1.
Egypt
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Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba to the east, the Red Sea to the east and south, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, and across from the Sinai Peninsula lies Saudi Arabia, although Jordan and it is the worlds only contiguous Afrasian nation. Egypt has among the longest histories of any country, emerging as one of the worlds first nation states in the tenth millennium BC. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt experienced some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanisation, organised religion and central government. One of the earliest centres of Christianity, Egypt was Islamised in the century and remains a predominantly Muslim country. With over 92 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in North Africa and the Arab world, the third-most populous in Africa, and the fifteenth-most populous in the world. The great majority of its people live near the banks of the Nile River, an area of about 40,000 square kilometres, the large regions of the Sahara desert, which constitute most of Egypts territory, are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypts residents live in areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria. Modern Egypt is considered to be a regional and middle power, with significant cultural, political, and military influence in North Africa, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Egypts economy is one of the largest and most diversified in the Middle East, Egypt is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Arab League, African Union, and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Miṣr is the Classical Quranic Arabic and modern name of Egypt. The name is of Semitic origin, directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew מִצְרַיִם, the oldest attestation of this name for Egypt is the Akkadian
2.
Instrumentals
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An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics, or singing, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a Big Band setting. The music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments, if the instrumental section highlights the skill, musicality, and often the virtuosity of a particular performer, the section may be called a solo. If the instruments are percussion instruments, the interlude can be called a percussion interlude or percussion break and these interludes are a form of break in the song. One example of a genre in which both vocal/instrumental and solely instrumental songs are produced is blues, another example of a genre in popular culture is Hip Hop, Pop, and R&B. Many upcoming or rising artists in Hip Hop, Pop, and R&B will find an instrumental online on a website, like www. beatsbytoon. com, an instrumental version of a song which otherwise features vocals is also known as a -1. The opposite of instrumental music, that is, music for voices alone, without any accompaniment instruments, is a cappella, an Italian phrase that means in the chapel. In early music, instruments such as trumpet and drums were considered outdoor instruments, a capella music exists in both Classical music choir pieces and in popular music styles such as doo wop groups and Barbershop quartets. Some recordings which include brief examples of the voice are typically considered instrumentals. An ominous statement at the end Inclusion of field recordings which may or may not contain non-lyrical words, a few songs categorized as instrumentals may even include actual vocals, if they appear only as a short part of an extended piece. Falling just outside that definition is Theme From Shaft by Isaac Hayes. com with a sample of each
3.
Ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently, Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer. In the aftermath of Alexander the Greats death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter and this Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture, the predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world and its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries. The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history, nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry. In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates, foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated. The largest of these cultures in upper Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert, it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools. The Badari was followed by the Amratian and Gerzeh cultures, which brought a number of technological improvements, as early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan, establishing a power center at Hierakonpolis, and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the desert to the west. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the crown of Egypt. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia, the third-century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today
4.
Culture of Egypt
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The culture of Egypt has thousands of years of recorded history. Ancient Egypt was among the earliest civilizations in Africa, for millennia, Egypt maintained a strikingly unique, complex and stable culture that influenced later cultures of Europe. After the Pharaonic era, Egypt itself came under the influence of Hellenism, for a time Christianity and later, the Coptic language, the last stage of Egyptian, is today the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Hieroglyphs were written on peoples front doors so that the news of the pharaoh would travel to everyone, the Koiné dialect of the Greek language was important in Hellenistic Alexandria, and was used in the philosophy and science of that culture, and was later studied by Arabic scholars. Arabic came to Egypt in the 7th century, and Egyptian Arabic has become today the modern speech of the country, of the many varieties of Arabic, it is the most widely spoken second dialect, due to the influence of Egyptian cinema and media throughout the Arabic-speaking world. In the lower Nile Valley, around Kom Ombo and Aswan, there are about 300,000 speakers of Nubian languages, mainly Nobiin, the Berber languages are represented by Siwi, spoken by about 5,000 around the Siwa Oasis. There are over a million speakers of the Domari language, mostly living north of Cairo, approximately 77,000 speakers of Bedawi live in the Eastern Desert. Many Egyptians believed that when it came to a death of their Pharaoh, the ancient Egyptian literature dates back to the Old Kingdom, in the third millennium BC. Religious literature is best known for its hymns to and its mortuary texts, the oldest extant Egyptian literature is the Pyramid Texts, the mythology and rituals carved around the tombs of rulers. The later, secular literature of ancient Egypt includes the wisdom texts, in time, the Pyramid Texts became Coffin Texts, and finally, the mortuary literature produced its masterpiece, the Book of the Dead, during the New Kingdom. The Middle Kingdom was the age of Egyptian literature. Some notable texts include the Tale of Neferty, the Instructions of Amenemhat I, the Tale of Sinuhe, the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor, Instructions became a popular literary genre of the New Kingdom, taking the form of advice on proper behavior. The Story of Wenamun and the Instruction of Any are well-known examples from this period, during the Greco-Roman period, Egyptian literature was translated into other languages, and Greco-Roman literature fused with native art into a new style of writing. From this period comes the Rosetta Stone, which became the key to unlocking the mysteries of Egyptian writing to modern scholarship, the great city of Alexandria boasted its famous Library of almost half a million handwritten books during the third century BC. Alexandrias center of learning also produced the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, drep During the first few centuries of the Christian era, Egypt was the ultimate source of a great deal of ascetic literature in the Coptic language. Egyptian monasteries translated many Greek and Syriac words, which are now extant in Coptic. Under Islam, Egypt continued to be a source of literary endeavor. In 970, al-Azhar University was founded in Cairo, which to this day remains the most important center of Sunni Islamic learning, in the 12th century Egypt, the Jewish Talmudic scholar Maimonides produced his most important work
5.
Ancient Egyptian architecture
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The core of the pyramids consisted of locally quarried stone, mudbricks, sand or gravel. For the casing stones were used that had to be transported from farther away, predominantly white limestone from Tura, Ancient Egyptian houses were made out of mud collected from the Nile river. It was placed in molds and left to dry in the hot sun to harden for use in construction, others are inaccessible, new buildings having been erected on ancient ones. Fortunately, the dry, hot climate of Egypt preserved some mud brick structures, examples include the village Deir al-Madinah, the Middle Kingdom town at Kahun, and the fortresses at Buhen and Mirgissa. Also, many temples and tombs have survived because they were built on high ground unaffected by the Nile flood and were constructed of stone, in a similar manner, the incised and flatly modeled surface adornment of the stone buildings may have derived from mud wall ornamentation. Exterior and interior walls, as well as the columns and piers, were covered with hieroglyphic and pictorial frescoes, many motifs of Egyptian ornamentation are symbolic, such as the scarab, or sacred beetle, the solar disk, and the vulture. Other common motifs include leaves, the papyrus plant. Hieroglyphs were inscribed for decorative purposes as well as to record historic events or spells, in addition, these pictorial frescoes and carvings allow us to understand how the Ancient Egyptians lived, statuses, wars that were fought and their beliefs. This was especially true when exploring the tombs of Ancient Egyptian officials in recent years, Ancient Egyptian temples were aligned with astronomically significant events, such as solstices and equinoxes, requiring precise measurements at the moment of the particular event. Measurements at the most significant temples may have been undertaken by the Pharaoh himself. The Giza Necropolis stands on the Giza Plateau, on the outskirts of Cairo and this complex of ancient monuments is located some 8 kilometers inland into the desert from the old town of Giza on the Nile, some 20 kilometers southwest of Cairo city center. The pyramids, which were built in the Fourth Dynasty, testify to the power of the pharaonic religion and they were built to serve both as grave sites and also as a way to make their names last forever. The size and simple design show the skill level of Egyptian design. The pyramid of Khafre is believed to have been completed around 2532 BC, Khafre ambitiously placed his pyramid next to his fathers. It is not as tall as his fathers pyramid but he was able to give it the impression of appearing taller by building it on a site with a foundation 33 feet higher than his fathers. Along with building his pyramid, Chefren commissioned the building of the giant Sphinx as guardian over his tomb, the face of a human, possibly a depiction of the pharaoh, on a lions body was seen as a symbol of divinity among the Greeks fifteen hundred years later. The Great Sphinx is carved out the bedrock and stands about 65 feet tall. Menkaures pyramid dates to circa 2490 BC and stands 213 feet high making it the smallest of the Great Pyramids, popular culture leads people to believe that Pyramids are highly confusing, with many tunnels within the pyramid to create confusion for grave robbers
6.
Egyptian Revival architecture
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Egyptian revival is an architectural style that uses the motifs and imagery of ancient Egypt. It is attributed generally to the awareness of ancient Egyptian monuments generated by Napoleons conquest of Egypt. Napoleon took an expedition with him to Egypt. Publication of the work, the Description de lÉgypte, began in 1809 and was published as a series through 1826. However, works of art and architecture in the Egyptian style had made or built occasionally on the European continent. The most important example is probably Gian Lorenzo Berninis obelisk in the Piazza Navona in Rome, others may be found at Belan, County Kildare, and Dangan, County Meath. The Casteltown Folly in County Kildare is probably the best known, Egyptian buildings had also been built as garden follies. The most elaborate was probably the one built by Frederick I and it included an Egyptian bridge across which guests walked to reach an island with an elaborate Egyptian-influenced bath house. Designed by the court architect, Jean Baptiste Kleber, the building had a billiards room. New after the Napoleonic invasion was a increase of the number of works of art. In France and Britain this was at least partially inspired by successful war campaigns undertaken by each country while in Egypt, according to David Brownlee, the 1798 Karlsruhe Synagogue, an early building by the influential Friedrich Weinbrenner was the first large Egyptian building to be erected since antiquity. According to Diana Muir Appelbaum, it was the first public building in the Egyptian revival style, a street or passage named the Place du Caire or Foire du Caire was built in Paris in 1798 on the former site of the convent of the Filles de la Charité. In 1828 a building with Egyptianizing detail including large Hathor heads, among the earliest monuments of the Egyptian revival in Paris is the Fontaine du Fellah in Paris, built in 1806. It was designed by François-Jean Bralle, a well-documented example, destroyed after Napoleon was deposed, was the monument to General Louis Desaix in the Place des Victoires was built in 1810. It featured a statue of the general and an obelisk. Another example of a still standing site of Egyptian Revival is the Egyptian Gate of Tsarskoe Selo, one of the first British buildings to show an Egyptian revival interior was the newspaper office of the Courier on the Strand in London. It was built in 1804 and featured a cavetto cornice and Egyptian-influenced columns with palmiform capitals, Egyptian revival architecture enjoyed considerable popularity in other countries as well. The most notable Egyptian structure in the United States was the Washington Monument, begun in 1848, the South African College in the then-British Cape Colony features an Egyptian building constructed in 1841, the Egyptian revival building of the Cape Town Hebrew Congregation is also still standing
7.
