Here is a panoramic view of beautful Cairo including the Nile and Cairo Tower. The orange building is the National Museum, home to Egypt's national treasures.
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Egypt is not only loved by its citizens. There is an extremely large expatriate community in Egypt and many of them live in either Maadi, Zamalek or Helipolis.Many American college students actually study abroad for a year and spend it studying Arabic and Egyptology at the American University in Cairo.Some American born Egyptian students actually go back to Egypt to attend medical or pharmacy schools.
Here is the view of the countryside in Egypt. Contrary to popular belief, Egypt is not just a desert. The land is harvested and feed by the Nile. The richness of Egyptian food is attributed to the Nile waters. They say if you drink water from the Nile, you will always return to Cairo.
This slideshow is gives viewers a real feel for the soul, the heart, the earth of Egypt. The richness of its heritage is often only seen through the eyes of the Discovery Channel showing the Pyramids, the Spinx and other ancient treasures. While Egyptians do take pride in the legacy of ancient Egypt, there are other aspects of the country that aren't as explored. From the Delta to Alexandria, Sharm, Dahab, The Valley of the Kings and Luxor, Maadi, Zamalek, Mohandeseen, Agouza, Shoubra, Nasr City, Ard El Golf, Almaza the sites and sounds of the beautiful country can only truly be appreciated by taking a trip and visting the county in person.
Naguib Mahfouz (born December 11, 1911) is a Nobel Prize winning Egyptian novelist.Naguib Mahfouz was born in the Gamaliya quarter of Cairo; he was named after Professor Naguib Pasha Mahfouz, the physician who delivered him. A longtime civil servant, Mahfouz served in the Ministry of Mortmain Endowments, then as Director of Censorship in the Bureau of Art, Director of the Foundation for the Support of the Cinema, and, finally, as a consultant to the Ministry of Culture. He has published more than 30 novels to date. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1988.Many of his novels were first published in serialized form, including Children of Gebelawi and Midaq Alley which was adapted into a Mexican film starring Salma Hayek (El callejón de los milagros).Children of Gebelawi (1959), one of Mahfouz's best known works, has been banned in Egypt for alleged blasphemy over its less-than-flattering portrayal of the Muslim prophet Mohammed. In 1989, after the fatwa for apostasy against Salman Rushdie, a blind Egyptian theologian, Omar Abdul-Rahman, told a journalist that if Mahfouz had been punished for writing this novel, Rushdie would not have dared publish his. Sheikh Omar has always maintained that this was not a fatwa, but in 1994 Islamic extremists, believing that it had been one, attempted to assassinate the 82-year-old novelist, stabbing him in the neck outside his Cairo home. He survived and now lives under constant bodyguard protection.US trumpeter and composer Dave Douglas titled a song on his 2001 album Witness "Mahfouz". The 25-minute piece features singer Tom Waits reading an excerpt from Mahfouz's works.As of 2006, Mahfouz is the oldest living Nobel laureate in Literature and the third oldest of all time, trailing only Bertrand Russell and Halldor Laxness.
Covering an area of about 1,001,450 square kilometres (386,560 square miles), Egypt borders Libya to the west, Sudan to the south, and Israel and the Gaza Strip to the northeast; on the north and the east are the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, respectively.Egypt is the sixteenth most populous country in the world. The vast majority of its 78.8 million population (2006) live near the banks of the Nile River (about 40,000 km² or 15,450 sq. miles), where the only arable agricultural land is found. Large areas of land are part of the Sahara Desert and are sparsely inhabited. About half of the Egyptian people today are urban, living in the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, the largest city in Africa and the Middle East, and Alexandria.Egypt is famous for its ancient civilization and some of the world's most ancient and important monuments, including the Giza Pyramids and the Great Sphinx of Giza; the southern city of Luxor contains a particularly large number of ancient artifacts such as the Karnak Temple and the Valley of the Kings. Today, Egypt is widely regarded as the main political and cultural centre of the Arab and Middle Eastern regions.Egypt has been a republic since 18 June 1953. President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak has been the President of the Republic since October 14, 1981, following the assassination of former-President Mohammed Anwar El-Sadat.Mubarak is currently serving his fifth term in office. He is the leader of the ruling National Democratic Party. Prime Minister Dr. Ahmed Nazif was sworn in as Prime Minister on 9 July 2004, following the resignation of Dr. Atef Ebeid from his office.Gamal Abdel Nasser was the leader of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. He is considered one of the most important Arab politicians in modern times, and is especially well-known for his Arab nationalist and anti-colonial foreign policy. The pan-Arabist ideology named after him, Nasserism, won a large following throughout the Arab world in the 1950s and 1960s, and though its importance declined after his death, he is still seen throughout the Arab World as a symbol for Arab dignity and freedom.Nasser died of heart attack on September 28, 1970 at the conclusion of Cairo meeting of leaders of Arab countries regarding Israel and the Black September in Jordan.Muhammad Anwar as-Sadat was an Egyptian politician and served as the third President of Egypt from September 28, 1970 until his assassination on October 6, 1981. He is considered in Egypt and in the West to be one