EGYPT

Arab Republic of Egypt

Jumhuriat Misr al-'Arabiyah

CAPITAL: Cairo (Al-Qahira)

FLAG: The flag is a tricolor of three horizontal stripes—red, white, and black—with the national emblem in the center white stripe.

ANTHEM: The Arab Republic of Egypt Hymn.

MONETARY UNIT: The Egyptian pound (e£) is a paper currency of 100 piasters or 1,000 milliemes. There are coins of 1, 5, 10, and 20 piasters and notes of 25 and 50 piasters and 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, and 1000 pounds. e£1 = us$0.17301 (or us$1 = e£5.78) as of 2005.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES: The metric system is the official standard, but various local units also are used: 1 feddan, consisting of 333.3 kassabah, equals 0.42 hectare (1.038 acres).

HOLIDAYS: New Year's Day, 1 January; Evacuation Day, 18 June; Revolution Day, 23 July; Armed Forces Day, 6 October; Popular Resistance Day, 24 October; Victory Day, 23 December. Movable holidays include Sham an-Nassim (Breath of Spring), of ancient origin, as well as such Muslim religious holidays as 'Id al-Fitr, 'Id al'Adha', and the 1st of Muharram (Muslim New Year).

TIME: 2 pm = noon GMT.

LOCATION, SIZE, AND EXTENT

Situated at the northeastern corner of Africa, the Arab Republic of Egypt has an area of 1,001,450 sq km (386,662 sq mi), extending 1,572 km (997 mi) se–nw and 1,196 km (743 mi) ne–sw. However, the cultivated and settled area (Nile Valley, Delta, and oases) constitutes only about 3.5% of Egypt's land area; the Libyan and Western deserts occupy about 75% of the total. Comparatively, the area occupied by Egypt is slightly more than three times the size of the state of New Mexico. Beyond the Suez Canal in the east, the Sinai Peninsula overlaps into Asia; the Sinai was occupied by Israeli forces from 1967 to 1982.

Egypt is bounded on the n by the Mediterranean Sea, on the e by Israel and the Red Sea, on the s by Sudan, and on the w by Libya. The total land boundary length is 2,665 km (1,656 mi) and its total coastline is 2,450 km (1,522 mi). Egypt's capital city, Cairo, is located in the northeastern part of the country.

TOPOGRAPHY

The altitude of Egypt ranges from 133 m (436 ft) below sea level in the Libyan Desert to 2,629 m (8,625 ft) above in the Sinai Peninsula. The Nile Delta is a broad, alluvial land, sloping to the sea for some 160 km (100 mi), with a 250-km (155-mi) maritime front between Alexandria (Al-Iskandariyah) and Port Said. South of Cairo, most of the country (known as Upper Egypt) is a tableland rising to some 460 m (1,500 ft). The narrow valley of the Nile is enclosed by cliffs as high as 550 m (1,800 ft) as the river flows about 900 km (560 mi) from Aswan to Cairo. A series of cascades and rapids at Aswan, known as the First Cataract (the other cataracts are in the Sudan), forms a barrier to movement upstream.

The bulk of the country is covered by the Sahara, which north of Aswan is usually called the Libyan Desert. East of the Nile, the Arabian Desert extends to the Red Sea. The Western Desert consists of low-lying sand dunes and many depressions. Kharijah, Siwah, Farafirah, Bahariyah, and other large oases dot the landscape; another lowland, the Qattara Depression, is an inhospitable region of highly saline lakes and soils covering about 23,000 sq km (8,900 sq mi). The outstanding topographic feature is the Nile River, on which human existence depends, for its annual floods provide the water necessary for agriculture. Before the completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1970, the floods, lasting generally from August to December, caused the river level to rise about 5 m (16 ft). Now, however, floodwaters can be stored, making it possible to provide year-round irrigation and to reclaim about 1 million feddans (about 1.04 million acres) of land. Damming the Nile resulted in the creation of Lake Nasser, a reservoir 292 km (181 mi) long and 9–18 km (6–11 mi) wide.

CLIMATE

Most of Egypt is a dry subtropical area, but the southern part of Upper Egypt is tropical. Northern winds temper the climate along the Mediterranean, but the interior areas are very hot. The temperature sinks quickly after sunset because of the high radiation rate under cloudless skies. Annual rainfall averages 2.5 cm (1 in) south of Cairo and 20 cm (8 in) on the Mediterranean coast, but sudden storms sometimes cause devastating flash floods. Hot, dry sandstorms, known as khamsins, come off the Western Desert in the spring. In Cairo, average temperatures range from 14°c (57°f) in January to 28°c (82°f) in July. Relative humidity varies from 68% in February to over 70% in August and 77% in December.

FLORA AND FAUNA

Plants are those common in dry subtropical and tropical lands, such as papyrus. Egypt has no forests but does have date palm and citrus groves; eucalyptus and cypress have been introduced. Sheep, goats, and donkeys are found throughout the country, and camels are found in all the deserts. Egypt has some 300 types of birds, with about half of them being breeding species within the country. Wild animals are few, except for the hyena, jackal, lynx, mongoose, and wild boar, the last-named inhabiting the Nile Delta. The ibex may be found in the Sinai, and gazelles in the deserts. The Nile is adequately stocked with fish, but crocodiles have been reduced to a few along the shores of Lake Nasser. Reptiles include the horned viper and the hooded snake. In 2002, there were about 98 species of mammals,123 species of birds, and over 2,000 species of higher plants.

ENVIRONMENT

Egypt's environmental problems stem from its aridity, extremely uneven population distribution, shortage of arable land, and pollution. Soil fertility has declined because of over-cultivation and agricultural land has been lost to urbanization and desert winds. In addition, the nation's beaches, coral reefs, and wildlife habitats are threatened by oil pollution. Heavy use of pesticides, inadequate sewage disposal, and uncontrolled industrial effluents have created major water pollution problems. The expanded irrigation of desert areas after completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1970 has increased soil salinity and aided the spread of waterborne diseases.

With recent improvements, about 97% of the rural population and 100% of the urban population have access to improved water sources. The National Committee for Environment, within the office of the prime minister, is the principal agency with environmental responsibilities.

Centuries of human habitation in the Nile Valley have decimated Egypt's wildlife in that region. The hunting of any bird has been prohibited by law. As of 2003, about 9.7% of the total land area was protected. The Wadi Al-Hitan (White Valley) became a natural UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005. According to a 2006 report issued by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), the number of threatened species included 6 types of mammals, 17 species of birds, 6 types of reptiles, 14 species of fish, and 2 species of plants. Endangered species include the Sinai leopard, northern bald ibis, and green sea turtle. The Sahara oryx has been listed as extinct.

POPULATION

The population of Egypt in 2005 was estimated by the United Nations (UN) at 74,033,000, which placed it at number 16 in population among the 193 nations of the world. In 2005, approximately 5% of the population was over 65 years of age, with another 36% of the population under 15 years of age. There were 101 males for every 100 females in the country. According to the UN, the annual population rate of change for 2005–2010 was expected to be 2.0%, a rate the government viewed as too high. The projected population for the year 2025 was 101,092,000. The population density was 74 per sq km (191 per sq mi). However, populated areas constitute only 6% of Egypt's total area and density varies from 84,150 per sq km (32,500 per sq mi) in Cairo to 60 per sq km (23 per sq mi) in the Suez governate. Some 99% of all Egyptians live in the Nile Valley.

The UN estimated that 43% of the population lived in urban areas in 2005, and that urban areas were growing at an annual rate of 2.39%. The capital city, Cairo (Al-Qahira), had a population of 10,834,000 in that year. Alexandria's metropolitan population was 12,036,000. Other large cities include Giza (Al-Jizah), 2,597,000; Shubra El-Khemia, 1,556,000; Port Said, 548,900; and Suez, 497,000.

MIGRATION

In the early 1960s, most of the Greek population emigrated as the result of the government's nationalization measures; nearly all Jews, who formed less than 0.3% of the population in 1966, left the country after the 1967 war with Israel. With the completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1970, up to 100,000 Nubian tribesmen were moved from flooded parts of the upper Nile and resettled in the plain downstream. During the 1970s there was significant internal migration from rural to urban areas. During the 1970s and first half of the 1980s, more than three million workers took jobs in other countries. In 1992 some 2,850,000 Egyptians were living abroad, including about one million in Libya and 850,000 in Saudi Arabia. In 2003 worker remittances to Egypt were $2.9 billion.

The Egyptian government estimates that there are 3–5 million Sudanese refugees, some of whom have lived in Egypt for over 30 years. In 2000 there were 169,000 migrants living in Egypt. In 2005, the net migration rate was estimated as -0.22 migrants per 1,000 population. The government views the immigration level as satisfactory, but the emigration level as too low.

ETHNIC GROUPS

Ethnic groups of Eastern Hamitic stock make up about 99% of the population of Egypt; these include Egyptians, Bedouins, and Berbers. They are a product of the intermixture of ancient Egyptians with the invaders of many millennia from various parts of Asia and Africa. The remaining 1% of the population is made up of minorities, including mainly Nubians, Armenians, Greeks, and other Europeans, primarily Italian and French.

LANGUAGES

The language of most of the population is Arabic, a Semitic tongue; the 1971 constitution declares Arabic to be Egypt's official language. Dialects vary from region to region and even from town to town. English and French are spoken by most educated Egyptians and by shopkeepers and others. The ancient language of Pharaonic Egypt, a Hamitic tongue, survives vestigially in the liturgy of the Copts, a sizable Christian sect dating back to the 5th century ad. The Nubians of Upper Egypt speak at least seven dialects of their own unwritten language. There are a small number of Berber-speaking villagers in the western oases.

RELIGIONS

The majority religion is Islam, of which the Sunnis are the largest sect. According to official estimates, 90% of the population are Muslim and 8–10% are Christian, with the Coptic Orthodox Church being the largest Christian denomination. Other denominations represented include Armenian Apostolic, Greek and Syrian Orthodox, Catholics (including Armenian, Chaldean, Greek, Melkite, Roman, and Syrian), and a variety of evangelical Protestant denominations. The Baha'i faith is also represented. The Jewish community is extremely small.

The 1971 constitution declares Islam to be the state religion. Though the constitution provides for religious freedom, the government has a long history of infringements upon this right. Any religious practices that can be considered in conflict to Shariah (Islamic law) are prohibited and Article 98(F) of the Penal Code allows for prosecution for unorthodox practices and beliefs that are considered to be "insulting heavenly religions." Government discrimination extends to both Muslim fundamentalists and Christians. In 2001, two men were convicted and sentenced to five and three years imprisonment under Article 98(F) for allegedly advocating a tolerance of homosexuality in the Islamic faith. In 2002, eight individuals were convicted under the same article for holding unorthodox Islamic beliefs and practices. Sentences ranged from three years imprisonment for two of the offenders to a one year suspended sentence for those who were not accused of promoting their beliefs to others. Proselytizing is generally considered a violation of Article 98(F).

TRANSPORTATION

Egypt's transportation system is well developed, with 64,000 km (39,770 mi) of roads in 2002, of which about 50,000 km (31,070 mi) were paved. In 2003, there were 2,282,760 passenger cars and 688,300 commercial vehicles registered. In 1982, in an attempt to alleviate Cairo's notorious traffic congestion, work began on a city subway system. The first phase, 5 km (3 mi) long, was completed in 1987 at a cost of some $370 million. Cairo Metro, modeled after the Paris Metro, is the first subway to be built in Africa. Alexandria and Cairo are connected by both the Western Desert Highway, a high-speed toll road and the busier Delta Road. Railroads are managed by the state-owned Egyptian Railways, founded in 1852. As of 2004, there was some 5,063 km (3,149 mi) of standard gauge railway that linked all parts of the country. Alexandria and Port Said are the principal ports. Egypt's oceangoing merchant fleet of 77 ships totaled 1,194,696 GRT in 2005.

As of 2004, Egypt had some 3,500 km (2,175 mi) of inland waterways that include the Nile River, the Alexandria-Cairo Waterway, Lake Nasser, the 193.5 km (120 mi) Suez Canal and many other smaller canals in the Nile River delta. However, the Nile River and the Suez Canal are the country's main inland waterways. Steamer service on the Nile is an important means of domestic transport. The modern Suez Canal was constructed between 1859 and 1869 under the supervision of the French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps. In 1875 Great Britain became the canal's leading shareholder, and the guarantor of its neutrality in 1888 under the Constantinople Convention. Management of the canal was entrusted to the privately owned Suez Canal Co. British rights over the canal were reaffirmed in the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936, then repudiated by Egypt in 1951. In 1956, Egypt nationalized the canal and placed it under the management of the Suez Canal Authority, which had paid former stockholders $64 million by 1963. The canal was closed during the 1967 war with Israel and remained closed until 5 June 1975, when it resumed operations after having been cleared of mines and debris by teams of US, UK, and Egyptian engineers. During its first six months after resuming operations, the canal provided passage for a substantial number of dry-cargo ships but was used by only a comparatively small number of oil tankers, since the newer supertankers could not navigate the canal's 38-ft depth. The first phase of a project to widen and deepen the canal was completed in 1980, permitting ships of 53-ft draft (up to 150,000 tons) to pass through. The second phase includes increasing the navigable depth to 67 ft (up to 270,000 tons). Egypt also announced plans to build five tunnels under the canal and dig a second channel to permit the two-way passage of convoys; the first tunnel at the southern end of the canal was opened to traffic in 1980.

Cairo International Airport is used by numerous international airlines, including Egypt's own Egypt Air. In 2003, about 4.2 million passengers were carried on scheduled domestic and international flights. As of 2004, Egypt had an estimated 87 airports. In 2005 a total of 72 had paved runways, and there were 2 heliports.

HISTORY

Egypt has the oldest recorded history in Western civilization, dating back 5,000 years. In early times, the desert provided protection against marauders, while the Nile River provided bread. Therefore, by 3400 bc the civilization of Egypt was well developed. The country was united about 3100 bc by Menes (or Narmer), king of Upper Egypt, who conquered Lower Egypt and established the first of some 30 dynasties, ruled over by a divine king, or pharaoh. Menes created a centralized state; under his dynastic successors, trade flourished, and the hieroglyphic form of writing was perfected. During the so-called Old Kingdom, the pharaohs of the fourth dynasty (c.2613–2494 bc), of whom Cheops (Khufu) was the most notable, began to build the great pyramids as royal tombs. The twelfth dynasty of the Middle Kingdom (c.1991–1786 bc) built vast irrigation schemes and developed a thriving civilization at Thebes; under their rule, a system of cursive writing was developed. After a century of domination by Semitic peoples known as the Hyksos, who introduced the horse-drawn chariot, ancient Egypt attained its apex during the eighteenth dynasty (c.1570–1320 bc) of the New Kingdom, under pharaohs Thutmose III, who extended the empire into Asia as far as the Euphrates; Amenhotep III and his son, Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten, or Ikhnaton), who, with his queen, Nefertiti, attempted forcibly to replace Egyptian polytheism with monotheistic worship of the sun god Aten, or Aton; and the boy-king Tutankhamen.

In subsequent centuries, political instability weakened the kingdom, and Egypt was invaded by Assyria (673–663 bc), annexed by Persia (525 bc), and conquered by Alexander the Great (332 bc). Alexander established the Macedonian dynasty of the Ptolemies, which ruled Egypt from 323 to 30 bc. During this period, the city of Alexandria flourished as the intellectual center of the Hellenistic world. The best-known ruler of this dynasty was Queen Cleopatra VII (sometimes designated as VI), who was defeated, together with her lover Mark Antony, at the Battle of Actium in 31 bc by Caius Octavius, later the Roman emperor Augustus. After the official division of the Roman Empire following the death of Theodosius in ad 395, Egypt became part of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.

Egypt played an integral role in the Muslim world after the Arab conquest by 'Amr ibn-al-'As in 639–42. Egypt's conquerors brought in settlers from Arabia and established firm control under the Abbasid caliphate (established in 749) and the Fatimids (909–1171), who founded Cairo as their capital in 969. The Fatimids were overthrown by Saladin (Salah ad-Din), founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, which gave way about 1250 to a local military caste, the Mamluks. The Mamluks continued to control the provinces after the conquest of Egypt by the Ottoman Turks in 1517.