Art of ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egyptian art is the painting, sculpture, architecture and other arts produced by the civilization of ancient Egypt in the lower Nile Valley from about 3000 BC to 30 AD. Ancient Egyptian art reached a level in painting and sculpture. It was famously conservative, and Egyptian styles changed remarkably little over more than three thousand years, much of the surviving art comes from tombs and monuments and thus there is an emphasis on life after death and the preservation of knowledge of the past. Ancient Egyptian art included paintings, sculpture in wood, stone and ceramics, drawings on papyrus, faience, jewelry, ivories and it displays an extraordinarily vivid representation of the ancient Egyptians socioeconomic status and belief systems. This appears as early as the Narmer Palette from Dynasty I, other conventions make statues of males darker than females ones. Egyptian art uses hierarchical proportion, where the size of figures indicates their relative importance, symbolism can be observed throughout Egyptian art and played an important role in establishing a sense of order. The pharaohs regalia, for example, represented his power to maintain order, animals were also highly symbolic figures in Egyptian art. Not all Egyptian reliefs were painted, and less prestigious works in tombs, Stone surfaces were prepared by whitewash, or if rough, a layer of coarse mud plaster, with a smoother gesso layer above, some finer limestones could take paint directly. Pigments were mostly mineral, chosen to withstand sunlight without fading. The binding medium used in painting remains unclear, egg tempera and various gums and it is clear that true fresco, painted into a thin layer of wet plaster, was not used. Instead the paint was applied to dried plaster, in what is called fresco a secco in Italian, small objects including wooden statuettes were often painted using similar techniques. Many ancient Egyptian paintings have survived in tombs, and sometimes temples, the paintings were often made with the intent of making a pleasant afterlife for the deceased. The themes included journey through the afterworld or protective deities introducing the deceased to the gods of the underworld, some tomb paintings show activities that the deceased were involved in when they were alive and wished to carry on doing for eternity. In the New Kingdom and later, the Book of the Dead was buried with the entombed person and it was considered important for an introduction to the afterlife. Egyptian paintings are painted in such a way to show a profile view, for example, the painting to the right shows the head from a profile view and the body from a frontal view. Their main colors were red, blue, green, gold, black, the monumental sculpture of ancient Egypts temples and tombs is world-famous, but refined and delicate small works exist in much greater numbers. The Egyptians used the technique of sunk relief, which is well suited to very bright sunlight. The distinctive pose of standing statues facing forward with one foot in front of the other was helpful for the balance and it was adopted very early and remained unchanged until the arrival of the Greeks
8.
Cinema of Egypt
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The cinema of Egypt refers to the flourishing Egyptian Arabic-language film industry based in Cairo, the capital of Egypt. Since 1976, Cairo has held the annual Cairo International Film Festival, there is also another festival held in Alexandria. Of the more than 4,000 short and feature-length films made in Arabic-speaking countries since 1908, while a limited number of silent films were made in Egypt from 1896, Cairos film industry became a regional force with the coming of sound. Between 1930 and 1936, various small studios produced at least 44 feature films, in 1936, Studio Misr, financed by industrialist Talaat Harb, emerged as the leading Egyptian equivalent to Hollywoods major studios, a role the company retained for three decades. In 1917, the director Mohamed Karim established a company in Alexandria. The company produced two films, Dead Flowers and Honor the Bedouin, which were shown in the city of Alexandria in early 1918, since then, more than 4000 films have been produced in Egypt, three quarters of the total Arab production. Egypt is the most productive country in the Middle East in the field of production. The 1940s, 1950s and the 1960s are generally considered the age of Egyptian cinema. As in the West, films responded to the imagination, with most falling into predictable genres. Later he entered the distribution business too. Political changes in Egypt after the overthrow of King Farouk in 1952 initially had little effect on Egyptian film, the Nasser regime sought control over the industry only after turning to socialism in 1961. By 1966, the Egyptian film industry had been nationalized, as is the case regarding all matters during that period, diametrical opinions can be found about Cinema industry then. In the words of Ahmed Ramzi, a man of the era. The heavy government hand that accompanied nationalization of Egyptian film stifled innovative trends, notable titles included The Night of Counting The Years, Cairo Station and The Postman. By the 1970s, Egyptian films struck a balance between politics and entertainment, films such as 1972s Khalli Balak min Zouzou, starring the Cinderella of Arab cinema, Suad Husni, sought to balance politics and audience appeal. Zouzou integrated music, dance, and contemporary fashions into a story that balanced campus ferment with family melodrama, the late 1970s and 1980s saw the Egyptian film industry in decline, with the rise of what came to be called contractor movies. Actor Khaled El Sawy has described these as films where there is no story, no acting, basic formula movies that aimed at making a quick buck. The number of films produced also declined, from nearly 100 movies a year in the prime to about a dozen in 1995
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Egyptian cuisine
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Egyptian cuisine makes heavy use of legumes, vegetables and fruits since Egypts rich Nile valley and delta produce large quantities of these crops in high quality. Bread made from a simple recipe forms the backbone of Egyptian cuisine and it is consumed at almost all Egyptian meals, a working-class or rural Egyptian meal might consist of little more than bread and beans. The local bread is a form of hearty, thick, glutenous pita bread called Eish Masri or Eish Baladi or Baladee rather than the Arabic خبز ḫubz, the word comes from the Semitic root ع-ي-ش ʕ-Ī-Š with the meaning to live, be alive. The word ʿayš itself has the meaning of life, way of living, livelihood, subsistence in Modern Standard and Classical Arabic, folklore holds that this synonymity indicates the centrality of bread to Egyptian life. In modern Egypt, the government subsidizes bread, dating back to a Nasser-era policy, in 2008, a major food crisis caused ever-longer bread lines at government-subsidized bakeries where there would normally be none, occasional fights broke out over bread, leading to fear of rioting. On a culinary level, bread is used as gamosa. Egyptians use bread to scoop up food, sauces, and dips and to wrap kebabs, falafel, most pita breads are baked at high temperatures, causing the flattened rounds of dough to puff up dramatically. When removed from the oven, the layers of baked dough remain separated inside the deflated pita, aish Merahrah is an Egyptian flat bread made with 5-10% ground fenugreek seeds added to maize flour. It is part of the diet of the Egyptian countryside. The loaves are flat and wide, and usually about 50 cm in diameter and this bread can be kept for days in an airtight container. Egyptian cuisine shares similarities with food of the Eastern Mediterranean region, such as rice-stuffed vegetables, grape leaves, shawarma, kebab, ta‘miya, baba ghannoug, some consider kushari - a mixture of rice, lentils, and macaroni - to be the national dish. Ful medames is one of the most popular dishes. Fava bean is used in making falafel, which originated in Egypt. Cow brain and liver is eaten in Egypt, ancient Egyptians are known to have used a lot of garlic and onions in their everyday dishes. Fresh garlic mashed with herbs is used in spicy tomato salad. Garlic fried with coriander is added to molokhiya, a green soup made from finely chopped jute leaves, sometimes with chicken or rabbit. Fried onions can be added to kushari. Other dishes include, Egyptian desserts resemble other Eastern Mediterranean desserts, basbousa, sometimes called harissa, is a spicy dish made from semolina and soaked in a sugar syrup
10.
Raqs sharqi
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Raqs sharqi is the classical Egyptian style of belly dance that developed during the first half of the 20th century. Raqs sharqi was developed by Samia Gamal, Tahiya Karioka, Naima Akef and this has come to be considered the classical style of dance in Egypt by the 1950s. These dancers were not only for their role in Egyptian films. This venue was a place for influential musicians and choreographers from both the US and Europe, so many of the developments pioneered here can be considered new developments in the dance. Later dancers who were influenced by artists are Sohair Zaki, Fifi Abdou, Nagwa Fouad. All rose to fame between 1960 and 1980, and are popular today. Some of these later dancers were the first to choreograph and perform using a full orchestra and stage set-up. Though the basic movements of Raqs Sharqi are unchanged, the form continues to evolve. Since the 1950s, it has been illegal in Egypt for belly dancers to perform publicly with their midriff uncovered or to display excessive skin. It is therefore becoming more common to wear a long, figure-hugging lycra one-piece gown with strategically placed cut-outs filled in with sheer, if a separate bra and skirt are worn, a belt is rarely used and any embellishment is embroidered directly on the tight, sleek lycra skirt. A sheer body stocking must be worn to cover the midsection, Egyptian dancers traditionally dance in bare feet, but these days often wear shoes and even high heels. Most belly dancers performing for tourists in Egypt today are foreigners, belly dancers in Egypt have restrictions placed on their costume and movements. No floor work is permitted, and their midriff must be covered, state television in Egypt no longer broadcasts belly dancing
11.
Tahtib
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Tahtib is the Modern Egyptian term for a stick-fighting martial art originally named Fan ANazaha Wa-Tahtib. The martial version of Tahtib also evolved into a form of Egyptian folk dance involving a wooden stick. It is sometimes described as a stick-dancing game, or as a highly ritualized mock fight accompanied by music. Nowadays, the name Tahtib encompasses both martial practice and dance practice, a Nubian form of tahtib is regularly performed for tourists in Aswan. The oldest traces of Tahtib were found on engravings from the site of Abusir. On some of the reliefs of the Pyramid of Sahure, the images and explanatory captions are particularly precise, Tahtib, with archery and wrestling, was then among the three warfare disciplines taught to soldiers during their training. More recent in chronological order, yet no less important, three of the 35 tombs of the Beni Hassan necropolis near the town of Minya, display engravings showing scenes of Tahtib. Similar engravings can be seen in the site of Tell el Amarna. The early Christian writings mention Tahtib as an activity and a popular art, performed by men, during weddings. The stick itself is four feet in length and is called an Asa, Asaya or Assaya. It is often flailed in large figure-8 patterns across the body with such speed, for the dance version of Tahtib, although the dance form originally started as male-only, there are women who perform dressed as men and dance with other women. Another female version of stick dancing has developed with a flirtatious and generally less aggressive style. The stick used for type of dancing is generally more lightweight and hooked at one end like a cane. The costume worn is usually folkloric, a simple Baladi dress, performance styles include balancing the cane on head, hip or shoulder. As far as the version of Tahtib is concerned, it is practiced by both women and men in mixed groups. The music used in Tahtib features the tahvol and mizmar, the tahvol is a double-sided drum worn with a shoulder strap so it hangs sideways in front of the drummer and is played with two sticks. Modern Tahtib is an attempt to re-explore the sources of Tahtib as a martial art, the main goal in a Modern Tahtib attack is to reach the opponent’s head with the stick. Stick dance Beni Hasan by Percy Newberry, et al, Beni Hasan - Archaeowiki. org N. de G. Daviess Rock Tombs of El Amarna, in openlibrary. org
12.
Sufi whirling
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It is a customary meditation practice performed within the Sema, or worship ceremony, through which dervishes aim to reach the source of all perfection, or kemal. The Mevlevi practice gave rise to an Egyptian form, tanoura and this has also developed into a performance dance by non-Sufis, including dancers outside the Islamic world. A member of such a fraternity is referred to as a Persian darwish and these turuk were responsible for organizing an Islamic expression of religious life, often founded by independent saints or resulted from the division of existing orders. Each Sufi tariqa stems from a unique silsila, or chain of order in which a member must learn, ones silsila extends through the members individual teacher, to their teacher and so on, through time until one is connected to the Prophet and thus Allah. The Prophet himself is revered as the originator of Sufism, which has in turn been traced down through a series of saints, a dervish practices multiple rituals, the primary of which is the dhikr, a remembering of Allah. The dhikr involves recitation of devotional Islamic prayer and this dhikr is coupled with physical exertions of movement, specifically dancing and whirling, in order to reach a state assumed by outsiders to be one of ecstatic trances. As explained by Sufis, In the symbolism of the Sema ritual, by removing his black cloak, he is spiritually reborn to the truth. At the beginning of the Sema, by holding his arms crosswise, the semazen appears to represent the number one, thus testifying to Gods unity. While whirling, his arms are open, his arm is directed to the sky, ready to receive Gods beneficence, his left hand. The semazen conveys Gods spiritual gift to those who are witnessing the Sema, revolving from right to left around the heart, the semazen embraces all humanity with love. The human being has been created with love in order to love, mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi says, All loves are a bridge to Divine love. Yet, those who have not had a taste of it do not know, as the ritual dance begins, the dervish dons a felt cap, a sikke, in addition to a turban wrapped around the head, a trademark of the Mevlevi order. The sheikh leads the ritual with strict regulations, to begin, The sheikh stands in the most honored corner of the dancing place, and the dervishes pass by him three times, each time exchanging greetings, until the circling movement starts. The rotation itself is on the foot, the center of the rotation being the ball of the left foot. The impetus for the rotation is provided by the right foot, the Western world, having witnessed Sufi whirling through tourism, have described the various forms of dhikr as barking, howling, dancing, etc. The practice of each tariqa is unique to its order, specific traditions. The same tariqa in one country will not mirror that of country as each orders ritual stresses emotional religious life in various forms. The Mevleviyah order, like others, practice the dhikr by performing a whirling meditation
13.
