Naguib Mahfouz survived the 1994 attack when he was 82, but suffered damage to the nerves in his right arm which seriously impaired his ability to write.

He died last night, after being admitted to hospital in Cairo following an injury to his head.

Mr Mahfouz won his Nobel Prize in 1988. It brought to notice a man who had already established himself as one of the Middle East's finest and most beloved writers and a strong voice for moderation and religious tolerance.

Confirming his death, Hossam Mowafi, his doctor, said: "His wife last night was whispering in his ears and he was smiling and nodding."

For Mr Mahfouz, fame had its perils. Twelve years ago an attacker, inspired by a militant cleric's ruling that a Mahfouz novel written decades before was blasphemous, stabbed the then-82-year-old as he left his Cairo home.

Mr Mahfouz complained he found it a struggle to "form legible words running in more or less straight lines" in the aftermath of the attack.

Despite millions readers in the Arab world, Mr Mahfouz's books are still unavailable in many Middle Eastern countries because of his support for the Camp David peace treaty that Anwar Sadat, the late Egyptian President, signed with Israel in 1978 - a peace move viewed with fury by many in the Arab world at the time.

Even though he was shaken by his injury, Mr Mahfouz maintained a busy schedule well into his 90s.

In his final years, he would go out six nights a week to meet friends at Cairo's literary watering holes, trading jokes, ideas for stories and news of the day.

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