Egypt remained a Turkish satrapy for four centuries. In 1805, an energetic Albanian soldier, Muhammad 'Ali, was appointed ruler (wali) of Egypt. He succeeded in establishing his own dynasty, which ruled the country, first under nominal Ottoman control and later as a British protectorate. Muhammad 'Ali destroyed Mamluk feudalism (already weakened by Napoleon's Egyptian campaign in 1798), stabilized the country, encouraged the planting of cotton, and opened the land to European penetration and development.

After the completion of numerous ambitious projects, including the Suez Canal (1869), Egypt became a world transportation hub and heavily burdened by debt. Ostensibly to protect its investments, England seized control of Egypt's government in 1882 and, at the time of the outbreak of World War I, made Egypt a protectorate. After the war, in 1922, the United Kingdom took account of the gathering momentum of Egyptian nationalism and recognized Egypt as a nominally sovereign country under King Fuad, but retained control over the conduct of foreign affairs, defense, security of communications, and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Militant nationalism was represented by the Wafd Party, led by Sa'ad Zaghlul Pasha and, after his death, by Nahas Pasha. The conditions of association were revised in the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, under which Britain maintained armed forces only in specified areas and especially along the Suez Canal. In that year, Faruk ascended the throne.

Egyptian nationalism gathered further momentum in World War II, during which Egypt was used as an Allied base of operations, and in 1951 the government in Cairo abrogated the 1936 treaty. Royal extravagance, government corruption, the unsuccessful Palestine campaign against Israel in 1948, and delays in long-expected social and political reforms motivated a successful coup on 23 July 1952 by a group called the Society of the Free Officers. Faruk was dethroned and replaced by his seven-month-old son. A republic was proclaimed on 18 June 1953, with Gen. Muhammad Naguib (Najib), the nominal leader of the officers, as its first president. He, in turn, was forced out of power in 1954 by a younger man, Lt. Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser (Jamal 'Abd al-Nasir), leader of the revolution.

To increase the productive capacity of his country, Nasser entered into preliminary agreements with the United States, the United Kingdom, and the UN to finance in part a new high dam at Aswan. At the same time, he also negotiated economic aid and arms shipments from the Soviet Bloc when he was unable to obtain what Egypt needed from the West. Financial backing for the dam was subsequently withheld by the United States, whereupon, on 26 July 1956, President Nasser proclaimed the nationalization of the Suez Canal and announced that profits derived from its operations would be used for the building of the dam. (The last British occupation troops had been evacuated from their Suez Canal bases a month earlier.) The dam was completed with aid and technical assistance from the USSR.

Simultaneously, a crisis erupted between Egypt and Israel. Incidents involving Egyptian and Palestinian guerrillas (fadayin ) and Israeli border patrols multiplied. On 29 October 1956, as part of a three-nation plot to bring down Nasser and reassert control over the Canal, Israeli armed forces swept into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. The United Kingdom and France then issued an ultimatum to the belligerents to cease-fire. When Egypt rejected the ultimatum, Britain and France took military action in the Port Said area, at the northern end of the canal, landing troops and bombing Egyptian cities from the air. However, the intervention of the United States and the USSR, acting through the UN, led to the withdrawal of the British, French, and Israeli forces by March 1957.

On 1 February 1958, Egypt and Syria proclaimed their union in the United Arab Republic (UAR), under one head of state, one flag, a common legislature, and a unified army. The proclamation was approved by a plebiscite vote of 99.9% in Egypt and 99.98% in Syria. Nasser became president of the UAR, and a new cabinet was formed in March 1958, consisting of 2 Egyptian and 2 Syrian vice presidents, as well as 22 Egyptian and 12 Syrian ministers. Differing economic and political conditions prevented a complete fusion of the two regions, however. Nasser's economic measures were generally accepted, but his program of socialism and nationalization of banks and other commercial establishments were resented and opposed by Syrian businessmen. Syrian opposition to the union was crystallized when Nasser eliminated the separate regional cabinets and set up a unified cabinet in August 1961. On 28 September, the Syrian army revolted, and two days later it proclaimed Syrian independence. Even after the failure of the merger with Syria, Egypt, consistent with its Arab unity ideology, persisted in its attempts to form a union with other Arab states. Cooperation agreements were signed with Iraq, Yemen, Syria again, and Libya during the 1960s and early 1970s. None of these agreements produced a lasting, meaningful political union.

One reason for these political maneuverings was the continuing tension with Israel, which again erupted into open warfare on 5 June 1967, after the UN Emergency Force had on 19 May been withdrawn from the Egyptian-Israeli border at Egypt's demand; on 23 May, Egypt closed the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping. Israel quickly crippled the Egyptian air force and occupied the Gaza Strip and the Sinai to the Suez Canal, which was blocked and remained so until June 1975. A cease-fire was established on 8 June 1967. On 22 November 1967, the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling on Israel to withdraw from occupied Arab territories and for the recognition by the Arab states of Israel's right to independent existence within peaceful and secured frontiers. But neither side would agree to peace terms, and Israel continued to occupy the Gaza Strip and the Sinai. During the years after 1967, a "War of Attrition" was fought along the Canal with each side shelling the other and Israeli planes bombing Egyptian cities.

When Nasser died on 28 September 1970, his vice president, Anwar al-Sadat, became president. After a political crisis that resulted in the dismissal from office in May 1971 of 'Ali Sabri and other left-wing leaders who had been close to Nasser (they were subsequently convicted of treason), President Sadat firmly established his hold on the government and began to implement pragmatic economic and social policies. Beginning in July 1971 with the announcement of a 10-year development program, he quickly followed with the introduction in September of a permanent constitution and a series of financial measures designed to give more freedom to the banking system and to encourage investment of foreign and domestic capital. In a surprise move on 18 July 1972, Sadat ordered the expulsion of the 15,000 Soviet military advisers and 25,000 dependents who had come to Egypt after the 1967 war. After the ouster of the Russians, Egypt was able to improve relations with the United States, Europe, and the more conservative Arab states, which provided substantial financial assistance under the Khartoum Agreement to replace Suez Canal revenues (which had ceased when the Canal was closed by the 1967 war with Israel).

Frustrated in his ambition to recover the Sinai, President Sadat broke the 1967 cease-fire agreement on 6 October 1973 by attacking Israeli forces in the Sinai Peninsula; this assault was coordinated with a Syrian attack on Israeli forces occupying the Syrian Golan Heights. After initial successes, the Egyptian strike forces were defeated by the rapidly mobilized Israeli troops, who then crossed the Canal south of Isma'iliyah, destroyed Egypt's surface-to-air missile sites, and cut off the Egyptian 3d Army. A cease-fire that came into effect on 24 October left Egyptian troops in the Sinai and Israeli troops on the west bank of the Canal. A series of disengagement agreements negotiated by US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger left Egypt in full control of the Canal and established a UN-supervised buffer zone in the Sinai between the Egyptian and Israeli forces. In November 1975, the Sinai oil fields at Abu Rudeis and Ra's Sudr were returned to Egypt.

President Sadat took a bold step toward establishing peace with Israel by going to Jerusalem in November 1977 and by receiving Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at Isma'iliyah the following month. In September 1978, he entered into negotiations with Begin, mediated by US President Jimmy Carter, at Camp David, Md., where the two Middle East leaders agreed to a framework for a comprehensive settlement of the conflict. Following further negotiations, Sadat signed the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty in Washington, DC, on 26 March 1979. The treaty provided for the staged withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Sinai, which was completed on schedule by 25 April 1982; set limits on forces and armaments for both sides; established a UN force to supervise the terms of the treaty; and called for full normalization of relations. However, the two nations were unable to agree on the question of autonomy for the Palestinians of the West Bank of the Jordan and in Gaza, as provided for in the Camp David framework. For their roles as peacemakers, Sadat and Begin were jointly awarded the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize. But other Arab leaders denounced the accords and sought to isolate Egypt within the Arab world.

Domestically, Sadat encouraged a shift from Nasser's socialism to greater free-market conditions and some political liberalization, one result of which was an upsurge of activity by religious extremists. In early September 1981, Sadat ordered the arrest of 1,536 Muslims, Christian Copts, leftists, and other persons accused of fomenting violent acts. One month later, on 6 October, Sadat was assassinated in Cairo by four Muslim fundamentalists. The vice president, Muhammad Hosni (Husni) Mubarak, who had been Sadat's closest adviser, succeeded him as president, instituted a state of emergency, and immediately pledged to continue Sadat's policies, particularly the terms of the peace treaty with Israel. Relations with Israel cooled during 1982, however, especially after Israeli troops moved into Lebanon. In 1986, renewed efforts at normalization of diplomatic relations with Israel led to the resolution in Egypt's favor of a dispute over Taba, a tiny sliver of land, which had not been returned with the rest of the Sinai.

As a result of Arab fears of an Iranian victory over Iraq in their eight-year war (1980–88), Egypt, which has the largest army in the Arab world as well as an important arms industry, was welcomed back into the Arab fold following the 'Ammān Arab summit conference in November 1987. Egypt quickly renewed diplomatic relations with a number of Arab states and in May 1989 ended its isolation by rejoining the Arab League, the headquarters of which returned to Cairo. Mubarak continued Sadat's policies of moderation and peacemaking abroad and gradual political liberalization and movement towards free market reforms at home. In July 1989, he became chairman of the Organization of African Unity for one year. In 1990, Egypt played a key role in the coalition to expel Iraq from Kuwait and in 1993 and 1994 was active in promoting the Israeli-Palestinian peace accord.

Mubarak was reelected president in 1987 and 1993. Parliamentary elections in 1987 were termed the fairest since 1952; 100 members of the opposition were elected to the 458-seat chamber. Opposition political forces, however, had become increasingly disenfranchised over the years and after Mubarak's third election, he conceded to their concerns and announced the government would hold a National Dialogue to hear the grievances of any legal political party. Representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, an illegal but tolerated political grouping with massive appeal, were not invited. Just before the meeting, the Nasserists and the New World Party announced they would not participate, essentially nullifying the work of the congress.

In 1995, legislative elections were again held, but, unlike the 1990 polling, the opposition parties announced they would not boycott these elections. The elections were held on 29 November and 6 December and the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) won 316 seats, losing several but retaining a vast majority. Although independents won more than 100 seats, nearly all of them were in reality firmly allied with the NDP. In January 1996, Mubarak replaced the sitting prime minister, Dr. Alif Sidqi, with Kamal Ahmed al-Ganzouri.

The most serious opposition to the Mubarak government comes from outside the political system. Religious parties are banned and, as a consequence, Islamic militants have resorted to violence against the regime, singling out Christian Copts and posing a threat to tourism, a major source of foreign exchange earnings. Starting in the mid-1990s, security forces cracked down hard on the militants, resorting to authoritarian measures, including arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, and torture to subdue the movement. However, it continued to gather strength, fueled by discontent with poor economic conditions, political autocracy, corruption, secularism, and Egypt's ties with the United States and Israel. In November 1997, militants murdered over 70 persons at a popular tourist site in Luxor. It was alleged that Gamma Islamiyya, one of Egypt's Islamic groups, was responsible for the attacks. However, in 1998 and 1999 the number of violent incidents decreased, and the government began releasing some of the jailed members of Islamist groups, said to number 20,000 by that time.

In September 1999, weeks after surviving an assassination attempt, Mubarak was elected to a fourth six-year term as president, running unopposed. Political opponents and Western observers criticized the ruling NDP's refusal to open up the political system, one result of which, they said, would be to channel some of the political passion now given to outlawed Islamists into legal political parties, who could then use it to create a more open society—thus further marginalizing the extremists. However, the government refused to implement electoral reforms. In February 2003, the state of emergency first declared in 1981 was renewed for another three years by President Mubarak.

Following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, the United States called upon all states to adopt counterterrorism measures. The attacks on the United States gave Egypt a reason for increasing its restrictions on the Islamic opposition, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood and Gamaa Islamiyya. After 11 September, Egyptian authorities referred increasing numbers of cases of Islamic militants to military courts. One of the leaders of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Muhammad Atta, was Egyptian, as is Ayman al-Zawhiri, the leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad who is considered to be Osama bin Laden's second in command. The high-profile positions of these Egyptians in the al-Qaeda organization caused some to place increased scrutiny on Egypt's ability to control Islamic extremism.

Terrorist attacks on tourists and others continued into 2004 and 2005. In October 2004, bomb attacks targeted Israeli tourists on the Sinai peninsula; 34 people were killed. In April 2005, a suicide bomber killed three tourists in Cairo; later that month, another bomb attack in Cairo killed an Egyptian man. On 23 July 2005, nearly 90 people were killed in bomb attacks in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

In 2005 Egypt changed its constitution to allow the opposition to contest presidential elections. Potential candidates must meet strict criteria for participation, however, and religious parties remain banned. The Muslim Brotherhood—the only opposition organization with broad popular support—remains outlawed. In the presidential election held on 7 September 2005, Mubarak gained a fifth consecutive term as president. The election was the first under the new system whereby multiple candidates may stand. In previous elections, Egyptians voted yes or no for a single candidate chosen by parliament. In this election, all candidates were permitted to campaign freely and were given equal time on television. Mubarak faced nine opponents in the September election, although only two—Ayman Nour of the Tomorrow party, and Noaman Gomaa of the Wafd party—had any real following. Without monitors in place in most of the nearly 10,000 polling stations, Mubarak supporters engaged in various acts of voter intimidation. Other voting irregularities existed as well. The opposition to Mubarak came largely from a movement called "Kifaya" or "Enough." Kifaya supporters were permitted to protest without police intervention on the day of the election. Different groups affiliated with the Kifaya movement staged demonstrations for several months prior to the election.

In parliamentary elections held in November and December 2005, the Muslim Brotherhood won 34 seats, doubling the number of seats its members held in all of the last parliament, elected in 2000. Nevertheless, the Muslim Brotherhood's candidates run as independents, due to the outlaw status of the group. The Muslim Brotherhood solidified its position as the strongest opposition group in Egypt by winning an additional 42 seats in the second round of voting, and 12 in the third, to make a total of 88 seats in the new parliament. In total, the ruling NDP won 315 seats, noticeably fewer than the 388 it held in the outgoing parliament, but nonetheless still above the two-thirds majority necessary to control legislation. The elections were marred by clashes between voters and security forces, leaving 12 dead.

In April 2006 the parliament voted to extend the state of emergency, in place since 1981, until 2008.

GOVERNMENT

On 25 March 1964, President Nasser proclaimed an interim constitution; it remained in effect until a permanent constitution, drafted by the National Assembly, was approved by the electorate in a plebiscite on 11 September 1971. The 1971 constitution declares Egypt to be a democratic socialist state and an integral part of the Arab nation. The state of emergency, in effect since the Sadat assassination in 1981, and tough new antiterrorism laws against Islamists have given the government sweeping powers of repression, reminiscent of the Nasser era.

The president of the republic is the head of state and supreme commander of the armed forces. He appoints and retires as many vice presidents and cabinet members as he wishes; he also appoints the prime minister. In addition, he appoints and retires civil, military, and diplomatic personnel in accordance with the law. The president's power to declare war and conclude treaties with foreign countries is subject to the approval of the People's Assembly, a unicameral legislative body consists of 444 elected and 10 appointed members serving five-year terms. A 264-member advisory body, the Shura Council, was formed in 1980. Until 2005, the People's Assembly nominated the president, who had to be confirmed by plebiscite for a six-year term. The constitution was amended by popular referendum in 1980 to permit Sadat to serve more than two terms. Vice President Mubarak, who became president upon Sadat's assassination, was confirmed in that office in national referendums in October 1981, 1987, 1993, and 1999.

An amendment passed by parliament in May 2005 and approved in a public referendum provides that the president is to be elected in direct public elections to be contested by more than one candidate. In the presidential election held in September 2005, Mubarak was opposed by nine candidates. Official results had Mubarak winning 88.5% of the vote, with voter turnout at 23%. Ayman Nour of the Tomorrow party, who came in second place, took 7.3% of the vote, and Noaman Gomaa of the Wafd party came in third with 2.8%.

Suffrage is universal at age 18.

