Category Archives: Egypt

The Vanishing Christians of Islam

Egypt, Islam and Christianity, Islamic History


Mosaic depiction of Mary holding an Arabic text, Convent of Our Lady, Greek Orthodox Church, Sednaya, Syria.

by Anouar Majid, Tingis Redux, April 14, 2013

Recently, Tawadros II, the Coptic pope of Egypt, said that “even during the darkest ages” of its history, his church was never subjected to the violence it is now suffering at the hands of Sunni Muslims. Maybe. But what is well known is that the fate of Egyptian Christianity and that of all Christians who found themselves under Muslim domination beginning in the 7th century when Islam emerged as a new religion hasn’t been an easy one.

It is true that the Koran periodically adopts a conciliatory attitude toward the “People of the Book,” but Islam is, in the end, categorically clear about who is right and who is wrong. Not only does Allah reject any religion that is not Islam, but the Koran also commands Muslims to “fight those among the ‘People of the Book’ who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day, who do not forbid what Allah and his messengers have forbidden and do not profess the true religion, till they pay the poll-tax (jizyah) out of hand and submissively.” The Christians’ off-and-on persecution has been a constant fact of life under Islamic rule; in fact, the notion of “genocide” was first inspired by the atrocities that befell Iraqi Christians in the 1920s, which came on the heels of the Turkish massacres of Armenians. As I am writing this, the Copts–a corruption of the word Aigyptos, whose original language goes back to the age of pyramids and which helped decipher the hieroglyphics in the 19th century—who make up some 10 percent of Egypt’s population of 90 million, are the only community of Christians left in any meaningful numbers. And, quite frankly, if Egypt doesn’t change, I wouldn’t bet on their long-term survival. Continue reading The Vanishing Christians of Islam →

Al-Masry al-Youm wa-la-bukra

"Arab Spring", Egypt, Journalism and Media

Goodbye, Al-Masry Al-Youm
by Sarah Carr, Egypt Independent, April 26, 2013

In 2010, Abdel Moneim Saeed, then the chairperson of state mouthpiece Al-Ahram, oversaw an outrageous bit of Photoshopping on the newspaper’s front cover, when US President Barack Obama was replaced with Hosni Mubarak at the head of a group of leaders striding out of a meeting in Washington.

This Photoshop-gate inspired the inevitable deluge of derision on social media. As well as being breathtaking and hilarious in its own right, it was a bit of light relief from the tense and strange months leading up to the revolution and, in particular, another photo that went viral in 2010 thanks to social media — that of the mutilated corpse of Khaled Saeed.

Al-Ahram’s big cheeses remained belligerent in the face of the ridicule. Its editor-in-chief, Osama Saraya, described it as an “expressionist” photograph that gave a “brief, live and true expression of the prominent stance of President Mubarak in the Palestinian issue.”

In a 2010 interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Abdel Moneim Saeed, meanwhile, insisted that the paper did nothing wrong, condemning the “herd mentality” that dominated the response to the picture and pointed out that the Economist “often employs graphics, pictures and illustrations to make its point.”

According to the weekly, Saeed was particularly piqued by the fact that nobody had bothered to read the report below the Photoshopping, penned by him.

He also lamented that “some in this profession mix opinion with news, thus becoming the jury and the judge. We have a long way to go on the road to advanced journalism.”

Coming from the man who ran Al-Ahram for almost four years, this statement is extraordinary. It is like a mosquito complaining about buzzing noises. Al-Ahram, like virtually all state press in Egypt, has wildly — shall we say, “expressionist” — content. It gives itself the license to report the news as it appears in the daydreams of whoever is Egypt’s most influential player on any given day, and the public purse funds this. Continue reading Al-Masry al-Youm wa-la-bukra →

Tabsir Redux: Sahara, My, My, but its Dry

Egypt, Environment, Music and Dance, Orientalism

Vaudeville loved Orientalism. By the time Valentino played The Sheik, images of Middle Eastern scenes were well represented on stage and in music. Some of the lyrics from this time period are very clever. My personal favorite is a prohibition song from 1920 called “Sahara, We’ll Soon Be Dry Like You,” sung by the great comic singer Billy Murray. To hear this original 1920 recording in a digital format, click here.