Clothing in ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egyptian clothes refers to clothing worn in ancient Egypt from the end of the Neolithic period to the collapse of the Ptolemaic dynasty with the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC. Egyptian clothing was filled with a variety of colors, adorned with precious gems and jewels, the fashions of the Ancient Egyptians were made for not only beauty but also comfort. Egyptian fashion was created to keep cool while in the hot desert, in ancient Egypt, linen was by far the most common textile. It helped people to be comfortable in the subtropical heat, linen is made from the flax plant by spinning the fibers from the stem of the plant. Spinning, weaving and sewing were very important techniques for all Egyptian societies, plant dyes could be applied to clothing but the clothing was usually left in its natural color. Wool was known, but considered impure, only the wealthy wore animal fibers that were the object of taboos. They were used on occasion for overcoats, but were forbidden in temples and sanctuaries, peasants, workers and other people of modest condition often wore nothing, but the shenti was worn by all people. The most common headdress was the khat or nemes, a cloth worn by men. From about 2130 BC during the Old Kingdom, garments were simple, the men wore wrap around skirts known as the shendyt, which were belted at the waist, sometimes pleated or gathered in the front. During this time, mens skirts were short, as the Middle Kingdom of Egypt,1600 B. C. came, the skirt was worn longer. Then, around 1420 BC, there was a tunic or blouse with sleeves. During the Old, Middle and New Kingdom, Ancient Egyptian women often wore simple sheath dresses called kalasiris, womens clothing in ancient Egypt was more conservative than mens clothing. The dresses were held up by one or two straps and were worn down to the ankle, while the edge could be worn above or below the breasts. The length of the dress denoted the social class of the wearer, beading or feathers were also used as an embellishment on the dress. Over the dress, women had a choice of wearing shawls, capes, the shawl was a piece of cloth around 4 feet wide by 13 or 14 feet long. This was mostly worn pleated as well, female clothes only changed slightly through the millennia. Draped clothing sometimes gave the impression of different clothing. It was made of haïk, a fine muslin
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History of Egypt
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The history of Egypt has been long and rich, due to the flow of the Nile river, with its fertile banks and delta. Its rich history also comes from its inhabitants and outside influence. Much of Egypts ancient history was a mystery until the secrets of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs were deciphered with the discovery, the Great Pyramid of Giza is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing. The Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the other Seven Wonders, is gone, the Library of Alexandria was the only one of its kind for centuries. Human settlement in Egypt dates back to at least 40,000 BC with Aterian tool manufacturing, Ancient Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh of the First Dynasty, Narmer. Predominately native Egyptian rule lasted until the conquest by the Achaemenid Empire in the sixth century BC, the Ptolemies had to fight native rebellions and were involved in foreign and civil wars that led to the decline of the kingdom and its final annexation by Rome. The death of Cleopatra ended the independence of Egypt resulting in Egypt becoming one of the provinces of the Roman Empire. Roman rule in Egypt lasted from 30 BC to 641 AD, in 1517, Ottoman sultan Selim I captured Cairo, absorbing Egypt into the Ottoman Empire. Egypt remained entirely Ottoman until 1867, except during French occupation from 1798 to 1801, starting in 1867, Egypt became a nominally autonomous tributary state called the Khedivate of Egypt. However, Khedivate Egypt fell under British control in 1882 following the Anglo-Egyptian War, after the end of World War I and following the Egyptian revolution of 1919, the Kingdom of Egypt was established. While a de facto independent state, the United Kingdom retained control over affairs, defense. British occupation lasted until 1954, with the Anglo-Egyptian agreement of 1954, President Gamal Abdel Nasser introduced many reforms and created the short-lived United Arab Republic. His terms also saw the Six-Day War and the creation of the international Non-Aligned Movement and he led Egypt in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to regain Egypts Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had occupied since the Six-Day War of 1967. This later led to the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty, recent Egyptian history has been dominated by events following nearly thirty years of rule by former president Hosni Mubarak. The Egyptian revolution of 2011 deposed Mubarak and resulted in the first democratically elected president in Egyptian history, unrest after the 2011 revolution and related disputes led to the 2013 Egyptian coup détat. There is evidence of petroglyphs along the Nile terraces and in desert oases, in the 10th millennium BC, a culture of hunter-gatherers and fishermen was replaced by a grain-grinding culture. Climate changes and/or overgrazing around 6000 BC began to desiccate the pastoral lands of Egypt, early tribal peoples migrated to the Nile River, where they developed a settled agricultural economy and more centralized society. By about 6000 BC, a Neolithic culture rooted in the Nile Valley, during the Neolithic era, several predynastic cultures developed independently in Upper and Lower Egypt
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Public holidays in Egypt
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Holidays in Egypt have many classifications. There are a set of holidays celebrated by the entire population. There are four Islamic holidays and two Christian holidays, the following holidays are celebrated across the country, with the government offices and ministries closed. These holidays are either national secular holidays or important religious holidays, some government-related offices, including most universities, are also closed on the Coptic Orthodox date of Epiphany,19 January. The following days are public holidays but the date on which each occurs varies, in order in which they occur, World Holidays -> Egypt 2006
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Egyptian literature
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Egyptian literature traces its beginnings to ancient Egypt and is some of the earliest known literature. Indeed, the Egyptians were the first culture to literature as we know it today, that is. The ancient Egyptians wrote works on papyrus as well as walls, tombs, pyramids, obelisks and more. Perhaps the best known example of ancient Jehiel literature is the Story of Sinuhe, other works include the Westcar Papyrus. While most literature in ancient Egypt was so-called Wisdom literature, there also existed myths, the autobiography has been called the oldest form of Egyptian literature. Many great thinkers from around the ancient world came to the city, including Callimachus of Libya, not all of the great writers of the period came from outside of Egypt, however, one notable Egyptian poet was Apollonius of Rhodes. The latter comprised offices, libraries, laboratories and observatories, during this period, the tradition of writing had evolved into the tomb autobiography, such as those of Harkhufand Weni. The Story of Sinuhe, written in Middle Egyptian, might be the classic of Egyptian literature, also written at this time was the Westcar Papyrus, a set of stories told to Khufu by his sons relating the marvels performed by priests. The Instruction of Amenemope is considered a masterpiece of near-eastern literature, towards the end of the New Kingdom, the vernacular language was more often employed to write popular pieces like the Story of Wenamun and the Instruction of Any. The former tells the story of a noble who is robbed on his way to buy cedar from Lebanon, many stories written in demotic during the Graeco-Roman period were set in previous historical eras, when Egypt was an independent nation ruled by great pharaohs such as Ramesses II. Alexandria became an important center in early Christianity during roughly the 1st to 4th century CE, coptic works were an important contribution to Christian literature of the period and the Nag Hammadi library helped preserve a number of books that would otherwise have been lost. By the eighth century Egypt had been conquered by the Muslim Arabs, Literature, and especially libraries, thrived under the new Egypt brought about by the Muslim conquerors. Several important changes occurred during time which affected Egyptian writers. Papyrus was replaced by paper, and calligraphy was introduced as a writing system. Also, the focus of writing shifted almost entirely to Islam, the earliest novel written in Egypt was Ibn al-Nafis Theologus Autodidactus, the earliest example of a science fiction and theological novel. Many tales of the One Thousand and One Nights can be traced to medieval Egyptian storytelling traditions and these tales were probably in circulation before they were collected and codified into a single collection. In the late nineteenth and early centuries, the Arab world experienced al-Nahda. One of the most important figures from this time was Naguib Mahfouz, in 1914 Muhammad Husayn Haykal wrote Zaynab, considered the first modern Egyptian as well as Islamic novel
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Egyptian mythology
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Egyptian mythology is the collection of myths from ancient Egypt, which describe the actions of the Egyptian gods as a means of understanding the world. The beliefs that these myths express are an important part of ancient Egyptian religion, Myths appear frequently in Egyptian writings and art, particularly in short stories and in religious material such as hymns, ritual texts, funerary texts, and temple decoration. These sources rarely contain an account of a myth and often describe only brief fragments. Inspired by the cycles of nature, the Egyptians saw time in the present as a series of recurring patterns, Myths are set in these earliest times, and myth sets the pattern for the cycles of the present. Present events repeat the events of myth, and in doing so renew maat, events from the present that might be regarded as myths include Ras daily journey through the world and its otherworldly counterpart, the Duat. The details of these sacred events differ greatly from one text to another, Egyptian myths are primarily metaphorical, translating the essence and behavior of deities into terms that humans can understand. Each variant of a myth represents a different symbolic perspective, enriching the Egyptians understanding of the gods and it inspired or influenced many religious rituals and provided the ideological basis for kingship. Scenes and symbols from myth appeared in art in tombs, temples, in literature, myths or elements of them were used in stories that range from humor to allegory, demonstrating that the Egyptians adapted mythology to serve a wide variety of purposes. The development of Egyptian myth is difficult to trace, Egyptologists must make educated guesses about its earliest phases, based on written sources that appeared much later. One obvious influence on myth is the Egyptians natural surroundings, thus the Egyptians saw water and the sun as symbols of life and thought of time as a series of natural cycles. This orderly pattern was at constant risk of disruption, unusually low floods resulted in famine, the hospitable Nile valley was surrounded by harsh desert, populated by peoples the Egyptians regarded as uncivilized enemies of order. For these reasons, the Egyptians saw their land as an place of stability, or maat. These themes—order, chaos, and renewal—appear repeatedly in Egyptian religious thought, another possible source for mythology is ritual. Many rituals make reference to myths and are based directly on them. But it is difficult to determine whether a cultures myths developed before rituals or vice versa, questions about this relationship between myth and ritual have spawned much discussion among Egyptologists and scholars of comparative religion in general. In ancient Egypt, the earliest evidence of religious practices predates written myths, rituals early in Egyptian history included only a few motifs from myth. For these reasons, some scholars have argued that, in Egypt, but because the early evidence is so sparse, the question may never be resolved for certain. In private rituals, which are often called magical, the myth, many of the myth-like stories that appear in the rituals texts are not found in other sources
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Sports in Egypt
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The culture of Egypt has thousands of years of recorded history. Ancient Egypt was among the earliest civilizations in Africa, for millennia, Egypt maintained a strikingly unique, complex and stable culture that influenced later cultures of Europe. After the Pharaonic era, Egypt itself came under the influence of Hellenism, for a time Christianity and later, the Coptic language, the last stage of Egyptian, is today the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Hieroglyphs were written on peoples front doors so that the news of the pharaoh would travel to everyone, the Koiné dialect of the Greek language was important in Hellenistic Alexandria, and was used in the philosophy and science of that culture, and was later studied by Arabic scholars. Arabic came to Egypt in the 7th century, and Egyptian Arabic has become today the modern speech of the country, of the many varieties of Arabic, it is the most widely spoken second dialect, due to the influence of Egyptian cinema and media throughout the Arabic-speaking world. In the lower Nile Valley, around Kom Ombo and Aswan, there are about 300,000 speakers of Nubian languages, mainly Nobiin, the Berber languages are represented by Siwi, spoken by about 5,000 around the Siwa Oasis. There are over a million speakers of the Domari language, mostly living north of Cairo, approximately 77,000 speakers of Bedawi live in the Eastern Desert. Many Egyptians believed that when it came to a death of their Pharaoh, the ancient Egyptian literature dates back to the Old Kingdom, in the third millennium BC. Religious literature is best known for its hymns to and its mortuary texts, the oldest extant Egyptian literature is the Pyramid Texts, the mythology and rituals carved around the tombs of rulers. The later, secular literature of ancient Egypt includes the wisdom texts, in time, the Pyramid Texts became Coffin Texts, and finally, the mortuary literature produced its masterpiece, the Book of the Dead, during the New Kingdom. The Middle Kingdom was the age of Egyptian literature. Some notable texts include the Tale of Neferty, the Instructions of Amenemhat I, the Tale of Sinuhe, the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor, Instructions became a popular literary genre of the New Kingdom, taking the form of advice on proper behavior. The Story of Wenamun and the Instruction of Any are well-known examples from this period, during the Greco-Roman period, Egyptian literature was translated into other languages, and Greco-Roman literature fused with native art into a new style of writing. From this period comes the Rosetta Stone, which became the key to unlocking the mysteries of Egyptian writing to modern scholarship, the great city of Alexandria boasted its famous Library of almost half a million handwritten books during the third century BC. Alexandrias center of learning also produced the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, drep During the first few centuries of the Christian era, Egypt was the ultimate source of a great deal of ascetic literature in the Coptic language. Egyptian monasteries translated many Greek and Syriac words, which are now extant in Coptic. Under Islam, Egypt continued to be a source of literary endeavor. In 970, al-Azhar University was founded in Cairo, which to this day remains the most important center of Sunni Islamic learning, in the 12th century Egypt, the Jewish Talmudic scholar Maimonides produced his most important work