POLITICAL PARTIES

Since the founding of the republic in 1953, the president and his army colleagues have dominated Egyptian politics. The Arab Socialist Union (ASU; founded by President Nasser as the Egyptian National Union in 1957) was the sole legal political party until 1976, when President Sadat allowed three minor parties to participate in parliamentary elections. In 1978, Sadat replaced the ASU with his own organization, the National Democratic Party (NDP), of which he became chairman. In elections held in June 1979, the NDP won 342 seats in the People's Assembly; the Socialist Labor Party (SLP), 29 seats; the Liberal Socialist Party, 3; and independents, 8. In 1980, however, Sadat denounced the SLP as the "agent of a foreign power," and 13 of the party's deputies defected either to join the NDP or to become independent members of the legislature, thus reducing the number of SLP seats to 16.

In January 1982, President Mubarak was elected without opposition as chairman of the NDP. In elections held in May 1984, the NDP won 390 seats in the National Assembly. The New Wafd (Delegation) Party, the middle class successor of the dominant party of the pre-Nasser period allied with the Muslim Brotherhood, won 58. In the 1987 Assembly elections, the ruling NDP again won about 70% of the vote. Seventeen percent voted for an alliance of Socialist Labor, Liberal Socialist and, under their banner (religious parties are banned), the Muslim Brotherhood; 11% voted for the New Wafd. Elections in 1990 drew only some 25% of eligible voters when the opposition boycotted the poll, charging unfair and undemocratic procedures.

In 1995, the opposition contested the elections, but to little effect. Balloting was held on 29 November and the NDP won a huge majority (317) of the body's 444 seats. Although independents won more than 100 seats, they are so closely allied with the NDP that nearly all of them joined the party after the elections. The New Wafd Party won 6 seats; the National Progressive Unionist Party won 5; the Socialists won 1; and the Nasserists won 1.

In elections for the National Assembly held in October and November 2000, the NDP took 353 of 444 elected seats. The New Wafd Party won 35; the New Delegation Party won 7; the National Progressive Unionist Party took 6; the Nasserists won 3; the Liberal Party took 1 seat; independents won 37 seats and 2 seats remained vacant.

Since the beginning of a campaign of terror against tourists and Egypt's Coptic minority, the government has clamped down on Islamist parties, notably the Muslim Brotherhood, which had always been technically illegal. The Mubarak regime has resorted to strict authoritarian measures and holds thousands of suspected Islamic militants in prison. In November and December 2005, the Muslim Brotherhood won a total of 88 seats in the parliamentary elections; the NDP took 315 seats. Non-Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated parties took 14 seats, including the neo-liberal Wafd Party, traditionally recognized as Egypt's largest opposition party. The rest of the seats were won by independents.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Egypt traditionally has been divided into two regions: Lower Egypt (Wagh al-Bahari), north of Cairo, and Upper Egypt (AsSa'id), south of the capital. Under the local government system established in 1960, Egypt is organized into 26 governorates, each headed by an appointed governor. The governorates are responsible for social, health, welfare, and educational services and for the social and economic development of their region. They are also required to supervise the city and village councils, which are constituted in a similar manner. Real authority resides in Cairo in a highly centralized regime, heavily burdened by bureaucracy. Since 1994, village mayors, who were previously elected, have been appointed by the Ministry of the Interior.

JUDICIAL SYSTEM

The judicial system is based on English common law, Islamic law, and Napoleonic codes subject to judicial review by the Supreme Court and the Council of State, which oversees the validity of administrative decisions. A tension exists between civil law derived from France and competition from promoters of Islamic law. Islamic activists succeeded in amending the constitution to state that Shariah (Islamic) law is in principle the sole source of legislation. However, Shariah applies primarily to Muslims with regard to family, personal status, and inheritance matters, and non-Muslims have been allowed to maintain separate legislation in all matters except inheritance. Egypt accepts compulsory International Court of Justice (ICJ) jurisdiction, with reservations.

Simple police offenses, misdemeanors, and civil cases involving small amounts are subject to the jurisdiction of single-judge summary tribunals. The trial courts of the central tribunals, consisting of three justices each, sit in cases exceeding the jurisdiction of summary courts and also consider appeals. Traffic in narcotics and press offenses, considered serious crimes, are tried by the courts of appeals of the central tribunals in the first instance, sitting as assize courts. There are seven courts of appeals—at Cairo, Alexandria, Tantā, Al-Manşurah, Asyut, Bani-Souef, and Ismailia—which sit in chambers of three judges. The highest tribunal is the Court of Cassation, composed of 30 justices, which sits in panels of at least 5 justices.

The 1971 constitution declares that the judiciary is independent of other state powers and that judges are independent and not subject to enforced retirement. The Supreme Constitutional Court is responsible for enforcing adherence to laws and regulations and for interpreting legislation and the constitution. The Office of the Socialist Public Prosecutor is responsible to the People's Assembly for the security of the people's rights, the integrity of the political system, and other matters.

The president appoints all civilian judges, from nominations by the Supreme Judicial Council, a body designed to assure the independence of the judiciary and composed of senior judges, lawyers, law professors, and the president of the Court of Cassation. Judges are appointed for life, with mandatory retirement at age 64. The judiciary has demonstrated a good degree of independence from the executive branch.

The state of emergency in place since 1981 after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat led to detention without due process for many persons. Emergency security courts try suspected terrorists whose only recourse upon conviction is an appeal for clemency to the president or prime minister.

ARMED FORCES

Total active armed forces in Egypt numbered 468,500 in 2005. There were also 497,000 reservists divided among all services. The Army had 340,000 active personnel, equipped with 3,855 main battle tanks, 412 reconnaissance vehicles, 520 armored infantry fighting vehicles, 4,750 armored personnel carriers and 4,348 artillery pieces. The Egyptian Air Force in 2005 had 30,000 active personnel, which were equipped with 572 combat capable aircraft, including 218 fighters, 223 fighter ground attack aircraft and 115 attack helicopters. The Air Defense Command is a separate service. As of 2005, active personnel numbered 80,000. Equipment included both missile and gun-based air defense batteries. The Egyptian Navy had an estimated 18,500 active personnel, including 2,000 coast guard personnel. Major naval units included four tactical submarines, one destroyer, 10 frigates, 48 patrol/coastal vessels and 15 mine warfare ships. Egypt's paramilitary forces were estimated at 330,000 active members, including a national guard of 60,000, a central security force of 325,000, and 12,000 border guards. Egypt's defense budget in 2005 was $2.5 billion.

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

Egypt joined the United Nations as a charter member on 24 October 1945 and participates in ECA, ESCWA, and all the nonregional specialized agencies. The country is a member of the WTO. It belongs to the African Development Bank, the Arab Monetary Fund, COMESA, G-15, G-24, G-77, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the Council of Arab Economic Unity, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), the Community of Sahel and Saharan States (CENSAD), and the African Union (AU). It is also a member in OAPEC, a permanent observer at the OAS, and a partner in the OSCE.

Between 1958 and 1973, Egypt made several attempts to establish united or federated states with its Arab neighbors. Egypt and Syria formed the United Arab Republic from February 1958 to September 1961, when Syria broke away; the United Arab States, consisting of Egypt, Syria, and Yemen, survived formally from March 1958 through December 1961, although never a political reality; and a federation between Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, officially established in April 1963, was never implemented. On 1 January 1972, Egypt, Syria, and Libya established the Federation of Arab Republics, but to little practical effect. A formal merger attempt between Egypt and Libya, nominally consummated on 1 September 1973, dissolved in practice when relations between the two countries soured. Egypt became the first Arab state to normalize relations with Israel following the conclusion of the 1979 peace treaty. As a result of this act, however, Egypt's membership in the League of Arab States was suspended; Egypt did not rejoin the League until 1989. Arab League headquarters are in Cairo. Egypt plays a key role in the peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Egypt is part of the Nonaligned Movement and a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration.

In environmental cooperation, Egypt is part of the Basel Convention, the Convention on Biological Diversity, Ramsar, CITES, the London Convention, International tropical Timber Agreements, the Kyoto Protocol, the Montréal Protocol, MARPOL, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and the UN Conventions on the Law of the Sea, Climate Change, and Desertification.

ECONOMY

The Egyptian economy has been historically agricultural, with cotton as the mainstay. Land prices are extremely high because of the shortage of arable land, and output of food is not sufficient to meet the needs of a 1.9% population growth rate over the 2001–05 period. Although Egypt has expanded its private sector in recent years, industry remains centrally controlled and for the most part government owned; since the 1950s, the government has developed the petroleum, services, and construction sectors, largely at the expense of agriculture.

Egypt's significant economic growth rate from 1975 to 1981, made possible in large measure through foreign aid and credits, had declined to about 5% by 1986. Revenues for 1985–86 from petroleum exports, Suez Canal traffic, tourism, and remittances from Egyptians working abroad—all mainstays of the Egyptian economy—were eroded in the wake of sharp declines in international oil prices and developments in the Iran-Iraq war. The inflation rate grew from less than 5% annually in the 1960s to nearly 23% by 1986, reflecting worldwide price increases and the government's deficit spending. Egypt's economic position was strengthened when the Gulf states and the United States rewarded the Egyptians for their role in forming the Arab anti-Iraq coalition, reducing external debt to about $40 billion in 1990.

In the early 1990s, the collapse of world oil prices and an increasingly heavy debt burden led Egypt into negotiations with the IMF for balance-of-payments support. As a condition of the support, Egypt embarked on a comprehensive economic reform and structural adjustment program, under the aegis of the IMF and the World Bank. Egypt succeeded in stabilizing the macroeconomic fundamentals necessary for sustained economic growth: the budget deficit was around 1.3% of GDP, and the inflation rate held steady at 3.8% in 1999. However, progress toward privatizing and streamlining the public sector and liberalizing trade policy was slow. Consequently, despite the improvements, the economy has not experienced the economic growth necessary to reduce unemployment (around 10.9% in 2004, but unofficial estimates are more than twice that figure) and generate the targeted 6–7% growth rates in the GDP (GDP growth averaged 3% over the 2001–05 period). The inflation rate over the 2001–05 period averaged 5.2%, and the budget deficit had reached 6.2% of GDP in 2003.

Remittances from Egyptians working abroad have aided the Egyptian economy. Reform legislation in the areas of intellectual property rights, mortgage laws, and legislation developing banking and capital markets have made the business climate more favorable to investment. A more economically liberal cabinet was appointed in mid-2004, which announced far-reaching plans for economic reform. In September of that year, Egypt pushed through custom reforms, proposed income and corporate tax reforms, reduced energy subsidies, and privatized several enterprises. The tourism sector feared a downturn in tourist numbers when Islamic terrorists attacked resorts in the Sinai Peninsula in 2004 and 2005, but the industry performed better than expected. The development of an export market for natural gas is something for which Egypt strives, but improvement in the capital-intensive hydrocarbons sector does not ameliorate Egypt's chronic unemployment problem.

INCOME

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports that in 2005 Egypt's gross domestic product (GDP) was estimated at $337.9 billion. The CIA defines GDP as the value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year and computed on the basis of purchasing power parity (PPP) rather than value as measured on the basis of the rate of exchange based on current dollars. The per capita GDP was estimated at $4,400. The annual growth rate of GDP was estimated at 4.5%. The average inflation rate in 2005 was 5.4%. It was estimated that agriculture accounted for 15% of GDP, industry 36.7%, and services 48.4%.

According to the World Bank, in 2003 remittances from citizens working abroad totaled $2.961 billion or about $44 per capita and accounted for approximately 3.6% of GDP. Foreign aid receipts amounted to $894 million or about $13 per capita and accounted for approximately 1.1% of the gross national income (GNI).

The World Bank reports that in 2003 household consumption in Egypt totaled $59.55 billion or about $881 per capita based on a GDP of $82.4 billion, measured in current dollars rather than PPP. Household consumption includes expenditures of individuals, households, and nongovernmental organizations on goods and services, excluding purchases of dwellings. It was estimated that for the period 1990 to 2003 household consumption grew at an average annual rate of 4.2%. In 2001 it was estimated that approximately 44% of household consumption was spent on food, 7% on fuel, 3% on health care, and 17% on education. It was estimated that in 2000 about 16.7% of the population had incomes below the poverty line.

LABOR

Egypt's civilian labor force increased from 14.8 million in 1990 to 16.8 million in 1994, to an estimated 21.34 million in 2005. In 2002, agriculture accounted for 27.5% of the workforce, with 51.9% in services, and 20.6% in industry. Unemployment was estimated at 10% in 2005.

Egyptian workers obtained the legal right to organize trade unions in 1942. However, private sector unions remain the exception, rather than the rule. In 2005, there were 23 trade unions, all of which were required to be members of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF). The ETUF in 2005 had four million members. Approximately 25% of the Egyptian workforce were union members and were employed at state-owned companies. Collective bargaining is permitted, but is handled through a labor consultative council that includes employer, worker and government representatives. Strikes are prohibited while these procedures are in effect. So-called "wildcat strikes" are prohibited. The government sets wages, benefits and job classifications for government and other public sector employees. In the private sector, employee compensation is set according to the country's laws on minimum wages.

For children in the nonagricultural sector, the law sets the minimum working age at 14 or at the age when basic schooling is completed (which is 15), whichever is higher. In addition, minors under the age of 18 are legally limited to the type of work and the conditions under which it is performed. However, child labor remains a problem. In 2005, an estimated two million children were working. The minimum wage for public-sector employees differed among sectors. The maximum number of hours that can be worked was 48 hours per week. Overtime rates of pay begin at 36 hours, with an extra differential rate for daytime and nighttime hours. Minimum rates, in conjunction with a series of bonuses and other benefits generally triples the amount, thus offering a worker and a family with a decent living standard. Enforcement of health and safety regulations is sporadic.

AGRICULTURE

During the 1970s, despite substantial investment in land reclamation, agriculture lost its position as the dominant economic sector. Agricultural exports, which accounted for 87% of all merchandise export value in 1960, fell to 35% in 1974 and to 13% by 2004. In 2003, agriculture accounted for 16% of GDP and 34% of employment.

Cotton has been the staple crop, but it is no longer important as an export. Production in 1999 was 243,000 tons. Egypt is also a substantial producer of wheat, corn, sugarcane, fruit and vegetables, fodder, and rice; substantial quantities of wheat are also imported despite increases in yield since 1970, and significant quantities of rice are exported. Citrus, dates, and grapes are the principal fruits by acreage. Agricultural output in tons in 2004 included corn, 5,800,000; wheat, 7,199,000; rice, 6,150,000; potatoes, 1,950,000; and oranges, 1,750,000. The government exercises a substantial degree of control over agriculture, not only to ensure the best use of irrigation water but also to limit the planting of cotton in favor of food grains. However, the government's ability to achieve this objective is limited by crop rotational constraints.

Egypt's arable area totals about 3.4 million hectares (8.4 million acres), about one-quarter of which is land reclaimed from the desert. However, the reclaimed lands only add 7% to the total value of agricultural production. Even though only 3% of the land is arable, it is extremely productive and can be cropped two or even three times per year. Most land is cropped at least twice a year, but agricultural productivity is limited by salinity, which afflicts an estimated 35% of cultivated land, and drainage problems.

Irrigation plays a major role in a country the very livelihood of which depends upon a single river; 99.9% of the arable land is irrigated. Most ambitious of all the irrigation projects is that of the Aswan High Dam, completed in 1971. A report published in March 1975 by the National Council for Production and Economic Affairs indicated that the dam was successful in controlling floodwaters and ensuring continuous water supplies, but that water consumption had been excessive and would have to be controlled. Some valuable land was lost below the dam because the flow of Nile silt was stopped, and increased salinity remains a problem. Further, five years of drought in the Ethiopian highlands—the source of the Nile River's water—caused the water level of Lake Nasser, the Aswan High Dam's reservoir, to drop to the lowest level ever in 1987. In 1996, however, the level of water behind the High Dam and in Lake Nasser reached the highest level since the completion of the dam. Despite this unusual abundance of water supply, Egypt can only utilize 55.5 billion cu m (1.96 trillion cu ft) annually, according to the Nile Basin Agreement signed in 1959 between Egypt and Sudan. Another spectacular project designed to address the water scarcity problem is the New Valley (the "second Nile"), aimed at development of the large artesian water supplies underlying the oases of the Western Desert. Total investment in agriculture and land reclamation for the government's Third Plan (1993–1997) was e£16,963 million.