Here are the words. Why not click above and sing along…


Sahara (We’ll Soon Be Dry Like You)
Words by Alfred Bryan, Music by Jean Schwartz

Verse 1: King Rameses went to pieces seven thousand years ago,
And pass’d a law that Egypt must go dry.
He took the liquors from the “shickers” all the way to Jericho,
But kept his little toddy on the sly.
The desert of Sahara flow’d with honey so they say,
Till prohibition came along and dried it up one day. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Sahara, My, My, but its Dry →

Arabic Papyri Online in Utah

Egypt, Islamic Economics, Islamic Texts


Arabic Papyrus #1564: Receipt for agricultural tax (1/3 of a dinar: from Ushmunayn in Middle Egypt. Compete scroll with seal in fine quality light brown papyrus. 9.3 x 8.3 cm written in black ink. Recto: 6 lines. In good condition. Verso: Two lines occupying the middle of the scroll. In good condition. 249 AH/863-4 CE

The Arabic Papyrus, Parchment & Paper Collection at the J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah is the largest of its kind in the United States. It contains 770 Arabic documents on papyrus and more than 1300 Arabic documents on paper, as well as several pieces on parchment.

Professor Aziz Suriyal Atiya, founder of the Middle East Center and the Middle East Library, compiled the collection. Dr. Atiya and his wife, Lola, purchased the collection over a period of several years from dealers in Egypt, Beirut, and London. The bulk of the collection originated in Egypt, in addition to a small group of fragments from the University of Chicago. A large number of pieces date to the period between 700 and 850 CE. The collection includes a significant number of documents from the pre-Ottoman period and thus offers unique source material on the political, economic, religious and intellectual life of Egypt during the first two centuries of Islamic rule and the period up to Ottoman domination.

A Viennese Tour to Egypt in 1912

Archaeology and Antiquities, Bible and Holy Land, Egypt, Photography, Travel


While in Vienna last week for a conference, I was able to visit the Museum für Völkerkunde and see several of the current exhibits there. One of these is entitled “Urania reist nach Ägypten:
Wiener Volksbildung und der Orient um 1900” and presents an Austrian field trip to the Pyramids and Egypt in April, 1912. This was led by the President of the Urania institute, opened by the emperor Franz Joseph I in 1910. About 70 individuals went on the trip. some from the Hapsburg family. The exhibition includes a number of vintage photographs and touristic items like postcards and souvenirs, as well as the type of clothing the Viennese would have worn while touring Egypt.


1912 tour to Giza organized by Thomas Cook

Sex in the Muslim City

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, Egypt, Gender and Sexuality


by Carlin Romano, The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 14, 2013

Is it possible all those young men clashing in the streets of Cairo and Damascus aren’t getting enough?

Democracy? No, I mean that other thing people seek and are willing to die for.

Talk of the “Arab Spring” now forms a clichéd part of pundit chatter in America, with plays on “Arab Winter” and “Arab Fall” depending on the politics of the speaker and the troubled country dissolving at the moment. But few talking heads know enough about Arab culture to tie the massive Mideast street actions we’ve seen to matters behind surface politics. And those background matters include the state of Arab marriage, the tension between so-called Western norms and Islamic pieties, and the suppressed sexuality among Arab youth who face financial and theological obstacles to fulfilling their desires.

Is it tasteless to mix somber stuff like political rebellion with sub-rosa lust and denial? Could be it’s truthful rather than tasteless.

Thank you, then, Shereen El Feki—Cambridge-educated immunologist, former science writer for The Economist, current vice chair of the U.N.’s Global Commission on HIV and Law—for adventuring beyond the headlines in Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World, forthcoming from Pantheon Books. It’s a trenchant exploration of the uncertainties filling the humble abodes that Tahrir Square demonstrators go home to. A truthful book may not set you free when you’ve suffered under centuries of misguided interpretations of Islam and sex, but one prays that El Feki gets an Arabic edition.

In the West, her blunt examination of sex and its attendant practices and paraphernalia—topics include vibrators, Viagra, virginity codes, marital rape, and homophobia—would hardly raise an eyebrow. We Westerners live now in a Fifty Shades world, a publishing culture in which Naomi Wolf’s Vagina gets reviewed on the front page of The New York Times Book Review by former ballerina Toni Bentley—she of The Surrender (a title meant to evoke the offering of another body part)—and one hopes the kids aren’t watching. Continue reading Sex in the Muslim City →

Remembering Arab Spring Photographer Rémi Ochlik

"Arab Spring", Egypt, Journalism and Media, Libya, Photography, Syria, Tunisia


Photographer Rémi Ochlik who was killed last year in Syria at the age of 28 (Photo: Corentin Fohlen)

By Adeline Sire, PRI’s The World, February 1, 2013

Many journalists have died covering the Arab uprisings.

Last year, 17 were killed in Syria.

One of them was award-winning French photojournalist Rémi Ochlik.

He was only 28-years-old.

Ochlik documented the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.

Then last year, he headed out to Syria. Continue reading Remembering Arab Spring Photographer Rémi Ochlik →