel, a journalistic article, and a dramatic play, which makes it the most important link in the chain of transformations of classical Arabic prose into new forms adopted from Western literature. The everyday-writing layer of “The Tale of Isa ibn Hisham” had a huge influence on the work of Egyptian prose writers-renovators of the 20s of the XX century, who solved the problem of creating national realistic literature.