The agrarian reform law of 1952 provided that no one might hold more than 190 feddans for farming and that each landholder must either farm the land himself or rent it under specified conditions. Up to 95 additional feddans might be held if the owner had children, and additional land had to be sold to the government. In 1961, the upper limit of landholding was reduced to 100 feddans, and no person was allowed to lease more than 50 feddans (1 feddan = 0.42 hectares). Compensation to the former owners was in bonds bearing a low rate of interest, redeemable within 40 years. A law enacted in 1969 reduced landholdings by one person to 50 feddans. By the mid-1980s, 90% of all land titles were for holdings of less than five feddans, and about 300,000 families, or 8% of the rural population, had received land under the agrarian reform program. According to a 1990 agricultural census, there were some three million small land holdings, almost 96% of which were under five feddans (2.1 hectares/5.2 acres). Since the late 1980s, many reforms attempting to deregulate agriculture by liberalizing input and output prices and by eliminating crop area controls have been initiated. As a result, the gap between world and domestic prices for Egyptian agricultural commodities has been closed.

The government plans massive irrigation and development projects to create new communities to alleviate population intensity in the valley, with the objective of increasing the percentage of populated areas from 5.3% to 25% of Egypt's total area. These projects are centralized in southern Egypt, by the Suez Canal, and Sinai. The government plans to create a new delta in the south of the Western Desert parallel to the Nile, adding 540,000 feddans (1,134,000 hectares/2,802,000 acres) to the cultivated area, to be irrigated by the Nile's water.

ANIMAL HUSBANDRY

Because of the very intensive cultivation of the soil, little land is available for animal husbandry, but efforts were made in the 1980s to increase the output of fodder per land unit and the productivity of livestock raising. In 2005, the estimated livestock population included 95,000,000 chickens, 3,960,000 goats, 5,150,000 sheep, 3,920,000 head of buffalo, 4,500,000 head of cattle, and 30,000 hogs. Livestock products in that year included 2,300,000 tons of cow milk, 1,433,000 tons of meat, and 240,000 tons of eggs.

FISHING

Fishing is concentrated in the Nile Delta and River and in the Mediterranean and Red seas. The catch of sea fish amounted to 160,319,174 tons in 2003. The inland catch was 715,074 tons. Mullet and eels are caught in the Delta and sardines in the Mediterranean. Egypt's production from aquaculture amounted to 445,181 tons. Total fish production from capture and aquaculture was 875,990 tons in 2003. There is a small-scale freezing and canning industry. Nevertheless, Egypt has been a net importer of fish. In the early 1980s, new fish-farming facilities were established at Maryut in the Delta.

FORESTRY

There are no forests in Egypt. In 2003, Egypt imported $791.2 million in forest products. The construction and furniture-making industries rely on wood imports. Furniture production engages about 40,000 persons and is concentrated in the Damietta Governorate in the northern part of the Nile Delta. Softwood products come mostly from Russia, Sweden, and Finland; hardwood products from Romania, Croatia, and Bosnia.

MINING

In recent decades, crude oil, natural gas, and petroleum products have dominated Egypt's mineral industry. However Egypt is also a producer of ferroalloys, gold, iron ore, primary aluminum, steel, secondary copper, lead and zinc, and construction materials such as clay, gypsum, gemstones, dimension stone and raw materials to make glass. Among nonfuel minerals, phosphate rock (around the Red Sea, along the Nile, and in the Western Desert) and iron ore were the most important in terms of value and ore grade. In 2003 Egypt also produced manganese ore, titanium, ilmenite, asbestos, barite, cement, bentonite, fire clay, kaolin, crude feldspar, fluorspar, gypsum and anhydrite, lime, nitrogen, salt, soda ash, sodium sulfate, basalt, dolomite, granite, dimension stone, gravel, limestone, marble blocks (including alabaster), glass sand, construction sand, talc, soapstone, pyrophyllite, and vermiculite, and there were occurrences of gold, ocher, sulfate of magnesia, and nitrate of soda. The government was engaged in efforts to partially privatize mining and metal assets. Although mineral resources have been exploited in Egypt since antiquity, including gemstones and zinc, some regions of the country remained geologically unexplored. Extraction of limestone, clay, and gypsum during World War II rose in response to the Allied armies' urgent demand.

In 2003, Egypt produced 1.5 million metric tons of phosphate rock, unchanged from 2002, but up from 972,000 metric tons in 2001. Output of iron ore and concentrate was 2.5 million metric tons in 2003, unchanged since 2001. Development of an iron ore mine and steel plant near Aswan ceased in 2000 when the government charged the promoters with misappropriating public funds. Higher-quality deposits were being exploited in the Western Desert. Gold and copper deposits were not of sufficient grade to justify profitable extraction.

ENERGY AND POWER

Egypt is an important non-OPEC energy producer. (OPEC is the Organization of the 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. The Abu Rudeis and Ra's Sudr oil fields in the Sinai, captured by Israel in 1967, were returned to Egyptian control in November 1975, and the remaining Sinai oil fields reverted to Egyptian control by the end of April 1982. Egypt's proven crude oil reserves were estimated at 3.7 billion barrels as of 1 January 2005. Oil production in 2004 was estimated at 698,000 barrels per day, (down from 922,000 barrels per day in 1996), of which crude oil accounted for 594,000 barrels per day. Approximately 50% of Egypt's oil production comes from the Gulf of Suez, with the Western Desert, Eastern Desert, and the Sinai Peninsula as country's three other primary producing areas. Domestic consumption was estimated at 564,000 barrels per day in 2004. Net oil exports in that same year were estimated at 134,000 barrels per day. The Suez Canal and the 322-km (200-mi) Sumed Pipeline from the Gulf of Suez to the Mediterranean Sea are two routes for oil from the Persian Gulf, which makes Egypt a strategic point of interest in world energy markets. Although the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) has deepened the canal so that it can accommodate the largest bulk freight carriers, the canal was scheduled to be deepened a further 20 m (66 ft) by the end of 2006 to accommodate very large crude carriers (VLCCs).

Egypt operates nine refineries that are capable of processing crude oil at an estimated rate of 726,250 barrels per day, as of 1 January 2005. The largest refinery is the El-Nasr facility located at Suez. It is able to process 146,300 barrels per day.

Major discoveries in the 1990s have given natural gas increasing importance as an energy source. According to data from Egypt's Ministry of Petroleum, the country's reserves of natural gas are estimated at 66 trillion cu ft, as of 1 January 2005, but probable reserves have been placed at or more than 120 trillion cu ft. Since the early 1990s, significant deposits of natural gas have been found in the Western Desert, in the Nile Delta and offshore from the Nile Delta. Domestic consumption of natural gas has also risen as a result of thermal power plants converting from oil to natural gas. As of 2002, Egypt's production and consumption of natural gas are each estimated at 941 billion cu ft.

The Egyptian electric power system is almost entirely integrated, with thermal stations in Cairo and Alexandria and generators at Aswan. In 2002, output was estimated at 81.3 billion kWh, of which nearly 85% was from fossil fuels and 15% was from hydropower (mostly from the Aswan High Dam). In the same year, consumption of electricity totaled 75.719 billion kWh. Total installed capacity was estimated at 17.6 million kW, as of 1 January 2002.

A $239 million electricity network link with Jordan was completed in 1998. In late 2002 Egypt announced that it would coordinate a regional energy distribution center to coordinate energy distribution among the nations of the region, including Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.

INDUSTRY

Egypt at the time of the 1952 revolution was much further advanced industrially than any other Arab country or indeed any country in Africa except South Africa. Under the socialist Nasser administration, the government coordinated industrial expansion and the establishment of an industrial base. As a result, bureaucracy and a dependence on political directives from the government became common to Egyptian industry. Since the early 1990s the government has promoted privatization as a way to eventually increase industrial output.

Industry accounted for 33% of GDP in 2004, and employed 17% of the labor force. The industrial production growth rate in 2004 was 2.5%. Major industrial products included textiles, chemicals (including fertilizers, polymers, and petrochemicals), pharmaceuticals, food processing, petroleum, construction, cement, metals, and light consumer goods. The clothing and textiles sector is the largest industrial employer.

Greater Cairo, Alexandria, and Helwan are Egypt's main industrial centers, producing iron and steel, textiles, refined petroleum products, plastics, building materials, electronics, paper, trucks and automobiles, and chemicals. The Helwan iron and steel plant, 29 km (18 mi) south of Cairo, using imported coke, processes iron ore mined near Aswan into sheets, bars, billets, plates, and blooms.

The petroleum industry accounts for approximately 40% of export earnings. Egypt is encouraging oil exploration, but natural gas is becoming the focus of the country's oil and gas industries. In 2005, the country's first liquefied gas export terminal began operations. A large natural gas field off the Mediterranean coast of the Egyptian city of Damietta was discovered in 2002. Natural gas reserves in the country were estimated at 66 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) in 2005, based on new finds.

Egypt's industrial sector has undergone major reforms since World Bank adjustment programs went into effect during 1991, privatizing and restructuring state owned enterprises. Some of the companies in important non-oil industries are technically in the private sector, but control still remains with the government.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Founded in 1971, the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology in Cairo is the national body responsible for science and technology. Egypt also has 12 specialized learned societies in the fields of agriculture, medicine, science, and technology. The National Research Center, also in Cairo, carries out research in pure and applied sciences. The Ministry of Agriculture has 20 attached research institutes in Cairo and Giza. Twenty other institutes conduct research in medicine, science, and technology.

In 2000, (the latest year for which the following data is available) research and development (R&D) expenditures totaled $438.522 million or 0.19% of GDP. In 2002, high technology exports totaled $13 million, or 1% of manufactured exports. For the period 1990-01 there were 366 technicians and 493 researchers per million people actively engaged in R&D.

Located in Cairo are museums devoted to agriculture, geology, railways, and marine technology. In addition to polytechnic institutes in Cairo and Mansoura, Egypt in 1996 had 13 universities offering courses in basic and applied sciences. In 1987–97, science and engineering students accounted for 12% of college and university enrollments.

DOMESTIC TRADE

Cairo and Alexandria are the most important commercial centers. Virtually all importers, exporters, and wholesalers have offices in one or both of these cities. Egypt's retail trade is dominated by a large number of small privately-owned shops and vendors. Government cooperatives with hundreds of outlets also combine wholesale and retail activities. The principal retail centers have general and specialized stores as well as large bazaars. Smaller bazaars and open markets are found in the towns and villages. There are large wholesaling markets for meat and produce in Cairo, Alexandria, and Mansoura. The franchising of fast food restaurants and retail chains continues to grow quickly, with both American- and Egyptian-based companies holding franchises.

Though most farms are privately owned, manufacturing is largely controlled by the public sector. Domestic industries include textiles (especially in cotton), food processing, and vehicle assembly. In 2001, about 51% of the work force was employed in the service sector, which also accounts for about 50% of GDP.

Government hours are 8 am to 2 pm, Saturday to Wednesday. Business hours vary widely. Typically, a business schedule in summer would be 8 am to 2 pm; in the winter, from 9 am to 1 pm and from 5 to 7 pm, Saturday through Wednesday. Friday is the Muslim holy day, and most people do not work on Thursdays. While the official language is Arabic, commercial firms frequently employ English or French for business correspondence. Haggling or in Arabic, momarsa (auction), is a standard business process for determining a fair price for goods and services in Egypt. The Cairo International Trade Fair, held every spring, has been an important promotional event for a number of years.

FOREIGN TRADE

Before 1973, when Egypt was linked to the then-Soviet Union, 55% of its exports went to Soviet bloc countries, which supplied 30% of its imports. In 1999, the EU countries were the market for about 35% of Egypt's exports, and provided Egypt with 36% of its imports. The US provided some 14% of Egypt's imports and received

over 12% of its exports. Trade with Libya and Saudi Arabia has increased in recent years. Petroleum replaced cotton and cotton products as Egypt's principal export in 1976. Fuel exports accounted for 37% of Egypt's estimated $3.5 billion in merchandise exports in 1999. Other exports included textile yarn and cotton (7%), and fabric, and finished garments (7.9%).

In 2004, Egypt's major exports were: finished products (38.4% of all exports); petroleum and petroleum products (38.3%); semifinished products (7.1%); and cotton, textiles, and garments (4.1%). Major imports were intermediate goods (29.5% of all imports); investment goods (22%); petroleum and petroleum products (14.1%); and consumer goods (durables and nondurables, 14%).

Egypt's leading markets in 2004 were: the United States (35.7% of all exports); the EU (34.6%); Arab countries (12.3%); and Asia (8.7%). Leading suppliers that year were: the EU (30.5% of all imports); the United States (23.5%); Asia (14.7%); and Arab countries (7.9%).

BALANCE OF PAYMENTS

Structural reforms instituted in the early 1990s have helped Egypt to slowly try to take care of its debt. Total outstanding debt stood at $33.75 billion in 2004. However, Egypt's annual trade deficit has increased steadily during the late 1990s and early 2000s. The structural trade deficit stood at $9.3 billion in 2004. Merchandise exports, which continue to be dominated by oil, rose strongly to $12.3 billion in 2004, from $9 billion in 2003. However, imports soared by more than 40% to $21.6 billion. The wider trade deficit was offset by a considerable strengthening of the services (fueled by tourism and Suez Canal revenues) and current transfers surpluses, leaving the current-account surplus little changed at 4.7% of GDP. The current-account surplus averaged 2.8% of GDP over the 2001–05 period.

The government has attempted in recent years to improve the balance of payments situation through monetary and foreign exchange

policies that have kept interest rates high and made access to credit and foreign exchange for imports difficult. These policies, while improving the balance of payments situation, have had an overall negative impact on economic growth and the country's ability to encourage foreign investment.

BANKING AND SECURITIES

The National Bank of Egypt, founded in 1898, had as a private institution the exclusive right to issue currency and act as the government's banker. In January 1961, although permitted to retain its commercial banking business, it was divested of its central banking function, which was given to the newly established Central Bank of Egypt. In 1957, when foreign banks refused to finance Egypt's cotton crop after the Suez Canal was nationalized, the government took over foreign banks and insurance companies. By the end of 1962, all banks had been nationalized. The number of registered banks dwindled to only four by 1971.

As of 1999, there were 69 banks operating in Egypt: 4 stateowned commercial banks; 29 commercial banks; 33 investment banks, and 7 specialized banks; including 20 foreign bank branches. The four state-owned commercial banks-the National Bank of Egypt, the Bank of Alexandria, the Banque du Caire, and the Banque Misr-dominate the sector due to their size in terms of assets, deposit base, and branches (an average of 200 branches each), accounting for 55% of the banking system's total assets. The Central Bank of Egypt supervises all banks in Egypt except for Misr African International Bank, the Arab International Bank, and the Egypt Export Development Bank. The national stronghold on the system becomes apparent when the public-sector banks' shares in joint-venture banks are taken into account, which reveals the big four to be holders of over 90% of the total assets of commercial banks. The dominance of the public sector is heightened if the National Investment Bank (NIB) is included. Holding the long-term resources mobilized by the social security system, the NIB possesses roughly 25% of total bank deposits. Private sector ownership accounted for less than 30% of the banking sector in 2002, while the total assets of Egypt's banks in the same year amounted to $72 billion.

In 1975, the public sector was allowed to perform transactions freely with all banks, which became largely free to exercise all banking functions. The government's "open door" policy toward banking permitted international banks of good standing to establish branches in Egypt and exempted those banks from regulations governing the control of foreign exchange. In 1991, foreign exchange rates were liberalized. In 1992 and 1993, laws were passed allowing foreign bank branches to deal in Egyptian currency. In order to bring the Egyptian banking sector into line with international banking norms, banking law 155 of 1998 established a legal basis for the privatization of the four public-sector banks, but by 2002 this process was just getting started.

The International Monetary Fund reports that in 2001, currency and demand deposits—an aggregate commonly known as M1—were equal to $14.9 billion. In that same year, M2—an aggregate equal to M1 plus savings deposits, small time deposits, and money market mutual funds—was $65.8 billion. The discount rate, the interest rate at which the central bank lends to financial institutions in the short term, was 11%.