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Flag of Egypt
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The flag of Egypt is a tricolour consisting of the three equal horizontal red, white, and black bands of the Arab Liberation flag dating back to the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. The flag bears Egypts national emblem, the Eagle of Saladin centered in the white band, the Free Officers who toppled King Farouk in the Revolution of 1952 assigned specific symbolism to each of the three bands of the Arab Liberation flag. The red band symbolizes the period before the Revolution, a characterized by the struggle against the monarchy. The white band symbolizes the nature of the Revolution itself. The black band symbolizes the end of the oppression of the Egyptian people at the hands of the monarchy, Egypts use of the Arab Liberation flag inspired its adoption by a number of other Arab states. The same horizontal tricolour is used by Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, the development of the modern Egyptian flag was determined first by the Muhammad Ali Dynasty, under whom Egypt was united with Sudan, and later by the rise of Arab nationalism. When Muhammad Ali successfully seized power in Egypt, the country was officially an Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire, however, throughout his reign, and that of his sons and grandsons, Egypt enjoyed virtual independence as a Khedivate. The meaning of the three stars and crescents has been suggested that this was to symbolise the victory of his armies in three continents, and his own sovereignty over Egypt, Sudan, and Hejaz. The similarity with the flag of the Ottoman Empire was deliberate, as Muhammad Ali harbored grandiose ambitions of deposing the Ottoman dynasty, Egypt retained this flag even after formal Ottoman sovereignty was terminated in 1914, when Egypt was declared to be a sultanate, and a British protectorate. After the Urabi Revolt in 1882, British forces occupied the country and this reached a peak in the Revolution of 1919, when both the red flag introduced by Muhammad Ali, and a special green banner bearing a crescent and cross were used in protests against the British. In 1922, Britain agreed to formally recognize Egyptian independence, but only on the condition that the Sultan of Egypt, Fuad I, change his title to King. Upon so doing, the now King Fuad issued a Royal Decree formally adopting a new flag of a white crescent with three white stars on a green background in it. It has also suggested that the three stars represented the three religious communities of the country, Muslims, Christians and Jews. This earlier version of the eagle differs somewhat from the one later adopted, in 1958, Egypt and Syria united as the United Arab Republic and adopted a national flag based on the Arab Liberation flag, with two green stars replacing the Eagle of Saladin in the white band. A modified version of the Eagle of Saladin was adopted as the UARs coat of arms. Though Syria withdrew from the U. A. R. in 1961, Egypt continued to use the name of the United Arab Republic until 1971. In 1972, when Egypt formed the Federation of Arab Republics along with Syria, and Libya, the U. A. R. flag was replaced by a common flag for the Federation, once again based on the Arab Liberation flag. The two green stars in the band were replaced by the Hawk of Qureish, which had been the coat of arms of Syria prior to the formation of the U. A. R. in 1958
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Bilady, Bilady, Bilady
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Bilady, laki hubbi wa fuadi is the national anthem of Egypt. The melody was composed by Sayed Darwish and was adopted in 1979 and this anthem replaced Walla Zaman Ya Selahy as the national anthem. In fact, the chorus of Egypts national anthem was derived from one of Kamels most famous speeches, Egypts first national anthem dated back to 1869 when a royal anthem was composed to honor the monarch. It is unclear how long this anthem was in use, although the monarchy was deposed in 1952, the anthem was used as part of the anthem of the United Arab Republic with Syria in 1958. List of national anthems General el Ansary, Nasser, lEncyclopédie des souverains dÉgypte des pharaons à nos jours. Specific Egypt, Bilady, Bilady, Bilady - Audio of the anthem of Egypt, with information and lyrics Sheet music for Bilady, Bilady, Bilady. Archived from the original on 2011-06-13
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Egyptians
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The Black Egyptian hypothesis is the hypothesis that Ancient Egypt was a predominately Black civilization, as the term is currently understood in modern American ethic perception. Mainstream scholars recognize that many indigenous Egyptians, including several Pharaohs, were of ancestry that, in the modern era, the Black Egyptian hypothesis goes a lot further, claiming that Egypt, from north to south, was a black civilization. At the UNESCO Symposium on the Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic script in Cairo in 1974, some modern scholars such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Chancellor Williams, Cheikh Anta Diop, John G. Jackson, Ivan van Sertima, Martin Bernal, the frequently criticized Journal of African Civilizations has continually advocated that Egypt should be viewed as a Black civilization. Diop and others believed the views were fueled by scientific racism. Diop used an approach to counteract prevailing views on the Ancient Egyptians origins. Since the second half of the 20th century, most scholars have held that modern notions of race to ancient Egypt is anachronistic. The focus of some experts who study population biology has been to consider whether or not the Ancient Egyptians were primarily biologically North African rather than to which race they belonged, in 1975, the mummy of Ramesses II was taken to France for preservation. The mummy was also tested by Professor Pierre-Fernand Ceccaldi, the chief forensic scientist at the Criminal Identification Laboratory of Paris. Professor Ceccaldi determined that, Hair, astonishingly preserved, showed some complementary data - especially about pigmentation, the description given here refers to a fair-skinned person with wavy ginger hair. Keita wrote that There is no reason to believe that the primary ancestors of the Egyptian population emerged and evolved outside of northeast Africa. Stuart Tyson Smith writes in the 2001 Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt that Any characterization of race of the ancient Egyptians depends on modern cultural definitions, not on scientific study. Thus, by modern American standards it is reasonable to characterize the Egyptians as black, several Ancient Greek historians noted that Egyptians had complexions that were melanchroes. There is considerable controversy over the translation of melanchroes, most scholars translate it as black. Alan B Lloyd wrote that there is no justification for relating this description to negroes. Melanchroes could denote any colour from bronzed to black and negroes are not the physical type to show curly hair. These characteristics would certainly be found in many Egs, ancient and modern, some of the most often quoted historians are Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Herodotus. Herodotus states in a few passages that the Egyptians were black/dark, lucian observes an Egyptian boy and notices that he is not merely black, but has thick lips
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Education in Egypt
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Egypt has the largest overall education system in the Middle East and North Africa and it has grown rapidly since the early 1990s. In recent years the Government of Egypt has accorded even greater priority in improving the education system, according to the Human Development Index, Egypt is ranked 108 in the HDI, and 9 in the lowest 10 HDI countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa, in 2014. The government is responsible for offering free education at all levels, the current overall expenditure on education is about 12.6 percent as of 2007. Investment in education as a percentage of GDP rose to 4.8 in 2005, the personnel management in the education also needs to be overhauled and teachers should be hired on merit with salaries attached to the performance. Then, the school stage is for three years, for ages 15 to 17, followed by the tertiary level. Education is made compulsory for 9 academic years between the ages of 4 and 14, moreover, all levels of education are free within any government run schools. According to the World Bank, there are differences in educational attainment of the rich. Although the median years of school completed by the rich and the poor is one or two years but the wealth gap reaches as high as nine or ten years. In the case of Egypt, the gap was a modest 3 years in the mid-1990s. Overall, the composite education Index in the MENA Flagship Report, of the 14 MENA countries analyzed, Egypt achieved the education which has been really bad over the years. There has been a lot of attacks in their schools, Egypt launched its National Strategic Plan for Pre-University Education Reform. The Strategic Plan mirrors Egypts commitment to a comprehensive, sustainable, promotional examinations are held at all levels except in grades 6 and 9 at the basic education level and the grade 12 in the secondary stage, which apply standardized regional or national exams. Each center has its own focus in formulating education policies with other state level committees, on the other hand, the Ministry of Higher Education supervises the higher education system. There is also a formal teachers qualification track in place for basic, the teachers are required to complete four years of pre-service courses at university to enter the teaching profession. Specifically with respect to teachers professional development to raise mathematics, science and technology teaching standards, Local teachers also take part in the international professional training programs. Starting in 2007, the Ministries of Education, Finance, working groups were established to make more formal proposals. During 2008 design was carried out, three pilot governorates were chosen, and monitoring and capacity building processes and manuals were agreed upon, the formula is quite simple, and includes enrolment, poverty, and stage of education as drivers. During 2009 funding was decentralized all the way to the school level, an informal assessment of the pilot revealed that the funding formula money precipitated an increase in community donations
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Demographics of Egypt
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Egypt is the most populous country in the Africa and the third-most populous on the African continent. About 95% of the countrys 94.7 million people live along the banks of the Nile and in the Nile Delta, which fans out north of Cairo, and along the Suez Canal. These regions are among the worlds most densely populated, containing an average of over 3,820 persons per square mile, small communities spread throughout the desert regions of Egypt are clustered around oases and historic trade and transportation routes. The government has tried with mixed success to encourage migration to newly irrigated land reclaimed from the desert, however, the proportion of the population living in rural areas has continued to decrease as people move to the cities in search of employment and a higher standard of living. An estimated 75% of Egyptians are under the age of 25 with just 3% over the age of 65, Egypt has a population of 92 million. According to the OECD/World Bank statistics population growth in Egypt from 1990 to 2008 was 23.7 million, Data taken from Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics. Approximately 70% of Egyptian migrants live in Arab countries and the remaining 30% are living mostly North America, figures from CAPMAS, The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics has released high/medium/low population projections for 2011-2031 based on Final Results of 2006 Population Census. The 2020 high variant is 92.6 million, the medium -91.0 million, the 2030 high variant is 104.4 million, the medium -101.7 million, the low -99.8 million. However the information could be misleading as the 2013 population figure of 84.6 million is higher than the high of 83 million. Vital statistics, Source, Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics Fertility Rate and CBR, Data taken from CAPMAS, information for population is in thousands, pop density - persons/km2 and area is in km2. The CIA World Factbook lists Egyptians as 99. 6%, other refers to people who are not citizens of Egypt, who come to Egypt to work for international companies, diplomats, etc. The vast majority of the population of Egypt consists of Egyptians including Copts, the vast majority of Egyptians are native speakers of modern Egyptian Arabic. There are also minorities of Beja and Dom. The country still hosts some 90,000 refugees and asylum seekers, mostly Palestinians, other sources give more detailed statistics, including the Beja, the Nubians, Dom, Berbers. Arabic, Also, Some Christians speak Egyptian language * The language of Pharaohs* in order to keep their identity and to protect the language of their ancestors, the pharaohs. So in the Coptic Church, the Egyptian language is used through the majority of the prayers, hymns, masses. English widely understood as well as French, siwa language used in ethnic Berber tribal areas in the western desert, and Nubian language is widely used among the ethnic Nubians in the southern areas. According to the CIA World Factbook, approximately 90% of the population is Muslim, estimates of the Christian population in Egypt range from 6% to 20%
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Health in Egypt
