Abstract The Major Depression Inventory [‎MDI]‎ is a brief questionnaire to assess the presence of a depressive disorder. We prepared an Arabic version of the MDi and tested its reliability and concurrent and discriminant validity as a diagnostic tool of major depressive disorder. A group of 50 Egyptian outpatients with major depressive disorder [‎assessed clinically and with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV-TR Axis 1 Disorders]‎ were compared with 50 healthy controls using the MDI-A, Beck Depression Inventory [‎BDI]‎ and Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory [‎STAI]‎. Cronbach a was 0.91 and intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.98 [‎95% Cl: 0.97-0.99]‎. Scores on the MDI-A strongly correlated with BDI scores [‎r - 0.81]‎ but insignificantly correlated with STAI scores. Using the MDI scoring algorithm, the sensitivity was 88.4% and specificity 78.9%. We conclude that the MDI-A has an excellent reliability and an acceptable concurrent and discriminant validity