Egyptians habitually have invested their funds in real estate, in foreign countries, or in gold. In June 1992, a comprehensive Capital Markets Law was passed, sparking a revival of the Cairo and Alexandria exchanges that had been dormant since 1961 nationalization. In 1994, Egypt had one of the world's best-performing stock markets, but the primary stock market remained thin. Most investors preferred to establish closed companies and to resort to bank loans. Stock trading in the secondary market was also limited. Nevertheless, Egypt's first corporate bond since 1951, issued by the German-Egyptian Hoechst Orient in May 1994, was almost three times oversubscribed. In 2004, the Egyptian stock market's capitalization totaled $38.516 billion. In that same year, a combined total of 792 companies where listed on the Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchanges. Trading volume (by value) in 2004 totaled $5.608 billion, up from $3.278 billion in 2003.

INSURANCE

Until the 1950s, insurance companies operating in Egypt were mostly branches of foreign institutions. In July 1961, Egypt promulgated laws nationalizing all insurance companies. From 1996, the insurance market was dominated by four public-sector insurance companies (one of which was a re-insurance company), although three private-sector companies existed. Two joint ventures with foreign firms operated in the free zones. The domestic insurance market was closed to foreign companies, although they were able to operate as minority partners in Egypt's eight free zones.

As part of its IMF agreement, the government pushed a new, if still restrictive, insurance law through the People's Assembly in early May 1995. This allowed foreign access to the domestic market on condition that the foreign company owned no more than a 49% stake in the insurance company, that the manager of the company was Egyptian, and that the company met the capitalization requirement of $9 million. By 1998, the Egyptian parliament had passed a law allowing 100% ownership by foreign insurance companies, and complete privatization of public-sector insurance companies, but little progress has been made towards these goals. In 1999, there were 12 national insurance companies practicing in Egypt, and by 2003 there was $566 million in direct insurance premiums written, with nonlife premiums accounting for $386 million. Misr was the country's top nonlife insurer, with gross nonlife written premiums of $139.2 million in 2003. Al Chark was the top life insurer in that same year, with gross life premiums written of $55.2 million.

PUBLIC FINANCE

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimated that in 2005 Egypt's central government took in revenues of approximately $18 billion and had expenditures of $24.5 billion. Revenues minus expenditures totaled approximately -$6.5 billion. Public debt in 2005 amounted to 93.6% of GDP. Total external debt was $28.95 billion.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that in 2002, the most recent year for which it had data, budgetary central government revenues were e£77,773 million and expenditures were e£100,739 million. The value of revenues in US dollars was us$17,283 million and expenditures $22,386 million, based on a market exchange rate for 2002 of us$ = e£4.5000 as reported by the IMF. Government outlays by function were as follows: general public services, 35.7%; defense, 10.1%; public order and safety, 5.7%; economic affairs, 9.8%; housing and community amenities, 4.0%; health, 4.9%; recreation, culture, and religion, 9.6%; education, 19.2%; and social protection, 0.9%.

TAXATION

As of 2005, Egypt's standard corporate tax rate was 40%, although there was a reduced rate of 32% for industrial companies, and profits made through export operations. Branches of foreign companies are treated the same as domestic companies. Oil production and prospecting companies are subject to a 40.55% tax on their profits.

Personal income tax is assessed according to a progressive schedule with a top rate of 40%.

The main indirect tax is the general sales tax (GST), set at 10% for most products, and 25% on a few others. Services are taxed at lower rates of 5% and 10%. There are also stamp duties that range from ranging from e£100 to e£600 (roughly, $15 to $100).

CUSTOMS AND DUTIES

Customs duties in Egypt serve not merely for protection but also for revenue. Under-invoicing is common, prompting customs officials to add 10–30% of invoice value to calculate the true value. In September 2004, Egypt's president issued a decree that reduced administrative fees and tariffs on imported goods. Generally, primary foodstuffs and raw materials were subject to a 2% ad valorem duty, followed by a 5% duty on capital goods, a 12% duty on intermediate goods, a 22% duty on nondurable consumer goods, a 32% duty on nondurable consumer goods, a 32% duty on semidurable consumer goods, and a 40% duty on durable consumer goods. In addition, customs fees and tariffs on information technology machines, spare parts and equipment have been. However, items such as alcoholic beverages, tobacco and automobiles with engines larger than 2000 cc are subject to higher rates. Egypt assesses a 2% or 4% service fee on imports (depending on the customs

duty assigned to the commodity) and a 5–25% sales tax is added to the final customs value of imports.

Free zones have been established in Alexandria, Cairo (Nasr City), Port Said, Ismailia, Damietta, Safaga, Sohag, and Suez; these are exempt from customs duties.

FOREIGN INVESTMENT

Egypt has declared that foreign private capital is both desired and welcome and that foreign capital investment has a place in the country's economic development. Investors in approved enterprises are assured of facilities for transfer of profits, withdrawal of capital, and employment of necessary foreign personnel. In 1974, Egypt sought specifically to encourage capital investments from multinational corporations in the West, so new projects financed with foreign capital were protected, capital was freed for reexport within five years of its investment in Egypt, and investment profits earned within Egypt were allowed transfer abroad. In 1991, all foreign exchange transfer restrictions were lifted.

The main laws governing foreign investment are the Capital Market Law of 1992, as amended to increase stock market regulation in 1998; the Investment Incentives and Guarantees Law of 1997, establishing the regime for free trade zones (FTZs); and a series of laws in 1998 setting conditions for private (including foreign) participation in public banks, insurance, maritime transport, electricity distribution, and telecommunications.

Depending on their size, location, and other characteristics, new projects financed with foreign capital are exempt from taxation for five to ten years; in addition, payments of interest on foreign loans are not taxable and investors are exempt from certain customs duties. There is one basic condition for approval: the project must be on an approved list in the fields of industrialization, mining, energy, tourism, transportation, reclamation and cultivation of barren land, or animal husbandry. Applications must be made to the General Authority for Arab Investment and the Free Zones, which consists of the minister of state for Arab and foreign economic cooperation and seven other members. The bidding process for contracts has been made more transparent, but Egyptian bids have preference up to 15% above foreign bids. Since 1991, Egypt has liberalized its foreign trade by reducing the number of items on its list of banned imports. In 1990, the list covered 37% of all imports; in 1992, 11%; and in 1999, only apparel was banned. The use of other nontariff barriers on imports and export restrictions has also been reduced. Bureaucratic barriers, however, still hamper investment. FTZs offer exemption from import duties, sales taxes, and taxes and fees on capital goods. A 1% tax is charged on warehoused goods and on exports from assembly plants. Investments are often located in the free zones of Alexandria, Cairo (Nasr City), Port Said, Ismailia, Damietta, Safaga, Sohag, and Suez. In 2003, to deal with the chronic shortage in foreign exchange, a law was passed requiring that 75% of foreign exchange earnings be converted into local currency.

A new Ministry of Investment was created in July 2004 to oversee investment policy, coordinating among the various ministries with investment-related areas of responsibility.

From 1992, foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow was about $1 billion a year. As of 2005, FDI stock totaled $15–$20 billion. Inflows of FDI peaked in 1999 at nearly $3 billion, but then fell to $1.2 billion in 2000, to $510 million in 2001, and to only $184 million in the first three quarters of fiscal year 2003/04. In terms of portfolio investment, the Egyptian stock market declined nearly 60% in 2001, and did not recover by 2004.

The United Kingdom is Egypt's largest foreign investor, followed by the United States; both countries are very active in investing in the oil and gas sector. Other major investing countries are France, Italy, and Arab countries.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

At the time of the 1952 revolution, Egypt presented the familiar picture of a dual economy, having a small modern sector developed within a tradition-bound society. A rapidly expanding population was pressing hard on limited agricultural resources; there were severe problems of poverty, unemployment, unequal distribution of income and wealth, disease, political corruption, and illiteracy. Rapid industrialization was viewed as essential to economic improvement. The revolution was both a national revolution, Egyptianizing the economy by ridding it of foreign influence, and a social revolution, developing a "democratic, cooperative, socialist" society. The promised "socialism" was not at that time doctrinaire; it was pragmatically selective in its application. A major objective was the diversion of private investment from land into industry. In this earlier period, industrialization also was fostered through government creation and expansion of industrial firms.

In July 1961, in a major policy shift, socialist decrees brought virtually all economic activity under government ownership or control. The Charter for National Action, which elaborated the philosophy of Arab socialism, was approved by the National Congress of Popular Forces on 1 July 1962. It is clear that the Egyptian government had decided that industrialization and improvement of living standards could come only through central planning and direct government ownership and control of virtually the entire system of production and foreign trade.

Egypt inaugurated its first five-year development program in 1960. By the end of 1965, national income had increased in the five-year period by 39.6%; 171,000 new jobs had been created; and wages and salaries had increased by 54%. A second five-year development plan (1966–70) was canceled in 1967 because of the Arab-Israeli war, and annual plans were instituted. Shortly after the 1973 war, President Sadat introduced an "open door" economic development program that confirmed Egypt's socialist policy but decentralized decision making in the public sector, removed government constraints on the private sector, and attracted foreign private capital by liberalizing financial and trade regulations. As a result, most public-sector industries developed rapidly during the 1973–79 period. A five-year development plan (1980–84) was replaced in 1982 by the new plan for 1982–87, of which the public sector was allocated 76.5% of the total funds. Of fixed investments in development projects, the industrial and mining sector was to receive 26%, transport and communications 16%, agriculture 12%, housing 11%, and electric power 8%. By 1987/88–1991/92 investment allocation for the public sector dropped to 62% and to 42% in the 1992/93–1996/97 plan. It aimed at the privatization of several sectors by encouraging the private sector to invest more capital. Egypt at the end of the 1990s was able to attract more foreign investment, cut the inflation rate, and decrease budget deficits.

As of the early 2000s, the state still controlled virtually all heavy industry, although agriculture was in private hands, and has been deregulated, with the exception of the cotton and sugar sectors. This and other efforts at privatization have increased the growth of the economy. At the end of 2004, total public debt amounted to 102.74% of gross domestic product (GDP), and foreign debt amounted to $33.75 billion. A general sales tax was extended to the wholesale and retail levels of business in 2001. Increased spending on infrastructure projects in the early 2000s widened budget deficits once more. In 2003, after a series of currency devaluations, Egypt adopted a floating exchange rate mechanism—the Egyptian pound was no longer pegged to the dollar.

Although such events as the 1997 terrorist attacks at Luxor, the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq dampened the growth of tourism in Egypt, which experienced below-average growth rates in this sector, tourist arrivals were 10 times higher than global averages over the 2000–03 period, and attracted some 25% of tourist arrivals to the Middle East. There were more than six million visitors to Egypt in 2003. This growth in arrivals generated $4.6 billion in tourism receipts, accounting for 22% of total exports of goods and services, and 39% of services exports, making tourism the largest foreign currency earner in Egypt. In 2004, tourism was estimated to generate some $6.1 billion in revenue, although terrorist attacks in the Sinai Peninsula in 2004 and 2005 contributed to below-target tourist arrivals.

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Employees pay 10–13% of their wages toward old age, disability, and survivor pensions. Retirement is set at age 60. A death grant and a funeral grant is also available. Employed persons aged 18 or older are covered by work injury insurance, except for casual workers, domestic workers, and the self-employed. Unemployment legislation has been in place since 1959 and covers all employed persons in the public and private sectors. It is funded by contributions from employers with deficits covered by the government.

Equality of the sexes is provided by law, but many aspects of law and traditional practice discriminate against women. Under Egyptian law, only males can transmit citizenship to their children or spouses. Women have won employment opportunities in a number of fields, but Egyptian feminists fear these gains will be halted by resurgent Islamic fundamentalism. Muslim female heirs receive half of the amount of a male heir, and Christian widows of Muslims retain no inheritance rights. The government continues its efforts to eradicate the widespread practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). Domestic abuse and violence is common. Because the concept of family integrity supersedes the well-being of the woman, few women seek redress from authorities.

Christian minorities in Egypt are often subject to discrimination and harassment. Extremists have attacked churches and have killed Christians. They sometimes face discrimination in obtaining higher education and employment. Muslim converts to Christianity have been subject to harassment by police and have been charged under the Penal Code.

Human rights abuses of torture, extrajudicial killings, and prolonged pretrial detentions are on the decline. Arbitrary arrest and detention continue, and prison conditions remain poor. The government restricts freedom of press, assembly, religion, and expression. Islamic extremists also engaged in terrorist attacks, killing civilians. Human rights organizations do not have legal recognition, but they do operate openly.

HEALTH

Nearly all Egyptians have access to health care. Between 1982 and 1987 (during the first five-year plan), the government established 14 public and central hospitals, 115 rural health units, and 39 rural hospitals. The total number of beds increased by 9,257 during this period (to a total in 1985 of 96,700). In 1987, 190 general and central hospitals were established (26,200 beds), as well as 2,082 rural health units, and 78 village hospitals. In 2000, 95% of the population had access to safe drinking water and 94% had adequate sanitation. As of 2004, there were an estimated 212 physicians, 276 nurses, 27 dentists, and 68 pharmacists per 100,000 people.

Serious diseases in Egypt include schistosomiasis, malaria, hookworm, trachoma, tuberculosis, dysentery, beriberi, and typhus. Although malaria and polio cases were small in number, nearly 1,444 measles cases were reported in 1994. In 1999, Egypt vaccinated children up to one year old against tuberculosis; diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus (94%); polio; and measles (95%). Of children under age five, 4% were malnourished as of 2000.

As of 2000, 56% of reproductive-age women practiced contraception. Abortion is legal only for medical reasons. The overall death rate was estimated at 7.6 per 1,000 inhabitants in 2002 and the infant mortality rate in 2005 was 32.59 per 1,000 live births. Life expectancy in 2005 was 71 years.

A full 80% of all Egyptian women undergo female genital mutilation. There are no specific laws against this practice. Egypt planned to expand its health insurance, with the target of covering 75% of the population. Total health care expenditure was estimated at 3.8% of GDP.

The HIV/AIDS prevalence was 0.10 per 100 adults in 2003. As of 2004, there were approximately 12,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in the country. There were an estimated 900 deaths from AIDS in 2003.

HOUSING

Prior to 1952, most Egyptians lived in mud huts. Post revolutionary governments, however, have actively concerned themselves with housing. In order to encourage rural housing activities on unfertile soil, "extension areas" have been allocated for villages. Efforts have been made to provide low-rent housing in towns; the units were constructed in cooperation with the Reconstruction and Popular Dwellings Co., in which the government held a share. Assisted by the state, which grants long-term and low-interest loans, cooperative societies also engage in housing construction. The state affords facilities for cooperatives to acquire land from the religious foundations.

Despite these efforts, Egypt's housing shortage remains acute, with about one million units needed in urban areas. Housing construction was a major priority of development plans in the 1980s, but it was considered likely that it would take many years for Egypt's housing deficit to be met. The greatest shortage is in lowcost housing.

According to the 1996 census, there were about 9.6 million apartments and 4.5 million rural homes throughout the country. About 2.6 million units were built in the period 1981–1999. There were nearly 400 slum/squatter areas housing over seven million people. In 1998, government subsidies helped build about 63,000 housing units. The new housing demand has been estimated at about 750,000 per year. In 2004, only about 260,000 units were available for sale. About 1.8 million housing units are vacant, partly because tenants can not afford the cost of rent, but also because rent controls translate into low rents in some areas and landlords feel that the cost of maintenance would be higher than their return.

EDUCATION

The Education Act of 1953 provided free and compulsory education for all children between the ages of 6 and 15. The nine years of basic education is split into six years of primary education and three years of preparatory studies. Secondary schools cover threeyear programs in either general or technical studies. Some students opt for a five-year advanced technical studies program for secondary school. The curriculum was updated in 1995 and includes a greater emphasis on vocational training, as well as on physics and foreign languages. The general secondary education certificate entitles the holder to enter a university.

In 2001, about 13% of children between the ages of four and five were enrolled in some type of preschool program. Primary school enrollment in 2003 was estimated at about 91% of age-eligible students. In 2001, secondary school enrollment was about 78% of age-eligible students; 80% for boys and 76% for girls. It is estimated that about 91% of all students complete their primary education. The student-to-teacher ratio for primary school was at about 22:1 in 2003; the ratio for secondary school was about 17:1.