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The Egyptian Ministry of Health is the government body responsible for health in Egypt. There are conflicting figures about the number of people access to safe water. Soakaway latrines, which are common in areas, often do not work properly due to the high groundwater table, infrequent emptying. Thus sewage leaks out and contaminates the surrounding streets, canals, trucks that empty latrines and septic tanks do not necessarily discharge septage into wastewater treatment plants, but rather dump the content in the environment. According to the governments National Research Center,40 percent of Cairos inhabitants do not get water for more than three hours per day and three large districts do not receive any piped water. In 2008 demonstrations concerning this issue took place in Suez, where 500 people blocked a road to Cairo. These problems lead many people to use water from canals which could be hazardous to health and it is estimated that each year about 17,000 children die from diarrhea. One reason is that water quality is often below standards. Some water treatment plants are not maintained properly and are inefficient in removing parasites, viruses. In 2009, a study by the Ministry of Health showed that water for half a million people in Asiut was unfit for human consumption. As of June 2011, nothing had been done to address the problem, the 2014 CIA estimated average life expectancy in Egypt was 73.45 years. Egypt has particularly high rates of Hepatitis C, one of the highest worldwide and it is believed that the high prevalence in Egypt is linked to a now-discontinued mass-treatment campaign for schistosomiasis, using improperly sterilized glass syringes. Avian influenza has been present in Egypt, with 52 cases and 23 deaths in January 2009, with an estimated tuberculosis incidence of 11 new cases per 100,000 people, Egypt has relatively low levels of TB according to 2005 data from the World Health Organization. With less than 1 percent of the estimated to be HIV-positive. Unsafe behaviors among most-at-risk populations and limited use among the general population place Egypt at risk of a broader epidemic. According to the National AIDS Program, there were 1,155 people living with HIV/AIDS in Egypt by the end of 2007, UNAIDS estimates for 2005 were higher, putting the number of HIV-positive Egyptians at 5,300. Smoking in Egypt is prevalent, with 19 billion cigarettes smoked annually in Egypt making it the largest cigarette market in the Arab world, inside cafes, hookah smoking is common. As of 2012 smoking in Egypt has reached a high with an estimated twenty percent, ten million people
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Media of Egypt
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The media of Egypt is highly influential in Egypt and in the Arab World, attributed to its large audience and increasing freedom from governmental control. Freedom of the media is guaranteed in the constitution, and the government is increasingly respecting this, after the Egyptian presidential election of 2005, Ahmed Selim, office director for Information Minister Anas al-Fiqi, declared the era of free, transparent and independent Egyptian media. The printing press was first introduced to Egypt by Napoleon Bonaparte during his French Campaign in Egypt and he brought with his expedition a French, Arabic, and Greek printing press, which were far superior in speed, efficiency and quality than the nearest presses used in Istanbul. In the Middle East, Africa, India, and even much of Eastern Europe and Russia, printing was a minor, from about 1720, the Mutaferrika Press in Istanbul produced substantial amounts of printing, of which some Egyptian clerics were aware at the time. The written press is diverse in Egypt, with over 600 newspapers, journals. However these are owned mostly or in some way by the government, however, unlike many of Egypts regional counterparts, criticism of the government in general does take place, after amendments to existing press laws in 2006 which however still criminalise libel. It came to the attention of authorities at Al-Azhar University, described as “the government’s highest authority on religion”, who petitioned the courts. Should be used responsibly and not touch on the foundations of Egyptian society. Over the past two decades, Al-Azhar University censored more than 196 texts, there are two state broadcasters and an increasing number of private broadcasters. Figures from the CIA World Factbook state more than 98 television channels in 1995, the Ministry of Information controls content in the state-owned broadcast media. The previously tight controls on state TV and radio gave way to even and fair coverage of all parties involved in the Egyptian presidential election of 2005. However, in 2006 several journalists working for the Cairo branch of the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera were detained for investigating subjects such as police brutality, Egyptian radio broadcasting began to serve in Egypt in the 1920s as locally owned radios. They began airing radio as The Egyptian State Radio on the 31 May 1934 in an agreement with the Marconi Company, in 1947 the contract with the Marconi Company was canceled and radio broadcasting was nationalized by the Egyptian government. By the early 1990s, Egypt had only four FM stations, in 2000 stations moving from the AM band and the introduction of private stations raised the number to ten stations as of 2006. Radio has also historically been utilized as a tool in Egypt beginning under the rule of President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser became president of Egypt in 1954 and served until his death in 1970, when Nasser came to power he realized that radio could be utilized as a powerful political tool for two reasons. First, the rate in Egypt has been traditionally high. Using radio to spread ideas, therefore, allowed a greater number of the population to hear his political ideas
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Human rights in Egypt
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Most sources agree that Egypt is a gross violator of human rights. Authorities have effectively banned protests and freedom of expression, imprisoned its opponents, usually after unfair trials, outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, Torture, enforced disappearances, and deaths in custody are not rare occurrences. The government continues to persecute NGOs and journalists, women and members of religious minorities are subject to discrimination. People are arrested for “debauchery” and sexual orientation, due to an insurgency in Northern Sinai, the army has enacted curfews and evicted communities from their homes along the border with Gaza in order to restrict the flow of arms. A new constitution was adopted in January 2014, the document, in principle, improved protections for women’s rights, freedom of expression, and other civil liberties. However, these rights have not been enforced in practice, there is a critical lack of accountability, with most human rights violations being committed with impunity. In a December 2016 report, a panel of UN experts concluded that, “The continuous persecution of women human rights such as Azza Soliman. It gave Egypt a Political Rights Score of 6 and Civil Liberties Score of 5 a scale of 1-7, in 2000 the related Center for Religious Freedom placed Egypt as partly free at 5, this put them in line with Muslim nations like Turkey and Indonesia. Reporters Without Borders placed Egypt between Bhutan and the Côte dIvoire in press freedom, see List of indices of freedom for more information on these ratings and how they are determined. The Press Law, Publications Law, and the penal code regulate, according to these, criticism of the president can be punished by fines or imprisonment. Freedom House deems Egypt to have a press, although mentions they have a diversity of sources. Reporters Without Borders 2006 report indicates continued harassment and, in three cases, imprisonment, of journalists and they place Egypt 143rd out of 167 nations on press freedoms. The two sources agree that promised reforms on the subject have been slow or uneven in implementation. Freedomhouse had a more positive assessment indicating that an increased freedom to discuss controversial issues has occurred. According to Al Jazeera. net, in the past few years, independent Egyptian newspapers have emerged that have proved willing to hold the rich and powerful elite to account, the old state-owned newspapers are beginning to lose their readership. In July 2006, the Egyptian parliament passed a new press law, the new law no longer allows journalists to be imprisoned for comments against the government, but continues to allow fines to be levied against such journalists. The independent press and the Muslim Brotherhood protested this law as repressive, following the Arab Spring there was hope for greater freedom of speech in Egypt. However, as of February 2012 television journalist Tim Sebastian reported a re-emergence of fear in Egypt, “The intelligence services are extremely active, ” says a well-known commentator
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Religion in Egypt
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Religion in Egypt controls many aspects of social life and is endorsed by law. The 2006 census counting method included religion, so the number of adherents of the different religions are usually rough estimates made by religious and non-governmental agencies. According to a research by Michael Izady,86. 8% of Egyptians are Sunni Muslim,10. 2% are Christian,2. 9% are Shia and the remaining 0. 1% belong to other faiths. Egypt is predominantly Muslim, with Muslims accounting for 88% of a population of around 80 million Egyptians The vast majority of Muslims in Egypt are Sunni, a significant number of Sunni Muslim Egyptians also follow native Sufi orders. There are under fifty thousand Ahmadi Muslims, there is a minority of Mutazila numbering a few thousands. Estimated numbers of Egypts Shia Twelvers and Ismailism range from 800,000 to about two to three million, according to the Constitution of Egypt, any new legislation must at least implicitly agree with Islamic law. Article 45 of the Constitution extends freedom of religion to the three Abrahamic religions, but only those three, the remainder of Egyptians, numbering between 10% and 20% of the population, mostly belong to the native Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, an Oriental Orthodox Christian Church. The most recent declarations, made by Pope Shenouda III and bishop Morkos of Shubra in 2008, other estimates made by church officials estimate this number to be 16 million. Protestant churches claim a membership of about 300,000 Egyptians, based on these estimates, the total number of Christians in Egypt is between 15% and 20% of a total population of 80 million Egyptians. The non-Sunni, non-Coptic communities range in size from hundreds to a few thousand. The original Ancient Egyptian religion has disappeared in Egypt as a result of new religions being formed then introduced to Egypt, Egypt hosts two major religious institutions. Al-Azhar Mosque, founded in 970 AD by the Fatimids as the first Islamic University in Egypt, in Egypt, Muslims and Christians live as neighbors, sharing common history, national identity, ethnicity, race, culture, and language. The Adhan that is five times a day has the informal effect of regulating the pace of everything from business to media. Cairo is famous for its numerous mosque minarets and is dubbed the city of 1,000 minarets. Naguib Sawiris, one of Egyptians successful businessmen and one of the worlds wealthiest 400 people is a Copt, at the same time there is a large number of private companies shared by both Muslims and Copts. Freedom of belief and worship are formally recognized by the Egyptian Constitution, some aspects of the country’s laws are heavily funded on Islamic principles. Religions other than Islam have typically had to be deemed compatible with Sharia, individual adherents of minority religions also face frequent discrimination by government officials, who often deny them identity cards, birth certificates and marriage licenses. The Coptic community, however, takes pains to prevent conversions from Christianity to Islam due to the ease with which Christians can often become Muslim, public officials, being conservative themselves, intensify the complexity of the legal procedures required to recognize the religion change as required by law
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Politics of Egypt
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The politics of Egypt is based on republicanism, with a semi-presidential system of government, established following the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, and the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak. The President is elected for two terms and the Parliament is unicameral. The President can appoint up to 5% of the number of seats in Parliament. Parliament can also impeach the President, Egypt was traditionally ruled by royals until 1952, but the first free elected President was in 2012. The Parliament of Egypt is the oldest legislative chamber in Africa, the President is elected for four-year term that can be renewable once. Candidates must provide 30,001 signatures from at least 15 provinces, or 30 members of a chamber of the legislature, the position was created after Egyptian Revolution of 1952. Mohammed Naguib was the first president, prior to 2005, the Parliament chooses a candidate for the Presidency and the people vote whether or not they approve that candidate for President in a referendum. In 2005, the first presidential elections held with multiple candidates stand for the positions, after the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, a new presidential elections held in 2012, it was the first free and fair elections in Egyptian history. El-Sisi then was elected head of state in the 2014 presidential election. Egypt adopted the system in 2012 and under it the President doesnt hold extensive powers. The President can dissolve the Parliament, declare state of emergency and declare wars, the Parliament can impeach the President after two-thirds votes in favour for impeachment and then a public referendum is held to whether or not approve the impeachment of the President. Parliament meets for one session each year, under special circumstances the President of the Republic can call an additional session. Even though the powers of the Parliament have increased since the 1980 Amendments of the Constitution, the House of Representatives is the principal legislative body. The House sits for a term but can be dissolved earlier by the President. The Constitution reserves fifty percent of the House may force the resignation of the cabinet by voting a motion of censure. For this reason, the Prime Minister and his cabinet are necessarily from the dominant party or coalition in the assembly, in the case of a president and house from opposing parties, this leads to the situation known as cohabitation. The most recent elections held in 2015, the Shura Council was the 264-member upper house of Parliament created in 1980. In the Shura Council 176 members were elected and 88 members were appointed by the President of the Republic for six-year terms
29.
