Salah Issa, the Egyptian writer and editor, was researching a recent book ummaging around in musty archives at the Arab League’s Cairo headquarters when he uncovered Egyptian writer and editor Salah Issa uncovered a buried chapter of Egypt’s his country’s past.

Foraging in the a musty archive at the Cairo headquarters of the Arab League, Mr Issa found what he believed to be the sole remaining copy of a 1954 draft Egyptian constitution, tattered but intact. In it were the makings of a pluralist, parliamentary system that protected political freedoms and limited presidential powers. The document revealed a forgotten current of thinking within the Free Officers’ movement that in 1952 overthrew King Farouk.