A decree of 23 July 1962 provided free tuition at all Egyptian universities. The traditional center for religious education in the Muslim world is Al-Azhar in Cairo, which in 1983 celebrated 1,000 years of teaching as the oldest continuously operating school in the world. Al-Azhar offers instruction in three faculties and 14 affiliated institutes and maintains its own primary and secondary schools. There are a total of 13 universities, and numerous institutes of higher learning.

There is also the American University in Cairo, which offers a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses, as well as an American school in Cairo and one in Alexandria. The American Research Center in Cairo is supported by US universities and museums. It was established in 1948 to encourage the exchange of archaeologists and other researchers in almost all fields of interest.

Adult education, under the Ministry of Education, is increasingly important. Since 1993 the government conducted a campaign against illiteracy. Business firms are required to combat illiteracy among their employees. Recent university graduates are being hired to lead literacy classes, and armed forces recruits are also expected to teach. In addition, the government has set up 3,000 oneclass schools to teach a nontraditional study plan. These schools are aimed at girls who are unlikely to attend formal schooling, and as a result, are likely to remain illiterate. The schools provide vocational training and lessons on income generating businesses, in addition to the more traditional classes in Arabic, religion, sciences and arithmetic. In 2003, about 19% of the tertiary age population were enrolled in some type of higher education program. The adult literacy rate for 2004 was estimated at about 55.6%, with 67.2% for men and 43.6% for women. As of 1999, public expenditure on education was estimated at 4.7% of GDP.

LIBRARIES AND MUSEUMS

In 2003 the Bibliotheca Alexandria was established on the same site of the ancient library destroyed in a fire 2,000 years before. Bibliotheca Alexandria is the largest library in the Middle East and serves as a cultural center with exhibit areas, planetarium, and conference center. Egypt's other major libraries are the Egyptian National Library (2.5 million volumes), Alexandria University Library (with 15 collections, of which the largest—belonging to the Faculty of Arts—numbers 141,300 volumes), and the Cairo University Library (more than 1.4 million volumes). The National Library also functions as the main public library for the nation's capital and supervises 11 branch libraries located throughout the country. The Municipal Library in Alexandria contains one of the country's largest public library collections, with 23,390 Arabic and 35,400 European volumes.

One of the most important special libraries is the Scientific and Technical Documentation Division of the National Research Center at Cairo, which has the best collection of scientific and technical material in the Arab world. American University in Cairo sponsors a library system of nearly 400,000 volumes (primarily English language) and holds the Creswell Collection of Islamic art and architecture, comprising about 3,200 bound volumes. In all, Egyptian libraries affiliated with institutions of higher education hold over 35 million volumes. Assuit University sponsors 16 libraries with an approximate total of 177,274 Arabic volumes and 167,120 foreign books, as well as hundreds of periodicals.

The Egyptian National Museum, founded in 1902, contains unique exhibits from prehistoric times up to the 3rd century ad, and it also has a notable Department of Antiquities, established in 1835, which supervises excavations and administers archaeological museums. There are many specialized museums, including the Coptic Museum, devoted to the history of the old Christian Monophysites; the Museum of Islamic Art; the Greco-Roman Museum; the Agricultural Museum; the State Museum of Modern Art; the Islamic Archaeological Museum; the Railway Museum; and the Cotton Museum. There is a museum dedicated exclusively to the work of Mohmoud Mokhtar in Cairo. Several former royal palaces have been transformed into museums: the Al-Gawhara Palace in Cairo (a converted 19th-century Ottoman palace), Ras at-Tin Palace in Alexandria, and Al-Montazah Palace in Montazah-Alexandria.

MEDIA

Telephone, telegraph, radio, and television services are operated by the state-owned Telecommunication Organization. In 2003, there were an estimated 127 mainline telephones for every 1,000 people; about 99,500 people were on a waiting list for telephone service installation. The same year, there were approximately 84 mobile phones in use for every 1,000 people.

As of 1999, there were 42 AM and 14 FM radio stations and 42 television stations, broadcasting mostly in Arabic. In 2003, there were an estimated 339 radios and 229 television sets for every 1,000 people. The same year, there were 21.9 personal computers for every 1,000 people and 39 of every 1,000 people had access to the Internet. There were 28 secure Internet servers in the country in 2004.

The two leading newspapers, with their estimated 2002 daily circulations, are Al-Ahram (The Pyramid ; 900,000) and Al-Akhbar (The News ; 780,000). Al-Jumhuriyah (The Republic ; 900,000) is the official publication of the government; Al-Ahram is the unofficial publication. The leading evening paper is Al-Misa'a (405,000). There is also an English-language newspaper, the Egyptian Gazette (40,000). Arev is a daily Armenian paper. There are two weekly Greek publications, Phos (20,000) and Tachydromos-Egyptos (2,000). Le Journal D'Egypte (weekly, 72,000) and La Reforme (daily) are the leading French publications.

On 23 May 1960, all Egyptian newspapers were nationalized and subjected to censorship. President Sadat ended formal press censorship in 1974, but the following year he set up a government council to supervise the newspapers. In 1981, President Mubarak revoked the ban on opposition newspapers, but the press remains sensitive to the wishes of the government. The Middle East News Agency is under the supervision of the information section of the Ministry of National Guidance. The constitution does provide for freedom of speech and press, though the government exercises control through media ownership, oversight, and a monopoly on resources such as newsprint.

ORGANIZATIONS

Most organizations in Egypt serve occupational and professional (particularly agricultural) goals. The land reform law makes it compulsory for landholders who have obtained land under it to join cooperative societies (such as the Egyptian Seed Association) to help supply them with tested seeds, tools if available, and possibly markets. Several multinational organizations are based in Egypt, including the African Farmers Association and the Arab Labor Organization. The International Labour Organization has an office in Cairo. There are many chambers of commerce, representing various cities and various economic groups. The Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce is in Cairo.

There are scholastic and archaeological, accounting, economic, historical, and other learned organizations. A national Academy of Scientific Research and Technology was established in 1971. The Egyptian Medical Association promotes research and education on health issues and works to establish common policies and standards in healthcare. There are also several associations dedicated to research and education for specific fields of medicine and particular diseases and conditions.

Egypt serves as a multinational center for many sports organizations, including Arab federations for boxing, fishing, basketball, judo, gymnastics, and fencing, to name a few. Many youth organizations are affiliated with religious institutions. Scouting programs are active, as are chapters of the YMCA/YWCA. The Egyptian Association of Women promotes higher education and professional training for women.

The multinational Arab Organization for Human Rights is based in Cairo. There are national chapters of the Red Crescent Society, CARE, the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, UNICEF, and Caritas.

TOURISM, TRAVEL, AND RECREATION

Passports and visas are required of tourists. Visitors arriving from most African, American, and Caribbean countries need either a certificate of vaccinations against yellow fever or a location certificate from the Sudanese government stating that they have not been in southern Sudan within the previous six days.

Tourism has been a major foreign exchange earner. It grew steadily after the end of the Iran-Iraq war. There were 6,044,160 foreign visitors in 2003, almost 69% of whom came from Europe. The 136,510 hotel rooms with 273,020 beds had an occupancy rate of 59%. Tourism receipts totaled $4.7 billion. The average length of stay that year was eight nights. Principal tourist attractions include the pyramids and Great Sphinx at Giza, the Abu Simbel temples south of Aswan, the Valley of the Kings at Luxor, and the Muhammad Ali Mosque in Cairo. Rides are available on fellucas, traditional sailing boats of the Nile. Popular pastimes among Egyptians include card playing, movie-going, and sports such as football (soccer), swimming, tennis, and horse racing.

In 2005, the US Department of State estimated the daily cost of staying in Cairo at $239. Expenses in Alexandria were $242 per day.

FAMOUS EGYPTIANS

Egypt's first recorded ruler, or pharaoh, was Menes (or Narmer, fl.3100? bc), who united the southern and northern kingdoms and founded the capital at Memphis. Notable successor pharaohs included Cheops (Khufu, fl.26th cent. bc), who built the Great Pyramid at Giza; Thutmose III (r.1504?–1450 bc), who greatly extended the empire through conquest; Amenhotep III (r.1417–1379 bc), who ruled at the summit of ancient Egyptian civilization and built extensive monuments; his son Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten, or Ikhnaton, r.1379–1362 bc), who, with his queen, Nefertiti, instituted a brief period of monotheism; and Tutankhamen (r.1361–1352 bc), whose tomb containing valuable treasures was found practically intact in 1922. Cleopatra VII (69–30 bc) was involved in the political conflicts of the Romans.

Philo Judaeus (13? bc–ad 50?) attempted to combine Greek philosophy with Judaism. Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus, fl.2d cent. ad) was the foremost astronomer of ancient times. Egyptian-born Plotinus (ad 205?–270) was a neoplatonic philosopher in Rome.

The most notable of Egypt's rulers under the Muslim caliphate was Saladin (Salah ad-Din, 1138–93), sultan of Egypt and Syria and founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. The founder of Egypt as a part of the Ottoman Empire was Muhammad 'Ali (1769–1849), of Albanian origin, the first of a dynasty that ended with the deposition of Faruk in 1952. 'Arabi Pasha (Ahmad 'Arabi, 1841?–1911) led a popular uprising against British intervention in 1882 but was defeated. Later, the fiery political fight against British rule was waged by Sa'ad Zaghlul Pasha (1860?–1927), a founder of the Nationalist Party, Wafd.

No one had greater influence on Egypt during the 1950s and 1960s than Gamal Abdel Nasser (Jamal 'Abd al-Nasir, 1918–70), the moving spirit of the army's revolt against the monarchy in 1952. As prime minister (1954–56) and president (1956–70), Nasser set Egypt on its socialist course and attempted to unify the Arab world through confederation. His successor as president, Anwar al-Sadat (as-Sadat, 1918–81), continued Nasser's policies but with important modifications, especially in relation to Israel; with Menachem Begin he shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978 and negotiated the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979. Upon Sadat's assassination in 1981, Muhammad Hosni (Husni) Mubarak (b.1928), who had been air force chief of staff (1969–72) and vice-president (1975–81), became president of Egypt. Mohamed ElBaradei (b.1942) is the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). ElBaradei and the IAEA were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.

The poet Sami al-Barudi (1839–1904) wrote popular and highly regarded verses about Islam's heroic early age. 'Abbas al-Aqqad (1889–1964) has been called the greatest contemporary Arab poet and the most original Arab writer. Involved in a political plot, he was jailed and composed an Arab "De Profundis" about his life in prison. Taha Husayn (1889–1973), the most widely known modern Egyptian intellectual leader, was minister of education from 1950 to 1952. The poet and essayist Malak Hifni Nasif (1886–1918) sought an improvement in the status of women. Ahmad Zaki Abu Shadi (1892–1955) was a renowned poet, essayist, and dramatist. Mahmud Taymur (1894–1973), a leading dramatist, wrote popular social satires and comedies. Um Kalthum (Fatma al-Zahraa Ibrahim, 1898?–1975) was the most famous singer of the Arab world. Mohammed Hassanein Heikal (b.1923), journalist and author, was the outspoken editor of the influential newspaper Al-Ahram (1957–74) until he was forced by the government to resign. In 1988, Naguib Mahfouz (b.1912) won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Ahmed Hassan Zewail (b.1946) is an Egyptian-American chemist, and the winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on femtochemistry.

DEPENDENCIES

Egypt has no territories or colonies.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Asante, MolefiK. Culture and Customs of Egypt. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002.

Bunson, Margaret. Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. New York: Facts on File, 2002.

Goldschmidt, Arthur. Historical Dictionary of Egypt. 3rd ed. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 2003.

——. Historical Dictionary of Egypt. [computer file] Boulder, Colo.: netLibrary, Inc., 2000.

Harik, Iliya F. Economic Policy Reform in Egypt. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997.

Rossellini, Ippolito. The Monuments of Egypt and Nubia. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2003.

Shaw, Ian (ed.). The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Supples, Kevin. Egypt. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2002.

Weiss, Dieter. The Economics and Politics of Transition to an Open Market Economy: Egypt. Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1998.

Zeilig, Leo and David Seddon. A Political and Economic Dictionary of Africa. Philadelphia: Routledge/Taylor and Francis, 2005.

Zuehlke, Jeffrey. Egypt in Pictures. Minneapolis: Lerner, 2003.

Egypt , Arab. Misr, biblical Mizraim, officially Arab Republic of Egypt, republic (2005 est. pop. 77,506,000), 386,659 sq mi (1,001,449 sq km), NE Africa and SW Asia. It borders on the Mediterranean Sea in the north, Israel and the Red Sea in the east, Sudan in the south, and Libya in the west. Egypt's capital and largest city is Cairo . In addition to the capital, major cities include Alexandria , Port Said , Suez , Tanta , and Aswan .

Land

The great mass of Egypt is located in Africa; the Sinai peninsula is the only portion situated in Asia and is separated from the rest of the country by the Suez Canal . Egypt N of Cairo is often called Lower Egypt and S of Cairo, Upper Egypt. The principal physiographic feature of the country is the Nile River, which flows from south to north through E Egypt for c.900 mi (1,450 km). In the far south is Lake Nasser, a vast artificial lake impounded by the Aswan High Dam (built 1960–70), and in the north, below Cairo, is the great Nile delta (c.8,500 sq mi/22,000 sq km). Bordering the Nile between Aswan and Cairo are narrow strips (on the average 5 mi/8 km wide) of cultivated land; there are broad regions of tilled land in the delta.

West of the Nile is the extremely arid Libyan (or Western) Desert, a generally low-lying region (maximum alt. c.1,000 ft/300 m), largely covered with sand dunes or barren rocky plains. The desert contains a few oases, notably Siwah, Farafra, and Kharga. In SW Egypt the desert rises to the Jilf al-Kabir plateau. East of the Nile is the Arabian (or Eastern) Desert, a dissected highland area (rising to c.7,150 ft/2,180 m) that is mostly barren and virtually uninhabited except for a few settlements along the Red Sea coast.

The Sinai peninsula is a plateau broken by deep valleys; Mount Catherine, or Jabal Katrinah (8,652 ft/2,637 m), Egypt's loftiest point, and Mount Sinai, or Jabal Musa (7,497 ft/2,285 m), are located in the south. Northern Sinai, largely a sandy desert, contains most of the peninsula's small population, which lives mainly in towns built around wells.

People

The vast majority of Egypt's inhabitants live in the Nile valley and delta, and the rest of the country (about 96% of Egypt's total land area) is sparsely populated. Most modern Egyptians are of a complex ethnic mixture, being descended from the ancient Egyptians, Berbers, sub-Saharan Africans, Arabs, Greeks, and Turks. Arabic is the official language; many educated Egyptians also speak English and French. About 90% of the people are Sunni Muslims, and most of the rest are Coptic Christians (see Copts ).

Economy

Economic growth in Egypt has been held back by a severely limited amount of arable land (less than 5% of the total area) as well as a large and rapidly growing population. After 1945, a large proportion of funds and energy were devoted to preparing the country for warfare with Israel and later to rebuilding after the destruction incurred in the Arab-Israeli Wars . The country's industrial base increased considerably in the 20th cent., especially after 1952. The state owns much of the economy and plays a decisive role in its planning; however, in recent years Egypt has moved toward a more decentralized, market-oriented economy, and there has been an increase in foreign investment.

The country's farmland is intensively cultivated (usually two, and sometimes three, crops are produced annually) and yields-per-acre are extremely high. Control of the Nile waters by the Aswan High Dam brought considerable additional land into cultivation, but the needs of the growing population have prevented the accumulation of significant agricultural surpluses. Most farms in Egypt are small and labor-intensive. Nonetheless, about a third of Egypt's workers are employed in farming. The principal crop is cotton; rice, corn, wheat, beans, tomatoes, sugarcane, citrus fruit, and dates are also produced. Cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goats, and donkeys are raised, and there is a fishing industry.