President of Egypt
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The President of the Arab Republic of Egypt is the head of state of Egypt. Under the various iterations of the Constitution of Egypt, the president is also the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, the first president of Egypt was Muhammad Naguib, one of the leaders of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. He took office on 18 June 1953, the day on which the monarchy of Egypt was overthrown. Following the 2011 Egyptian revolution, Hosni Mubarak, who held office from 14 October 1981 until 11 February 2011, was forced to resign following calls for his removal from office. On 10 February 2011 Mubarak transferred presidential powers to then-Vice President Omar Suleiman, on 30 June 2012, Mohamed Morsi was sworn in as President of Egypt, having won the 2012 Egyptian presidential election on 24 June. The Egyptian Constitution has had various forms since its 1953 change to become a republic, under the 1980 amendments of the 1971 Egyptian Constitution, the president of the republic was elected indirectly in a two-stage system unique to Egypt. The People’s Assembly, the house of Parliament, nominated one of a number of candidates for presidency. In 2005 and 2007, constitutional amendments were made, principles in the amended constitution include, The election of the president of the republic by direct secret ballot from among all citizens who have the right to vote. Ensuring that multiple candidates be put forward for the people to choose from, ensuring the credibility of the nomination process. Providing the opportunity for political parties to put one of their leaders to contest the first presidential elections to be held in light of the amendment. The establishment of an election commission that would enjoy complete independence to supervise the election process. Carrying out the election in a single day, ensuring judicial supervision over the voting process. The following provisions regarding the process are stipulated in Article 76 as amended. If no candidate attains such a majority, elections will be repeated after at least seven days between the two candidates having the highest votes. In case of a tie between the candidate who attained the second highest votes and a candidate, the third candidate shall participate in the second round. The candidate who receives the highest votes in the second round shall be declared president, the amendment also provides that a law will be passed to regulate the relevant election procedures. This law is expected to regulate the various aspects of the process itself, including campaign funding, equal access to the media. As required by the amendment, the law will be submitted to the Supreme Constitutional Court to opine on its constitutionality
30.
Government of Egypt
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The politics of Egypt is based on republicanism, with a semi-presidential system of government, established following the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, and the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak. The President is elected for two terms and the Parliament is unicameral. The President can appoint up to 5% of the number of seats in Parliament. Parliament can also impeach the President, Egypt was traditionally ruled by royals until 1952, but the first free elected President was in 2012. The Parliament of Egypt is the oldest legislative chamber in Africa, the President is elected for four-year term that can be renewable once. Candidates must provide 30,001 signatures from at least 15 provinces, or 30 members of a chamber of the legislature, the position was created after Egyptian Revolution of 1952. Mohammed Naguib was the first president, prior to 2005, the Parliament chooses a candidate for the Presidency and the people vote whether or not they approve that candidate for President in a referendum. In 2005, the first presidential elections held with multiple candidates stand for the positions, after the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, a new presidential elections held in 2012, it was the first free and fair elections in Egyptian history. El-Sisi then was elected head of state in the 2014 presidential election. Egypt adopted the system in 2012 and under it the President doesnt hold extensive powers. The President can dissolve the Parliament, declare state of emergency and declare wars, the Parliament can impeach the President after two-thirds votes in favour for impeachment and then a public referendum is held to whether or not approve the impeachment of the President. Parliament meets for one session each year, under special circumstances the President of the Republic can call an additional session. Even though the powers of the Parliament have increased since the 1980 Amendments of the Constitution, the House of Representatives is the principal legislative body. The House sits for a term but can be dissolved earlier by the President. The Constitution reserves fifty percent of the House may force the resignation of the cabinet by voting a motion of censure. For this reason, the Prime Minister and his cabinet are necessarily from the dominant party or coalition in the assembly, in the case of a president and house from opposing parties, this leads to the situation known as cohabitation. The most recent elections held in 2015, the Shura Council was the 264-member upper house of Parliament created in 1980. In the Shura Council 176 members were elected and 88 members were appointed by the President of the Republic for six-year terms
31.
Parliament of Egypt
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The Parliament of Egypt is currently a unicameral legislature. The Parliament is located in Cairo, Egypts capital, the parliament is made up of 596 seats, with 448 seats elected through the individual candidacy system,120 elected through winner-take-all party lists and 28 selected by the president. Parliamentary life began in Egypt as early as 1866, and since then several forms of national assemblies have been formed, dismantled and amended to reach the present-day form, according to the present-day constitution, the Parliament consists only of the House of Representatives, a 588-member lower house. The Parliament has lacked the powers to balance the powers of the president. Egypt was without a parliament for three years, the parliament was dissolved in June,2012. On 8 July 2012, President Mohamed Morsi said he would override the edict that had dissolved the countrys elected lawmakers, elections for parliament were held from October 17,2015 to December 2nd,2015. According to journalist Peter Hessler, neglect of Upper Egypt has also allowed the region to devised indigenous campaign traditions, without parties or local media to promote issues or policies, campaigns consist primarily of evening house calls to potential voters by candidates with their entourage. Visits may last anywhere from only a minute to a half an hour, the group affiliation of the candidates is not party or ideology but tribe. Because family hierarchies dominate most people’s lives, candidates seek the support of elders who direct family members, sometimes numbering in the hundreds. Candidates may successfully campaign without the support of any party or other institution because there are no party networks and they do campaign with family members and when defeated candidates lose face because elections are a matter of family pride. Candidates often have no platform, do not talk about issues, policies, or potential legislation, candidate often sit in silence on their visits rather than formally introduce themselves, give a stump speech or field questions about what they will do if elected. Potential voters will however often ask for favors such as making a call to a government office that issued permits or handled utilities on the voters behalf if the candidate is elected
32.
Egyptian Armed Forces
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In addition, Egypt maintains large paramilitary forces. The Central Security Forces comes under the control of the ministry of interior, the Border Guard Forces, and The National Guard, comes under the control of the Ministry of Defence. The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, the uniformed officer, is Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi. The Armed Forces inventory includes equipment from different countries around the world, to bolster stability and moderation in the region, Egypt has provided military assistance and training to a number of other African and Arab states. Although not a NATO member, Egypt remains a strong military, the Egyptian military is one of the strongest in the region, and gives Egypt regional military supremacy rivaled only by Israel, besides being one of the strongest in Africa. Egypt is one of the few countries in the Middle East, the Armed Forces enjoy considerable power and independence within the Egyptian state. They are also influential in business, engaging in road and housing construction, consumer goods, resort management, much military information is not made publicly available, including budget information, the names of the general officers and the military’s size. According to journalist Joshua Hammer, as much as 40% of the Egyptian economy is controlled by the Egyptian military. The inventory of the Egyptian armed forces includes equipment from the United States, France, Brazil, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, conscripts with a General Secondary School Degree serve two years as enlisted personnel. Conscripts with a university degree serve one year as enlisted personnel or three years as a reserve officer, officers for the army are trained at the Egyptian Military Academy. The Egyptian Air Force or EAF is the branch of the Egyptian Armed Forces. Currently, the backbone of the EAF is the F-16, the EAF is considered to be the strongest in Africa and one of the strongest in the Middle East. The Mirage 2000 is the other modern interceptor used by the EAF, the Egyptian Air Force has 216 F-16s making it the 4th largest operator of the F-16 in the World. The Air Force is undergoing massive modernization, mikoyan confirmed that talks with Egypt are underway for the sale of 40 Mig-29SMT jet-fighters with a possible additional batch of 60-80 planes. The Egyptian Air Defense Command or ADF is Egypts military command responsible for air defense and its commander is Lieutenant General Abd El Aziz Seif-Eldeen. Although the Egyptian Navy is the smallest branch of the military, the Egyptian Navy is known to be the strongest in the African continent, and the largest in the Middle East in spite of the rapid growth of other countries navies within the region. Some fleet units are stationed in the Red Sea, but the bulk of the remains in the Mediterranean. Navy headquarters and the operational and training base are located at Ras el Tin near Alexandria
33.
Corruption in Egypt
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Corruption defines Egypts economy in more ways than one. While popular businesses receive privileged treatment, the business must embrace a culture of lying, extortion, embezzlement. This favoritism forces businesses to have strong networks in order to survive, although laws exist to criminalize these actions, they are rarely enforced properly. Businesses with more informal connections within the government receive preferential treatment navigating through Egypts complex regulatory framework, facilitation payments are an established part of getting things done, despite irregular payments and gifts being criminalized. Facilitation payments are regarded as bribery in many countries, which many foreign entities from financial involvement with Egypt since they are a required part of doing business. Corruption makes the costs of local goods as well as imports higher, decreasing the purchasing power of individuals which magnifies poverty. Historically, its been that the gap between legislation and enforcement has hampered any of the efforts in fighting corruption. Prior to the 2011 revolution, critics agreed that corruption in Egypt was widespread, the Constitution stipulated, among other provisions, the publics right to information, data, documents and statistics. It also imposed annual financial disclosure on Parliament members, furthermore, the government created an anti-corruption commission designed to deal with standards of integrity and transparency in government and address conflict of interest. In terms of enforcement, more happened under al-Sisis administration with one highly publicized case of a judge who was accused of corruption, the judge committed suicide very soon thereafter. Egypt Corruption Profile from the Business Anti-Corruption Portal
34.
Egyptian National Police
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Egyptian National Police or ENP is a department of the Ministry of Interior of Egypt. In the early Twentieth Century, holder of the post of Interior Minister was called, the title was used until 1919 when World War I broke out and Britain declared Egypt as a protectorate. As a consequence, some posts and titles were changed. Tahseen Rushdi Bashi was the first person to hold the title of Interior Minister in Egypt, as time went on, many Prime Ministers assumed the post of Interior Minister – in addition to their Premiership- being among the posts having major control over the internal events. The post enabled its holder to control elections, select executives and have an eye on political opponents, when Saad Zaghloul Pasha assumed the Interior Minister post in 1934 – along with his premiership- the Ministry was characterized with a political trend. He tended to dismiss persons who opposed his ideas and began to employ, ever since, and for a long time, the Ministry employees were left under the mercy of political changes and election results. But when the thinker, writer and lawyer Mr. Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed was appointed as an Interior Minister. Interior Ministers post – like other major posts in Egypt- was assumed for a time by non-Egyptian ministers with no police or security background. Currently, it is a must that the Interior Minister be a descendant of Egyptian parents, the Interior Minister has to relinquish his title as a police general and his name is only preceded by the title. There are four Deputy Ministers, Public Security responsible for safety, travel, Immigration, passports, port security. Special Police responsible for administration, the Central Security Forces, civil defense, police transport, police communications, traffic police. Personnel Affairs was responsible for police-training institutions, personnel matters for police and civilian employees, administrative and Financial Affairs responsible for general administration, budgets, supplies, and legal matters. In each the 27 Governorates of Egypt, the appointed governor. Both the governor and the director of police report to the Ministry of Interior on all security matters, the governor reports directly to the minister or to a deputy while the director of police reports through regular police channels. In the governorates subdivisions there are district police commandants with the authority, the police became increasingly motorised and it is now rare to see an officer on foot patrol except in city or town centres, and then rarely alone. An increasing number of urban centres police bicycle units are used to provide a response in congested areas, pedestrianised areas and parkland. Almost all commissioned officers were graduates of the Police Academy at Cairo where police had to complete four years at the academy, the Police Academy is a modern institution equipped with laboratory and physical-training facilities. The police force also sent some officers abroad for schooling, also included are, political orientation, public relations, and military subjects, marksmanship, leadership, and field exercises
35.