of the most influential Egyptian and Middle Eastern figures in modern history.In 1973, Sadat, together with Syria, led Egypt into the Yom Kippur War with Israel, and succeeded early on in regaining parts of the Sinai Peninsula, which had been conquered by Israel during the Six-Day War. However, three divisions of the Israeli army (IDF) led by General Ariel Sharon eventually pushed into Egypt and entrapped the Egyptian Third Army. It was at this time that Egypt's ally the Soviet Union demanded a cease-fire.While the territorial gains of Egypt in this war were limited, approximately 15 km into the Sinai desert in the first few days of the war, Sadat's initial victories eventually led to regaining and reopening the Suez canal through the peace process with Israel in the years that followed, and restored Egyptian morale.Israelis now recognized Egypt as a legitimate foe. Sadat, therefore, restored Egypt's political significance in the eyes of Israel with this attack. For many years after, Sadat was known as the "hero of the Crossing".On November 19, 1977 Sadat became the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel when he met with Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, and spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem about his views on how to achieve a comprehensive peace to the Arab-Israeli conflict, which included the full implementation of U.N. Resolution 242 and Resolution 338. He made the visit after receiving an invitation from Begin and once again sought a permanent peace settlement (much of the Arab world was outraged by the visit, due to their widespread view of Israel as a rogue state, and a tyrannical symbol of imperialism).This visit went against the U.S. and Soviet Union’s intentions, which were to revive the international Geneva Conference. In 1978, this resulted in the Camp David Peace Agreement, for which Sadat and Begin received the Nobel Peace Prize. However, the action was extremely unpopular in the Arab and Muslim World. Egypt was at that time the most powerful of the Arab nations and an icon of Arab nationalism. Many hopes were placed on Egypt to help extract concessions from Israel from the displaced Palestinians and others in the Arab world. By signing the accords, Sadat left the other Arab nations hanging by themselves, and steered Egypt toward Israel and the United States. This was seen as a betrayal of his predecessor Nasser's pan-Arabism, destroying visions of a united Arab front.In 1979, the Arab League suspended Egypt's membership in the wake of Egypt's peace agreement with Israel; the League moved its headquarters from Cairo to Tunis. It was not until 1989 that the League re-admitted Egypt as a member, and returned its headquarters to Cairo. Many believed that only a threat of force would make Israel negotiate over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Camp David accords removed the possibility of Egypt, the major Arab military power, from providing such a threat.As part of the peace deal, Israel withdrew from the Sinai peninsula in phases, returning the entire area to Egypt on April 25th 1982.In September of 1981, Sadat cracked down on intellectuals and activists of all ideological stripes, imprisoning communists, Nasserists, feminists, Islamists, university professors, journalists, and members of student groups. The arrests totalled nearly 1,600, receiving worldwide condemnation for the extremity of his techniques.Meanwhile, internal support for Sadat disappeared under the pressure of an economic crisis and Sadat's suppression of dissidents.On October 6, the month after the crackdown, Sadat was assassinated during the annual "6th October 1973 victory" parade in Cairo by army members who were part of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization. They opposed Sadat's negotiations with Israel, as well as his use of force in the September crackdown. A fatwa approving the assassination had been obtained from Omar Abdel-Rahman, a cleric later convicted in the U.S. for his role in the February 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Sadat was protected by four layers of security and the army parade should have been safe due to ammunition-seizure rules, however the officers in charge of that procedure were on hajj to Mecca.As air force Mirage jets flew overhead, distracting the crowd, a troop truck halted before the Presidential reviewing stand, and a lieutenant strode forward. Sadat stood to receive his salute, whereupon the assassins rose from the truck, throwing grenades and firing assault rifle rounds. The assassin Khalid Islambouli shouted "Death to Pharaoh!" as he ran toward the stand and then fired at Sadat. He was later found guilty of the crimes and executed in April of 1982. As the crowd of dignitaries scattered, many were wounded, including James Tully, the Irish Minister for Defence, and four US military liaisons.In the ensuing firefight, seven people were killed, including the Cuban ambassador and a Greek Orthodox priest, and 28 were wounded. Sadat was then rushed to a hospital, but he was declared dead within hours. He was succeeded by his Vice-President Hosni Mubarak, who was injured in his hand during the attack. Sadat's funeral was attended by a record number of dignitaries from around the world, including a rare simultaneous attendance by three former U.S. presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Richard Nixon. No Arab leaders attended the funeral, however.Over three hundred Islamic radicals were indicted in the trial of assassin Khalid Islambouli, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, Omar Abdel-Rahman, and Abd al-Hamid Kishk. The trial was covered by the international press and Zawahiri's knowledge of English made him the de facto spokesman for the defendants. Zawahiri was released from prison in 1984, before travelling to Afghanistan and forging a close relationship with Osama Bin Laden.