Petroleum and natural gas (found mainly in the Gulf of Suez) are produced; the principal minerals are iron ore, phosphates, salt, manganese, limestone, gypsum, and gold. Cairo and Alexandria are the main industrial centers; major manufacturing plants are also located in the other cities of the Nile valley and delta and at Port Said and Suez. The leading manufactures are refined petroleum, textiles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, hydrocarbons, construction materials, and metals. Food processing and tourism are also important industries, and navigation transit fees from the Suez Canal are another important source of foreign exchange. The country's rail and road networks are largely found along the Mediterranean coast and in the Nile valley.

The principal exports are crude and refined petroleum, cotton, textiles, metal products, and chemicals. Leading imports include machinery and equipment, foodstuffs, chemicals, wood products, fuels, and consumer goods. The chief trade partners are the United States, Italy, Germany, France, and Saudi Arabia.

Since the 1970s billions of dollars in economic aid have poured into Egypt from the United States, Arab neighbors, and European nations. However, the country's inefficient state-run industries, its bloated public sector, and its large military investments resulted in inflation, unemployment, a severe trade deficit, and heavy public debt. A series of economic and fiscal reforms undertaken in the 1990s, with support from the International Monetary Fund, appear to be having a positive effect on the country's overall economy.

History

The Ancient Empire of the Nile

The valley of the "long river between the deserts," with the annual floods, deposits of life-giving silt, and year-long growing season, was the seat of one of the earliest civilizations built by humankind. The antiquity of this civilization is almost staggering, and whereas the history of other lands is measured in centuries, that of ancient Egypt is measured in millennia. Much is known of the period even before the actual historic records began. Those records are abundant and, because of Egypt's dry climate, have been well preserved. Inscriptions have unlocked a wealth of information; for example, the existing fragments of the Palermo stone are engraved with the records of the kings of the first five dynasties. The great papyrus dumps offer an enormous amount of information, especially on the later periods of ancient Egyptian history.

Among the many problems encountered in Egyptology, one of the most controversial is that of dating events. The following dates have a margin of plus or minus 100 years for the time prior to 3000 BC Fairly precise dates are possible beginning with the Persian conquest (525 BC) of Egypt. The division of Egyptian history into 30 dynasties up to the time of Alexander the Great (a system worked out by Manetho) is a convenient frame upon which to hang the succession of the kings and a record of events. In the table entitled Dynasties of Ancient Egypt , the numbers of the dynasties are given in Roman numerals, and the numeral is followed by the dates of the dynasty and a notation of famous monarchs of the era (each of whom has a separate article in the encyclopedia). Since there are many gaps and periods without well-known rulers (occasionally without known rulers at all), those are given simply with dates or are combined with better-recorded periods.

The Old and Middle Kingdoms

A high culture developed early, and the Old Kingdom is notable for artistic and intellectual achievements (see Egyptian architecture ; Egyptian art ; Egyptian religion ). From the beginning there was a concept of the divinity or quasi-divinity of the king (pharaoh), which lasted from the time that Egypt was first united (c.3200 BC) under one ruler until the ultimate fall of Egypt to the Romans. According to tradition, it was Menes (or Narmer) who as king of Upper Egypt conquered the rival kingdom of Lower Egypt in the Nile delta, thus forming the single kingdom of Egypt. In the unified and centralized state created by Menes, the memory of the two ancient kingdoms was preserved in formalities of administration. Trade flourished, and the kings of the I dynasty appear to have sent trading expeditions under military escort to Sinai to obtain copper. Indications show that under the II dynasty, trade existed with areas as far north as the Black Sea.

The III dynasty was one of the landmarks of Egyptian history, the time during which sun-worship, a new form of religion that later became the religion of the upper classes, was introduced. At the same time mummification and the building of stone monuments began. The kings of the IV dynasty (which may be said to begin the Old Kingdom proper) were the builders of the great pyramids at Giza. The great pyramid of Khufu is a monument not only to the king but also to the unified organization of ancient Egyptian society. The V to the VII dynasties are remarkable for their records of trading expeditions with armed escorts. Although Egypt flourished culturally and commercially during this period, it started to become less centralized and weaker politically. The priests of the sun-god at Heliopolis gained increasing power; the office of provincial rulers became hereditary, and their local influence was thereafter always a threat to the state.

In the 23d cent. BC the Old Kingdom, after a long and flourishing existence, fell apart. The local rulers became dominant, and the records, kept by the central government, tended to disappear. Some order was restored by the IX dynasty, but it was not until 2134 BC that power was again centralized, this time at Thebes . That city was to be the capital for most of the next millennium.

The Middle Kingdom, founded at the end of the XI dynasty, reached its zenith under the XII. The Pharaoh, however, was not then an absolute monarch but rather a feudal lord, and his vassals held their land in their own power. The XII dynasty advanced the border up the Nile to the Second Cataract. Order was preserved, the draining of El Faiyum was begun (adding a new and fertile province), a uniform system of writing was adopted, and civilization reached a new peak. After 214 years the XII dynasty came to an end in 1786 BC In the dimly known period that followed, Egypt passed for more than a century under the Hyksos (the so-called shepherd kings), who were apparently Semites from Syria. They were expelled from Egypt by Amasis I (Ahmose I), founder of the XVIII dynasty, and the New Kingdom was established.

The New Kingdom

The XVIII dynasty is the most important and the best-recorded period in Egyptian history. The local governors generally opposed both the Hyksos and the new dynasty; those who survived were now made mere administrators, their lands passing to the crown. Ancient Egypt reached its height. Its boundaries were extended into Asia, with a foreign province reaching the Euphrates (see Thutmose I ). Letters known as the Tell el Amarna tablets are dated to this dynasty and furnish the details of the reigns of Amenhotep III and his son, Ikhnaton . As Ikhnaton neglected his rule in the pursuit of religion, letters from local rulers became increasingly urgent in begging help, especially against the Hittites . Of the rulers following Ikhnaton in this dynasty, Tutankhamen is important for his law code and his enforcement of those laws through the courts. Architecture was at its zenith with the enormous and impressive buildings at and around Thebes.

Egyptian civilization seems to have worn out rapidly after conflicts with the Hittites under the XIX dynasty and with sea raiders under the XX dynasty. With a succession of weak kings, the Theban priesthood practically ruled the country and continued to maintain a sort of theocracy for 450 years. In the delta the Libyan element had been growing, and with the disappearance of the weak XXI dynasty, which had governed from Tanis, a Libyan dynasty came to power. This was succeeded by the alien rule of Nubians, black Africans who advanced from the south to the delta under Piankhi and later conquered the land. The rising power of Assyria threatened Egypt by absorbing the petty states of Syria and Palestine, and Assyrian kings had reached the borders of Egypt several times before Esar-Haddon actually invaded (673 BC) the land of the Nile.

Assyrian rule was, however, short-lived; by 650 BC, under Psamtik , Egypt was once more independent and orderly. Greek traders became important, and their city of Naucratis, founded by Amasis II , thrived. Attempts to reestablish Egyptian power in Asia were turned back (605 BC) by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar , and Egypt fell easy prey (525 BC) to the armies of Cambyses of Persia. Despite occasional troubles, the Persians maintained their hegemony until 405 BC New dynasties were then established, but they did not regain the old splendor. The Persians again became dominant in 341 BC Egypt, rich and ill-defended, fell to Alexander the Great without resistance in 332 BC

When Alexander's brief empire faded, Egypt in the wars of his successors (the Diadochi) fell to his general Ptolemy, who became king as Ptolemy I . All the succeeding kings of the dynasty were also named Ptolemy. The great city of Alexandria became the intellectual center and fountainhead of the Hellenistic world. The Ptolemies maintained a formidable empire for more than two centuries and exercised great power in the E Mediterranean. The Jewish population was large—perhaps as much as a seventh of the total population—and even the Palestinian Jews looked to the Alexandrian Jews for guidance.

The rising power of Rome soon overshadowed Egypt, but it was not until Ptolemy XII sought Roman aid through Pompey to regain his throne that Rome actually obtained (58 BC) a foothold in Egypt itself. Cleopatra , the daughter of Ptolemy XII, tried to win back power for Egypt, especially through Julius Caesar and Marc Antony . Octavian (later Emperor Augustus ) actually annexed Egypt to Rome, putting to death Cleopatra's son, Ptolemy XV, who was the last of the Ptolemies. Egypt became a granary for Rome; the emperors from Augustus to Hadrian raised the irrigation system to great efficiency, and Trajan reopened the ancient Nile–Red Sea canal. In the 2d cent. AD, strife between Jews and Greeks in Alexandria brought massacres.

Christianity was welcomed in Egypt, and several of the most celebrated Doctors of the Church, notably St. Athanasius , St. Cyril of Alexandria, and Origen , were Egyptians. Egypt gave rise to the Arian and Nestorian heresies, and Gnosticism flourished there for a time. The patriarch of Alexandria was probably the most important figure in Egypt. After St. Cyril, Monophysitism became the national faith; out of this arose the Coptic Church. The hostility of the people to the Orthodox Byzantine emperors and officials probably helped Khosru II of Persia to gain Egypt in 616. It was recovered (c.628) by Heraclius I, but the Persian invasion proved to be only a forerunner of the more serious Arabian invasion.

Islamic Egypt

The Arab conquest of Egypt (639–42), only some 20 years after the rise of Islam, made the country an integral part of the Muslim world. Until the 19th cent., Egyptian history was intimately involved with the general political development of Islam , whether unified or divided into warring states. Under the Umayyad caliphate many of the people continued their adherence to Coptic Christianity despite the special tax exacted from infidels. Eventually, the settling of colonists from Arabia and the increased conversion of peoples to Islam reduced the Christian population to a small minority. The Greek and Coptic languages went out of use, and Arabic became the predominant language.

The Abbasid caliphate (founded c.750) at first held Egypt under complete subjection, but the unwieldiness of its vast domain encouraged provincial governors to revolt and to assert their own rule. In the 10th cent., Egypt fell to the Fatimid claimants to the caliphate, who invaded from the west. The Fatimids founded (969) Cairo as their capital, and with the establishment (972) there of the Mosque of Al-Azhar as a great (and still active) Muslim university, they further emphasized the change of Egypt from an outpost of Islam to one of its centers.

The strain of the Crusades and internal political disorder led to the fall of the Fatimids and to the founding by Saladin of the Ayyubid dynasty. The strategic position of Egypt made it a logical target of the Crusaders, who twice (1219–21, 1249–50) held Damietta, then the chief Mediterranean port, but could advance no farther.

The later Ayyubid rulers came excessively under the control of their slave soldiers and advisers, the Mamluks , who in 1250 seized the country. Until 1517, when Egypt was conquered by the Ottoman Turks, the Mamluks maintained their turbulent rule, with frequent revolts and extremely short tenures for most of the sultans. Nevertheless, they built many great architectural monuments. Their importance by no means disappeared with the establishment of Ottoman power, for the Egyptian pasha (governor) was compelled to consult the Mamluk beys (princes), who continued in control of the provinces.

Ottoman control had become almost nominal by the administration (1768–73) of Ali Bey, who termed himself sultan. The Ottoman Turks, however, continually attempted to assert power over the unruly beys. On the pretext of establishing order there, Napoleon Bonaparte ( Napoleon I ) undertook the French occupation of Egypt (1798–1801); yet his real object was to cut off British trade lines and, eventually, to detach India from the British Empire. All his efforts were bent to establishing French power in the region. The Ottoman Turks, however, ultimately joined the British in forcing out the French.

The French withdrawal was followed by the rise of Muhammad Ali , a former commander, who was appointed (1805) Egyptian pasha by the Ottoman emperor. He permanently destroyed (1811) the Mamluks' power by massacring their leaders. Using Europe as a model, Muhammad Ali laid the foundations of the modern Egyptian state. He introduced political, social, and educational reforms and developed an effective bureaucracy; he also undertook massive economic development by expanding and modernizing agriculture and by starting large-scale industry. Under his rule the empire eventually extended from Sudan in the south to Arabia in the east and Syria in the northeast. Abbas I (reigned 1848–54), Muhammad Ali's successor, undid some of his reforms and was followed by Muhammad Said Pasha.

European Domination

In 1854, Said granted Ferdinand de Lesseps a concession for the construction of the Suez Canal, a project that put Egypt into deep financial debt and robbed it of its thriving transit-trade on the Alexandria-Cairo railroad. In addition, the strategic nature of the canal, which opened in 1867, shifted Great Britain's focus in the Middle East from Constantinople to Cairo and opened the door to British intervention in Egyptian affairs. Said was followed by Khedive (viceroy) Ismail Pasha , whose rule was characterized by accelerated economic development, Westernization, and the establishment of Egyptian autonomy. The cost of Said's reforms, of the construction of the Suez Canal, and of his conquests in Africa, however, put Egypt deep into debt and forced Ismail to sell (1875) his Suez Canal shares to the British. Egypt's financial problems led to further subordination of the country to great-power interests. Ismail was forced to accept the establishment of a French-British Debt Commission.

In 1879, Ismail was compelled to abdicate in favor of his son Tewfik Pasha , who was confronted with financial and political chaos; his situation was complicated by the outbreak of a nationalist and military revolt (1881–82) under Arabi Pasha. The British reacted to the revolt with a naval bombardment of Alexandria in July, 1882, and by landing British troops, who defeated Arabi Pasha at the battle of Tell el Kabir and went on to occupy Cairo.

The British consolidated their control during the period (1883–1907) when Lord Cromer was consul general and de facto ruler. By 1904 the governments of France, Austria, and Italy agreed not to obstruct Britain in its intention to stay in Egypt indefinitely. During World War I, after Turkey joined the Central Powers, Great Britain declared Egypt a British protectorate and deposed Abbas II , the allegedly pro-German khedive, substituting Husein Kamil (1914–17), a member of his family. After the war Egyptian nationalists of the Wafd party, led by Zaghlul Pasha , were especially vigorous in their demands for freedom.

Independence

Under the rule of Ahmad Fuad (who later became Fuad I ), a treaty providing for Egypt's independence was concluded (1922). It went into effect in 1923 following the proclamation of a constitution that made Egypt a kingdom under Fuad and established a parliament. Great Britain, however, retained the right to station troops in Egypt and refused to consider Egyptian claims to the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (see Sudan ). The British protectorate was maintained until the promulgation of a new treaty in 1936, which made the two countries allies and promised the eventual withdrawal of British troops. Fuad was succeeded by his son Farouk . In 1937 a further step toward sovereignty was accomplished by an agreement (which went into effect in 1949) to end extraterritoriality in Egypt.

In the postindependence years, Egypt's internal political life was largely a struggle for power between the Wafd party and the throne. The constitution was suspended in 1930, and Egypt was under a virtual royal dictatorship until the Wafdists forced the readoption of the constitution in 1935. During World War II, Egypt remained officially neutral. However, Egyptian facilities were put at the disposal of the British and several battles were fought on Egyptian soil (for details of the military engagements, see North Africa, campaigns in ).

After the war, demands were made for a revision of the treaty of 1936. Repeated talks failed because of Egyptian insistence that Great Britain allow incorporation of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan into Egypt. An Egyptian appeal (1947) on this subject to the Security Council of the United Nations was also in vain. Egypt actively opposed the UN partition of Palestine in 1948 and, joining its forces with the other members of the Arab League , sent troops into the S Negev. Israeli forces, however, repelled the Egyptians in bitter fighting (see Arab-Israeli Wars ).

In domestic politics, the Wafd acquired a majority in 1950 and formed a one-party cabinet. The struggle between King Farouk and the Wafdist government intensified, and several political uprisings led to violence. On July 23, 1952, the military, headed by Gen. Muhammad Naguib, took power by coup. Farouk abdicated in favor of his infant son, Ahmad Fuad II, but in 1953 the monarchy was abolished and a republic was declared. Naguib assumed the presidency, but, in his attempts to move toward a parliamentary republic, he met with opposition from other members of the Revolutionary Command Committee (RCC). Increasing difficulties led to the extension of martial law. Col. Gamal Abdal Nasser emerged as a rival to Naguib, and in Feb., 1954, Naguib resigned.

Egypt under Nasser

Nasser took full power in Nov., 1954. Under the new constitution, he was elected president for a six-year term. The long-standing dispute over Sudan was ended on Jan. 1, 1956, when Sudan announced its independence, recognized by both Egypt and Great Britain. British troops, by previous agreement (July, 1954), completed their evacuation of the Suez Canal Zone in June, 1956. Tension increased in July, 1956, when, after the United States and Great Britain withdrew their pledges of financial aid for the building of the Aswan High Dam, the Soviet Union stepped in to finance the dam. Nasser then nationalized the Suez Canal and expelled British oil and embassy officials from Egypt.