Foreign relations of Egypt
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Foreign relations of the Arab Republic of Egypt are the Egyptian governments external relations with the outside world. Egypts foreign policy operates along a non-aligned level, Cairo has been a crossroads of the Arab worlds commerce and culture for centuries, and its intellectual and Islamic institutions are at the center of the regions social and cultural landmarks. In the 21st-century Egypt has encountered a problem with immigration, as millions of Africans attempt to enter Egypt fleeing poverty. Border control methods can be harsh, sometimes lethal and this has strained relations with Egypts southern neighbors, and with Israel and the members of the EU as these immigrants attempt to move on to wealthier countries. The Arab League headquarters is in Cairo, and the Secretary General of the League is traditionally an Egyptian, former Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Araby is the present Secretary General of the Arab League. Egyptian Deputy Prime Minister Boutros Boutros-Ghali served as Secretary General of the United Nations from 1991 to 1996, Egypt is on good terms with Libya, its western neighbor. Egypts policy on Sudan is that it is in favor of a united Sudan, Egypt has been seeking to play a role in the resolution of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This support has continued to the present, with President Hosni Mubarak often intervening personally to promote peace negotiations, in 1996, he hosted the Sharm El-Sheikh Summit of the Peacemakers attended by President Bill Clinton and other world leaders. Another summit was convened in Sharm El Sheik in early 2005, which was attended by Egypt, Israel, the Egyptian Chief of Intelligence, General Omar Suleiman, has played a substantial role in negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian sides and is highly respected on both sides. In 1939, diplomatic relations between Egypt and Iran were upgraded to level, and Youssef Zulficar Pasha was appointed as Egypts first ambassador in Tehran. In the same year, Princess Fawzia of Egypt, the sister of King Farouk I, married Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, however, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Egypts relations with Iran have been mostly strained. Egypt is the only Arab country not to have an embassy in Iran and he also stated that if Iran will reach a nuclear weapons, Egypt will also consider reaching such weapons. Since 1983, Iraq has repeatedly called for restoration of Egypt’s “natural role” among Arab countries, in January 1984, Iraq successfully led Arab efforts within the OIC to restore Egypt’s membership. However, Iraqi-Egyptian relations were broken in 1990 after Egypt joined the UN coalition that forced Iraq out of Kuwait, relations have steadily improved in recent years, and Egypt is now one of Iraq’s main trade partners. The state of war between countries which dated back from the 1948 Arab–Israeli War ended in 1973 with the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty a year after the Camp David Accords. Egypt has an embassy in Tel Aviv and a consulate in Eilat. Israel has an embassy in Cairo and a consulate in Alexandria. Egypt was subsequently ostracized by other Arab states and ejected from the Arab League from 1979 to 1989, however, due to circumstances of todays Israeli–Palestinian conflict, full normalization of relations between these two countries is still halted and sometimes fought against in both countries
36.
Economy of Egypt
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The economy of Egypt was a highly centralized planned economy focused on import substitution under President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Egypt has a stable mixed economy enjoying average growth, averaging 3%–5% in the past quarter-century. Nationalization reduced the importance of the private sector. There was no stock trading to speak of, all banks and financial institutions were under the public sector, inter-War, 1967–1973, adversely affected the performance of the economy and public sector role in import substitution. External Debt Crisis, 1985–1990, the debt crisis and Paris Club rescheduling. Egypt faced the long term supply- and demand-side repercussions of the financial crisis on the national economy. The Egyptian economy is suffering from a severe downturn following the 2011 revolution. Political and institutional uncertainty, a perception of rising insecurity and sporadic unrest continue to affect economic growth. Under comprehensive economic reforms initiated in 1991, Egypt has relaxed many price controls, reduced subsidies, reduced inflation, cut taxes, Manufacturing had become less dominated by the public sector, especially in heavy industries. A process of public sector reform and privatization has begun to enhance opportunities for the private sector, Agriculture, mainly in private hands, has been largely deregulated, with the exception of cotton and sugar production. Construction, non-financial services, and domestic wholesale and retail trades are largely private and this has promoted a steady increase of GDP and the annual growth rate. The Government of Egypt tamed inflation bringing it down from double-digit to a single digit, currently, GDP is rising smartly by 7% per annum due to successful diversification. Based on national currency, GDP per capita at constant 1999 prices increased from EGP411 in 1981, to EGP2098 in 1991, to EGP5493 in 2001 and to EGP8708 in 2006. Based on the current US$ prices, GDP per capita increased from US$587 in 1981, to US$869 in 1991, to US$1461 in 2001, According to the World Bank Country Classification, Egypt has been promoted from the low income category to lower middle income category. As of 2013, the average salaries in Egypt reached LE641. The reform programme is a work in progress, noteworthy that the reform record has substantially improved since Nazif government came to power. Egypt has made progress in developing its legal, tax. Indeed, over the past five years, Egypt has passed, amended and admitted over 15 legislative pieces, the economy is expected to grow by about 4% to 6% in 2009/2010
37.
Communications in Egypt
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Egypt has long been the cultural and informational centre of the Arab world, and Cairo is the regions largest publishing and broadcasting centre. There are eight daily newspapers with a circulation of more than 2 million, and a number of monthly newspapers, magazines. The majority of parties have their own newspapers, and these papers conduct a lively, often highly partisan. Egypt Post is the body that provide postal services. Mail post is never considered as a reliable communication mean in Egypt, There are seven regional radio stations covering the country. Egyptian Radio transmits 60 hours daily overseas in 33 languages and three hundred hours daily within Egypt, in 2000, Radio Cairo introduced new specialized channels on its FM station. So far, they include news, music, and sports, Radio enjoys more freedom than TV in its news programs, talk shows and analysis. Starting 2003, Nile Radio Production a private company was given license to two radio stations, Nile FM and Nogoom FM. Nile FM broadcasts in English and Nogoom FM broadcasts in Arabic, both stations mostly broadcast mainly to the Greater Cairo region. In the early 2009, Radio Masr was launched, broadcasting popular Egyptian songs, see also Egyptian television Egyptian ground-broadcast television is government controlled and depends heavily on commercial revenue. ETV sells its specially produced programs and soap operas to the entire Arab world, ETV has two main channels, six regional channels, and three satellite channels. Of the two channels, Channel I uses mainly Arabic, while Channel II is dedicated to foreigners and more cultured viewers, broadcasting news in English. Egyptian Satellite channels broadcast to the Middle East, Europe, in April 1998, Egypt launched its own satellite known as NileSat 101. Seven specialized channels cover news, culture, sports, education, entertainment, health, a second, digital satellite, Nilesat 102, was launched in August 2000. Many of its channels are rented to other stations, three new private satellite-based TV stations were launched in November 2001, marking a great change in Egyptian government policy. Both private channels transmit on NileSat, currently, there is a single company in charge of Landline Telephony, Telecom Egypt which is also government-controlled. The government is planning to start the process for licensing a second national operator for voice and transport services by 2008, currently, there are three companies which offer cellular communication service, Orange, Vodafone Egypt and Etisalat Egypt. These companies are providing services surpassing voice communication such as 3G and 3. 75G services, the Internet companies market is dealt to two, infrastructure providers and service providers
38.
Tourism in Egypt
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Tourism is one of the leading sources of income, crucial to Egypts economy. At its peak in 2010 the sector employed about 12% of Egypts workforce serving approximately 14.7 million visitors Egypt, as well as contributing more than 11% of GDP and 14. 4% of foreign currency revenues. The number of tourists in Egypt stood at 0.1 million in 1951, the tourist inflow increased to 1.8 million in 1981 and then to 5.5 million in 2000. Tourism reached a pinnacle in 2010 by reaching 14.7 million visitors, revenues from tourism also reached a high point at $12.5 billion in 2010. Since then the number of tourists have significantly declined and revenue down to $5.9 billion due to security threats, significant security threats have had an ongoing effect on the industry over the past twenty years. Fifty-eight foreign tourists were killed in the 1997 Luxor massacre, the new regime has worked hard to create stability and the Red Sea resorts in particular have had increasing tourist numbers. During the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, the number of visitors plummeted by over 37% that year falling from 14 million in 2010 to 9 million by the end of 2011. Tour operators offering heavy discounts to encourage tourists back have been successful at the Red Sea resorts where prices remain lower compared to 2011. In the first half of 2014 the number of tourists further declined by 25% as compared with the period of 2013. In 2013, Egypt ranked 85th as the worlds best country in terms of tourism, however it regained some ground in the 2015 rankings being rated 83rd overall. Israelis can cross into Egypt for 14 days without a visa at certain areas near Taba, but in 2017, the first group of Israelis visited the more popular tourist attractions- with the aid of strong security. It had been 18 months since a group of Israeli tourists had visited Egypt, in the same week, Bloomberg said Egypt has shed its years of social and political unrest and makes the top 20 list of 2017 travel destinations. Major tourist destinations include the monuments in the Nile Valley. Principal among them are the Pyramids and Great Sphinx at Giza, the Abu Simbel temples south of Aswan, attractions in Cairo include the Cairo Museum and the Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha. The coast of the Sinai Peninsula has well-visited seaside resorts, Giza,20 km southwest of Cairo, has several remains from the 26th century BC such as temples and monuments to pharaohs including the Great Sphinx, and the Great Pyramids of Giza. Saqqara,30 km south of Cairo is a vast, ancient burial ground which served as the necropolis for the Ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis and it features numerous pyramids, including the worlds oldest standing step pyramid, as well as a number of mastabas. Luxor, about 500 km south of Cairo, is the site of the ancient city of Thebes and it includes the ruins of the temple complexes at Karnak and Luxor, which stand within the modern city. On the opposite side of the Nile River lie the monuments, temples and tombs on the West Bank Necropolis, which include the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens
39.
Telecommunications in Egypt
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Egypt has long been the cultural and informational centre of the Arab world, and Cairo is the regions largest publishing and broadcasting centre. There are eight daily newspapers with a circulation of more than 2 million, and a number of monthly newspapers, magazines. The majority of parties have their own newspapers, and these papers conduct a lively, often highly partisan. Egypt Post is the body that provide postal services. Mail post is never considered as a reliable communication mean in Egypt, There are seven regional radio stations covering the country. Egyptian Radio transmits 60 hours daily overseas in 33 languages and three hundred hours daily within Egypt, in 2000, Radio Cairo introduced new specialized channels on its FM station. So far, they include news, music, and sports, Radio enjoys more freedom than TV in its news programs, talk shows and analysis. Starting 2003, Nile Radio Production a private company was given license to two radio stations, Nile FM and Nogoom FM. Nile FM broadcasts in English and Nogoom FM broadcasts in Arabic, both stations mostly broadcast mainly to the Greater Cairo region. In the early 2009, Radio Masr was launched, broadcasting popular Egyptian songs, see also Egyptian television Egyptian ground-broadcast television is government controlled and depends heavily on commercial revenue. ETV sells its specially produced programs and soap operas to the entire Arab world, ETV has two main channels, six regional channels, and three satellite channels. Of the two channels, Channel I uses mainly Arabic, while Channel II is dedicated to foreigners and more cultured viewers, broadcasting news in English. Egyptian Satellite channels broadcast to the Middle East, Europe, in April 1998, Egypt launched its own satellite known as NileSat 101. Seven specialized channels cover news, culture, sports, education, entertainment, health, a second, digital satellite, Nilesat 102, was launched in August 2000. Many of its channels are rented to other stations, three new private satellite-based TV stations were launched in November 2001, marking a great change in Egyptian government policy. Both private channels transmit on NileSat, currently, there is a single company in charge of Landline Telephony, Telecom Egypt which is also government-controlled. The government is planning to start the process for licensing a second national operator for voice and transport services by 2008, currently, there are three companies which offer cellular communication service, Orange, Vodafone Egypt and Etisalat Egypt. These companies are providing services surpassing voice communication such as 3G and 3. 75G services, the Internet companies market is dealt to two, infrastructure providers and service providers
40.
