Though he was writing more than fifty years earlier, the Tunisian littérateur Mahmud al-Mas'adi (d. 2004) offers an intriguing answer to the question posed by Edward Said in his penultimate Reith Lecture in 1993, namely, how to ‘speak truth to power.’ Much earlier, Taha Husayn weighed in on a discussion that emerged around al-Mas'adi’s play Al-Sudd (The Dam), written during the years 1939-1940. He called the work an example of the ‘Islamicization of existentialism,’ driven by resistance to colonialism and influenced by the French thinkers Albert Camus (d. 1960) and Jean-Paul Sartre (d.1980). However, al-Mas'adi denied these claims, attributing Husayn’s response to a willful misreading of the text. I investigate this debate through a reading of not only the directly related sources (Husayn’s initial review, al-Mas'adi’s response, and Husayn’s final retort, along with Al-Sudd itself) but also al-Mas'adi’s other literary works from the period, Haddatha Abu Hurayrah qal (Thus Spake Abu Hurayrah) and Mawlid al-nisyan (The Birth of Forgetting). Additionally, I integrate al-Mas'adi’s later critical work into this reading because it offers further explanation of the philosophical project put forward in al-Sudd. This investigation suggests an alternative source of influence on al-Mas'adi located in the work of the Russian Christian existentialist Nikolai Berdyaev (d. 1948) and defined by two necessary elements: idrak (consciousness) and fi'l (action). These two elements are directly represented by the characters of al-Sudd, each of them fully embodying one and completely refusing the other. Previous critical work has primarily focused on the role of the main character in the play, a man named Ghaylan, who is a champion of action, creation (khalq), and renewal (tajdid) in the world. However, scholars have neglected to investigate the opposing role of Ghaylan’s female companion, Maymunah, who exemplifies the other necessary element of productive existence, consciousness. In addressing al-Mas'adi’s additional literary and critical work, it becomes clear that he believes the path of resistance and growth can only be taken by one who operates with both of these essential elements. Al-Mas'adi explains his philosophy most clearly in his closing address to the 1964 Symposium on the Role of the Intellectual in a Developing Society entitled Risalat al-muthaqqaf fi al-mujtama' al-nami (“The Mission of the Intellectual in the Developing World”). Throughout the paper, I offer translations of key passages of this talk that guide my analysis of al-Sudd’s philosophical framework.