Transport in Egypt
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Transport in Egypt is centered in Cairo and largely follows the pattern of settlement along the Nile. The main line of the rail system follows along the great river and is operated by Egyptian National Railways. The badly maintained road network has expanded rapidly to over 21,000 miles, covering the Nile Valley and Nile Delta, Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts, the Sinai and the Western oasis. In addition to routes, Egypt Air provides reliable domestic air service to major tourist destinations from its Cairo hub. The Nile River system and the canals are important locally for transportation. The Suez Canal is a waterway of international commerce and navigation, linking the Mediterranean. The ministry of transportation, along with governmental bodies are responsible for transportation in Egypt. Major ports are Alexandria, Port Said, Damietta on the Mediterranean and Suez, Egypt has one of the highest incidence of road fatalities per miles driven in the world. There are few, if any road markings, most traffic lights in Cairo appear not to function, but rather intersections are staffed by policemen who use subtle finger movements to indicate which cars may move. Traffic rules are routinely ignored by impatient drivers, vehicles travel at speed or the wrong way on one-way streets. Pedestrians constantly dodge in and out of traffic, and animals are commonly on the roads, rare winter rains can cause extremely slippery road surfaces or localized flooding. Some roads, especially in the Sinai and southeastern part of the country, are off-limits to foreigners, a popular form of transportation is by boat. Even though Egypt has expanded and developed its system, people still travel on the Nile to get from place to place. Two routes in the Trans-African Highway network originate in Cairo, Egypt also has multiple highway links with Asia through the Arab Mashreq International Road Network. Egypt has a motorway network, connecting Cairo with Alexandria. Though most of the transport in the country is still done on the highways, motorways are becoming increasingly an option in road transport within the country. The existing motorways in the country are, Cairo - Alexandria Desert Road, International Coastal Road, It runs from Alexandria to Port Said, along the Northern Nile Delta. It has a length of 280 km, also, amongst other cities, it connects Damietta and Baltim
41.
Energy in Egypt
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This article describes the energy and electricity production, consumption and import in Egypt. The population of Egypt has increased by 14. 3% in the five year period from 2004 to 2009, every six months there are 1 million more Egyptians. Energy production grew by 36% between 2004 and 2009, Egypt is classified as having a “high power system size. ”As of 2010, 99% of the Egyptian population has access to electricity. When electricity was first introduced in Egypt in 1893, the generation and distribution of electricity was practiced exclusively by private companies. In 1962, the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity were nationalized under three authorities leaving the government as the owner and operator of all electrical companies. In 1978 the Egypt Electricity Authority supervised the establishment of seven geographically divided electricity distribution companies, an additional electrical power distribution authority was established in 1983 as a means of supervising distribution companies which had become independent of the Egypt Electricity Authority. Between 1996 and 2000 a series of laws and presidential decrees were passed to reorganize,2000, presidential decree no.339 and electricity sector Law no.164 were issued. Between 2000 and 2001, the EEHC implemented a division in the organization of Egypt’s electrical management framework, generation activity was separated from distribution activity along with the separation of control and transmission between ultra-high-voltage and high-voltage networks. In 2002 the Delta Company for electricity distribution divided into North Delta, the power system’s generation reserve capacity declined from 20% in the early 2000s to 10% by the 2010s. The Egyptian power system is now significantly less able to power shortages during annual peak demand periods. The weakening of Egypt’s supply security has caused widespread social issues in the 2010s, angry residents from many villages protested the rolling blackouts by threatening to not pay their electricity bills and to sue their electricity provider. A campaign entitled “We Will Not Pay” was organized to encourage people to not pay their bills until the service was stable once again. Residents from the Bardeen village in Zagazig also protested the unstable supply of electricity by blocking the Belbeis-Zagazig road, the government released statements encouraging people to ration their electricity consumption and announced that work was being done to generate an additional 1800 MW of energy. Minister of Petroleum Abdullah Ghorab reiterated the importance of conserving electricity to avoid a state implemented policy of load shedding, Egypt is an important non-OPEC energy producer. It has the sixth largest proved oil reserves in Africa, over half of these reserves are offshore reserves. Although Egypt is not a member of OPEC, it is a member of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, commercial quantities of oil were first found in 1908, and more petroleum was found in the late 1930s along the Gulf of Suez. Later, large oil fields were discovered in the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Suez, the Western Desert, and the Eastern Desert. As of 2005, Egypts proven oil reserves were estimated at 3.7 billion barrels, oil production in 2005 was 696,000 barrels per day, of which crude oil accounted for 554,000 barrels per day
42.
Arabic music
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Arabic music or Arab music is the music of the Arab world. Arab music, while independent and flourishing in the 2010s, has a history of interaction with many other regional musical styles and genres. It is an amalgam of the music of the Arab people in the Arabian Peninsula, as was the case in other artistic and scientific fields, Arabs translated Greek texts and works of music and developed the musical theory of the Greeks. Pre-Islamic Arab music was similar to that of Ancient Middle Eastern music, most historians agree that there existed distinct forms of music in the Arabian peninsula in the pre-Islamic period between the 5th and 7th century AD. Arab poets of that time—called shuara al-Jahiliyah or Jahili poets, meaning the poets of the period of ignorance—used to recite poems with a high notes and it was believed that Jinns revealed poems to poets and music to musicians. The choir at the served as a pedagogic facility where the educated poets would recite their poems. The compositions were simple and every singer would sing in a single maqam, among the notable songs of the period were the huda, the nasb, sanad, and rukbani. Both compositions and improvisations in traditional Arabic music are based on the maqam system, maqams can be realized with either vocal or instrumental music, and do not include a rhythmic component. Al-Kindi was the first great theoretician of Arabic music and he proposed adding a fifth string to the oud and discussed the cosmological connotations of music. He built upon the achievements of the Greek musicians in using the alphabetical annotation for one eighth and he published fifteen treatises on music theory, but only five have survived. In one of his treatises the word musiqa was used for the first time in Arabic, abulfaraj wrote a book about music. Kitab al-Aghani is a collection of poems and songs that runs to over 20 volumes in modern editions. Al-Farabi wrote a book on music titled Kitab al-Musiqi al-Kabir. His pure Arabian tone system is used in Arabic music. Al-Ghazali wrote a treatise on music in Persia which declared, Ecstasy means the state comes from listening to music. In 1252, Safi al-Din developed a form of musical notation. A similar geometric representation would not appear in the Western world until 1987, by the 11th century, Islamic Iberia had become a center for the manufacture of instruments. These goods spread gradually throughout France, influencing French troubadours, the English words lute, rebec, and naker are derived from Arabic oud, rabab, and naqareh
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Arabic maqam
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Arabic maqam is the system of melodic modes used in traditional Arabic music, which is mainly melodic. The word maqam in Arabic means place, location or position, the Arabic maqam is a melody type. It is a technique of improvisation that defines the pitches, patterns, and development of a piece of music, there are seventy two heptatonic tone rows or scales of maqamat. These are constructed from major, neutral, and minor seconds, each maqam is built on a scale, and carries a tradition that defines its habitual phrases, important notes, melodic development and modulation. Both compositions and improvisations in traditional Arabic music are based on the maqam system, Maqamat can be realized with either vocal or instrumental music, and do not include a rhythmic component. A maqam does not have an established, regularly recurring bar scheme nor an unchanging meter, a certain rhythm does sometimes identify the style of a performer, but this is dependent upon his performance technique and is never characteristic of the maqam as such. The maqam is a structure that characterizes the art of music of countries in North Africa. In this area we can distinguish three main musical cultures which all belong to the modal family, Arabic, Persian. The notes of a maqam are not tuned in equal temperament, a maqam also determines other things, such as the tonic, the ending note, and the dominant note. It also determines which notes should be emphasized and which should not, Arabic maqams are based on a musical scale of 7 notes that repeats at the octave. Some maqams have 2 or more alternative scales, Maqam scales in traditional Arabic music are microtonal, not based on a twelve-tone equal-tempered musical tuning system, as is the case in modern Western music. Most maqam scales include a fifth or a perfect fourth. The remaining notes in a scale may or may not exactly land on semitones. For this reason maqam scales are mostly taught orally, and by listening to the traditional Arabic music repertoire. Since microtonal intervals are impractical to notate, a simplified musical notation system was adopted in Arabic music at the turn of the 20th century. Starting with a scale, the Arabic scale is divided into 24 equal quarter tones. In this notation system all notes in a scale are rounded to the nearest quarter tone. This system of notation is not exact since it eliminates microtonal details, quarter tones can be notated using the half-flat sign or the half-sharp sign
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Rhythm in Arabian music
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Rhythm in Arabian music is analysed by means of rhythmic units called awzan and iqaat. A rhythmic pattern or cycle in Arabian music is called a wazn, literally a measure, also called darb, mizan, a Wazn is performed on the goblet drum, frame drum, and kettle drums. A wazn is only used in genres with a fixed rhythmic-temporal organization including recurring measures, motifs. It consists of two or more regularly recurring time segments, each time segment consisting of at least two beats, there are approximately one hundred different cycles used in the repertoire of Arab music, most shared with Turkish music. They are recorded and remembered through onomatopoetic syllables and the written symbols O and I, Wazn may be as large as 176 units of time. Iqa are rhythmic modes or patterns in Arabian music, there are reputed to be over 100 iqaat, but many of them have fallen out of fashion and are rarely if ever used in performance. The greatest variety of iqaat are used in the muwashshah, the Music of the Arabs, trans. Arabic Rhythms page from Maqam World
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Bat (goddess)
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Bat was a cow goddess in Egyptian mythology depicted as a human face with cow ears and horns. By the time of the Middle Kingdom, her identity and attributes were subsumed within the goddess Hathor, the worship of Bat dates to earliest times and may have its origins in Late Paleolithic cattle herding. Bat was the goddess of Seshesh, otherwise known as Hu or Diospolis Parva. The epithet Bat may be linked to the word ba with the suffix t. A persons ba roughly equates to his or her personality or emanation and is translated as soul. Although it was rare for Bat to be depicted in painting or sculpture. In other instances she was pictured as a bovine creature surrounded by stars or as a human woman. More commonly, Bat was depicted on amulets, with a face, but with bovine features, such as the ears of a cow. Bat became strongly associated with the sistrum, and the center of her cult was known as the Mansion of the Sistrum, the sistrum is a musical instrument, shaped like an ankh, that was one of the most frequently used sacred instruments in ancient Egyptian temples. Some instruments would include depictions of Bat, with her head and neck as the handle and base, the imagery is repeated on each side, having two faces, as mentioned in the Pyramid Texts. I am Praise, I am Majesty, I am Bat with Her Two Faces, I am the One Who Is Saved, the imagery of Bat as a divine cow was remarkably similar to that of Hathor, a parallel goddess from Lower Egypt. In two dimensional images, both goddesses often are depicted straight on, facing the onlooker and not in profile in accordance with the usual Egyptian convention, the significant difference in their depictions is that Bats horns curve inward and Hathors curve outward slightly. It is possible that this could be based in the different breeds of cattle herded at different times. Hathors cult center was in the 6th Nome of Upper Egypt, adjacent to the 7th where Bat was the cow goddess, by the Middle Kingdom, the cult of Hathor had again absorbed that of Bat in a manner similar to other mergers in the Egyptian pantheon. The goddess Bat - discussion on Philae The goddess Bat - discussion on Egyptian Myths
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