On Oct. 29, Israel, barred from the canal and antagonized by continued guerrilla attacks from Gaza, invaded Gaza and the Sinai peninsula in joint arrangement with Britain and France, who attacked Egypt by air on Oct. 31. Within a week Great Britain, France, and Israel yielded to international political pressure, especially that of the United States, and a cease-fire was pronounced. A UN emergency force then occupied the Canal Zone in Dec., 1956. Israeli troops evacuated Egyptian territory in the spring of 1957.

In Feb., 1958, Syria and Egypt merged as the United Arab Republic . They were joined by Yemen in March, creating the United Arab States. The union was soon torn by personal and political differences, and a Syrian revolt (1961) led to its virtual dissolution.

Egypt embarked on a program of industrialization, chiefly through Soviet technical and economic aid. Both industry and agriculture were almost completely nationalized by 1962. In the early 1960s, Nasser strove to make Egypt the undisputed leader of a united Arab world; his chief and most effective rallying cry for Arab unity remained his denunciation of Israel and his call for that country's extinction. From 1962 to 1967, Egyptian forces provided the chief strength of the republican government in Yemen , where the royalists were backed by Saudi Arabia. Heavy losses finally moved Egypt to withdraw, and the republicans ultimately gained control. Egyptian military might continued to increase with the acquisition of powerful modern weapons, many of which were supplied by the USSR. In 1965 and 1966 two anti-Nasser plots were discovered and crushed. Nasser assumed near absolute control in 1967 by taking over the premiership and the leadership of the Arab Socialist Union (ASU), the country's sole political party.

In the spring of 1967, Egyptian troops were ordered to positions on the Israeli border, and Nasser demanded that the UN peacekeeping force stationed on the Egyptian side of the border since 1956 be withdrawn. Following the UN evacuation, Arab troops massed on the frontier, and Nasser announced (May 22) that the Gulf of Aqaba was closed to Israeli shipping. Other Arab states rallied to Egypt's support.

On June 5, Israel launched air and ground attacks against Arab positions and after six days achieved a rapid and decisive victory despite the Arab superiority in numbers and armaments. When the UN cease-fire went into effect, Israel held the Sinai peninsula, Gaza, and the east bank of the Suez Canal. After the war, Egypt received a massive infusion of Soviet military and economic aid in a program designed to rebuild its armed forces and economy, both shattered by the war. Egypt's postwar policy was based on two principles: no direct negotiations with Israel and the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 242, which, in part, called for the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from occupied territories.

After Nasser's sudden death in Sept., 1970, Vice President Anwar al- Sadat succeeded him as president. An abortive coup took place in May, 1971, but Sadat emerged in control. A new constitution was ratified in Sept., 1971, when the country changed its name to the Arab Republic of Egypt. Sadat modified somewhat Nasser's hard line toward Israel but continued to demand Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and threatened to renew the war in order to regain the lands. In 1972, Sadat ousted all Soviet military personnel stationed in Egypt and placed Soviet bases and equipment under Egyptian control, thus reversing a 20-year trend of increasing dependence on the USSR. Unrest in 1973 led to the forced resignation of the governmental cabinet and to Sadat's assumption of the premiership.

The 1973 War

Another war with Israel broke out on Oct. 6, 1973, when Egyptian forces attacked Israel on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. Israeli forces were caught off guard as Egyptian units progressed into the Sinai, and fighting broke out between Israel and Syria on the Golan Heights. The fighting escalated both on the ground and in the air.

After Israel had stabilized the Syrian front, its troops crossed the Suez Canal and toward the end of the war were in control of some 475 sq mi (1,230 sq km) on the west bank of the canal between Ismailia and Adabiya, surrounding the city of Suez and trapping Egypt's Third Army on the east side of the canal. Sadat called for a cease-fire coupled with the withdrawal of Israel from territories it had occupied since 1967. At the same time, Arab countries, by reducing—and later stopping—oil exports to selected countries supporting Israel, put pressure on the United States to get Israel to pull back from the occupied lands.

On Oct. 22 the United States and the USSR submitted a joint resolution to the UN Security Council calling for an immediate cease-fire and the beginning of peace negotiations. The Security Council voted to establish a UN emergency force made up of troops from the smaller nations to supervise the cease-fire. Through the mediation efforts of U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger , Egypt and Israel agreed to face-to-face negotiations on implementing the cease-fire. On Nov. 9, Israel accepted a proposal, worked out by Kissinger and Sadat.

Peace and Internal Unrest

A result of the intense U.S. effort to secure a settlement was the resumption of diplomatic relations between the United States and Egypt, which had been severed since the 1967 war. This marked the beginning of closer relations with the West. After regaining both banks of the Suez Canal as a result of the postwar agreement, Egypt, with U.S. assistance, began to clear the canal of mines and sunken ships left from the 1967 war. In 1974, following a visit to Egypt by U.S. President Richard Nixon, a treaty was signed providing U.S. aid to Egypt of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

In 1977, Sadat surprised the world with his visit to Jerusalem and plans for peace with Israel. On Mar. 26, 1979, Egypt signed a formal peace treaty with Israel in Washington, D.C. By 1982, Israel had withdrawn from nearly all the Sinai. Egypt was suspended from the Arab League as a result of the peace treaty. A boycott by Arab countries was imposed on Egypt, and Libya, which had cut ties with Egypt in 1977, provoked border clashes.

Domestic unrest between Muslims and Christians in 1981 led to a crackdown by the government. Tensions heightened, and Sadat was assassinated on Oct. 6, 1981, by Muslim extemists. He was succeeded by Vice President Hosni Mubarak , who faced growing economic problems as well as continued opposition from militant Muslim fundamentalists. A state of emergency, imposed after Sadat's murder, has continued to be extended by Egypt's parliament into the 21st cent.

President Mubarak continued amicable relations with Israel and the United States and remained active in the Middle East peace process. In 1989, Israel returned the last portion of the Sinai that it held, the Taba Strip, to Egypt. Relations with the rest of the Arab world improved, and Egypt was readmitted into the Arab League in 1989.

In return for Egypt's anti-Iraq stance and its sending of troops in the Persian Gulf War (1991), the United States dismissed $7 billion in Egyptian debt. Participation in the war strengthened Western ties and enhanced Egypt's regional leadership role but was not popular domestically. Opposition from Islamic fundamentalists heightened during the 1990s; from 1992 to 1997, more than 1,200 people, mostly Egyptian Christians, were killed in terrorist violence. A 1997 attack on tourists visiting the Temple of Hatshepsut at Luxor claimed some 70 lives. During the same period, an estimated 26,000 Islamic militants were jailed and dozens were sentenced to death.

In 1999, Mubarak was returned to office for a fourth six-year term. Poverty is the nation's most pressing problem, but the government has failed to undertake significant economic reforms; social inequities have heightened societal tensions, and authoritarian rule has fostered corruption. Islamic militancy and terrorism, most dramatically demonstrated in recent years by the Oct., 2004, July, 2005, and Apr., 2006, bombings of several Sinai resorts, also remain challenges to Egypt's government, as do liberal reformers who have become more vocal and move visible in calling for constitutional reform.

In Feb., 2005, Mubarak called for a constitutional amendment to permit the direct election of the president from among a multiparty slate, but the restrictions in the amendment on who might run prevent the contest from being open to all challengers. After passage by parliament, the amendment was approved (May) in a referendum whose results were denounced as fraudulent by the opposition. At the same time, however, the government was trying Ayman Nour, a leading opposition figure, on charges that his lawyers claimed were fabricated in an attempt to derail his presidential candidacy. In the election in September, Mubarak was reelected and Nour placed second. Observers said that the election was marred by irregularities but also that they would not have affected the result; the turnout was only 23% of the nation's voters.

In the subsequent (November–December) parliamentary elections the government secured a more than two thirds of the seats, but candidates aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood won roughly a fifth of the seats a record number. The voting was marred by violence and intimidation that seemed clearly directed by the government at opposition voters. In Dec., 2005, Nour was convicted on charges related to the forgery of signatures on electoral petitions, which most nongovernment observers regarded as improbable, and was sentenced to five years; he was released for health reasons in Feb., 2009. In 2006 there was increasingly vocal public support for establishment of a truly independent judiciary, as protestors rallied in in May support of two judges who had called for reform and faced dismissal for having criticized the presidential election. the police violently suppressed the rallies, however, and the reforms that were passed in June were widely criticized as inadequate.

In Mar., 2007, a referendum approved amendments to the constitution, earlier approved by parliament, that were generally regarded as antidemocratic (one of the amendments replaced judicial supervision of elections with an electoral committee, another banned religious-based parties). The government claimed that roughly a quarter of the electorate voted, but several independent groups estimated the turnout at roughly 5%, and they and opposition groups accused the government of vote rigging. The following month Amnesty International accused Egypt of systematic human-rights abuses and as acting as an international center for abusive interrogation and prolonged detention in the "war on terror."

Elections in June, 2007, for seats in parliament's upper house, which the governing party, the National Democratic party (NDP), handily won, were marred by police interference and vote rigging. Subsequently in 2007 the government launched a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. The 2010 upper house (June) and subsequent lower house (November–December) elections were also marred by electoral abuses and irregularities; most of the seats were won by the NDP, and nearly all opposition parties called for a boycott of the second round of the lower house elections.

In early 2011, young Egyptians, inspired by events in Tunisia that led to the ouster of its entrenched president, mounted massive nonviolent anti-Mubarak demonstrations, most prominently in Cairo but also in other cities. Over 18 days the protesters won the support of major opposition figures and groups while surviving a number of government moves against them, including violence that killed more than 800 people and injured several thousand. The army largely remained on the sidelines and, in the face of growing protests, finally forced Mubarak to resign.

An interim military government headed by Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi suspended the constitution, dissolved parliament, and promised constitutional and political reforms prior to new elections in six months. In March a number of constitutional changes, including limits on the number of years a president may serve, were approved in a referendum. The changes were supported by the NDP and the Muslim Brotherhood, but a number of prodemocracy groups opposed them as insufficient. In April the Egyptian courts ordered the dissolution of the NDP.

Slow progress toward reforms and a new government—elections were ultimately scheduled for Nov., 2011–Feb., 2012—and concerns about the military government, led at times in the second half of 2011 to significant new protests in Cairo and other cities. In August, Mubarak was put on trial on charges of corruption and of order the killing of protesters. The elections for the lower house of parliament resulted in a significant victory for the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party (FJP), which won the largest bloc of seats; the hardline Islamist party Al Nour placed second.

Bibliography

EGYPT

Arab country controlling northeastern Africa and the Sinai Peninsula.

Egypt is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea on the north, Sudan on the south, the Red Sea on the east, and Libya on the west. It consists of three regions: (1) the Nile Valley and Delta (less than 4% of the total area), extending from Sudan north to the Mediterranean; (2) the Eastern Desert–Sinai Peninsula (28%), extending from the Nile Valley to the Gulf of Aqaba and the border with Israel; and (3) the Western Desert (68%), stretching from the Nile Valley west to Libya.

Egypt's geographic position makes the country easy to control and rule. Its society and polity are characterized by central rule and the absence of long-standing regional allegiances. Dependence on the Nile River for irrigation has called for central administration and enabled the government to extend its authority to the distant parts of the land. Because most of the territory is desert, 96 percent of the Egyptian people live on less than 5 percent of the country's total land area, despite a massive land reclamation project that is starting to irrigate parts of the Western Desert.

Population and Social Structure

Egypt is one of the oldest continuously settled lands in the world. Egyptians, except for a few Nubians, speak Arabic. About 90 percent of the people are Muslim, and Islam is the state religion. The Copts are the largest non-Muslim religious group. Estimates of their numbers vary between six million and nine million. In 2003, the total population of Egypt was seventy million and was increasing by one million every ten months. The birth rate in 2002 was 24.4 per thousand and the death rate was 7.6 per thousand; the natural rate of population increase was 16.8 (the world average for the period in question was 13.5).

Half of the Egyptian people are under twenty years of age; two-thirds are under thirty. The number of dependent children supported by working adults is high, a situation that severely strains the economy. Egypt's government and economy are increasingly unable to meet the demands for food, shelter, education, and jobs. Some three million Egyptians have migrated to other Arab countries, particularly the oil-producing states, in search of work. Their remittances to their families constitute a major source of Egypt's hard currency and help to offset the difference between the country's imports and exports.

In contrast to many developing countries, Egypt has a high degree of social and national integration. Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser (1954–1970), Anwar al-Sadat (1970–1981), and Husni Mubarak (1981–) have all spoken proudly about Egypt's national unity, by which they mean the peaceful coexistence between the country's Muslims and Copts. This unity has been tested when Muslim extremists attacked, robbed, and occasionally murdered Copts. The Copts also began to fear growing pressure to apply Islamic law in Egypt, which could weaken their position relative to the Muslim majority.

Population growth has limited Egypt's development efforts by aggravating unemployment, increasing the ratio of mouths eating to hands working, spurring rural migration to urban centers, and diverting resources from investment to consumption. Population rises by almost 2 percent annually, a rate that exceeds the increase of arable land and is far beyond Egypt's educational and industrial development. Although the cropped area almost doubled between 1882 and 1970, the population growth absorbed and exceeded the increase. Once the breadbasket of the ancient world, modern Egypt has had to import cereal grains, making it more dependent on the outside world and vulnerable to the fluctuations of food prices.

Economy

Economic factors have played a crucial role in Egypt's politics. In 1991, inflation was nearly 21.3 percent a year, the national debt was US$25 billion, the gross national product (GNP) per capita was US$600, and the country agreed to a major restructuring program. Indeed, since World War II, Egypt has had a balance-of-payments deficit that has had to be made up from other sources. From 1945 to 1958 it simply drew down existing reserves, which had accumulated during World War II. From 1958 to 1964, Egypt received foreign aid from Eastern and Western sources; from 1965 to 1971, the former Soviet Union paid for most of the deficit; from 1971 to 1977, the aid was primarily from Arab states; and since 1978, support has come from the United States and other Western nations. The rate of inflation in 2001 was 2.3 percent, the national debt was US$29 billion, and the GNP per capita reached US$3,600. The economy declined slightly during the period from 2001 to 2003 and the Egyptian pound has been allowed to float against the U.S. dollar; it lost half its value between 1997 and 2003.

In 1974 Sadat inaugurated his Infitah, or open-door economic policy, to attract foreign investment. He justified it on the following grounds: (1) the failure of Nasser's socialist policies; (2) the availability of capital from Arab oil-producing countries; and (3) the superpowers' détente. From an economic standpoint, the Infitah 's main purposes were twofold: to attract export-oriented foreign enterprises by setting up duty-free zones and to attract foreign capital through a liberal investment policy. Its ultimate goal was to develop Egypt's economy through joint ventures and projects, combining Egyptian labor, Arab capital, and Western technology and entrepreneurship.

Egypt's policy of liberal reform led to a restructuring of its economy. In 1991 the government implemented financial stabilization (unifying the rate of exchange, reducing subsidies) and started a program of structural adjustment (privatization and trade liberalization). The economy grew rapidly during the 1990s but stagnated in the early twenty-first century. Per capita GDP skyrocketed, and imports exceeded exports in value by a factor of three to one, but the deficit was made up by remittances, Suez Canal tolls, pipeline fees, and tourism. After the terrorist attack on New York's World Trade Center in September 2001, most of these sources diminished. The trade deficit in the first quarter of 2002 was US$1.6 billion. In addition, the gap between rich and poor Egyptians widened perceptibly as a result of both Sadat's Infitah policy and the economic restructuring. In 2000 it was estimated that the top tenth of Egyptians enjoyed 25 percent of the national income, while the bottom tenth earned only 4.4 percent.

History and Politics

On 1 July 1798 the people of Alexandria watched some 400 French ships in the Mediterranean bring 34,000 soldiers and 16,000 sailors to Egypt. Led by Napoléon Bonaparte, this expedition subjected Egypt, then a part of the Ottoman Empire, to direct confrontation with European expansionism. The occupation was harsh and stirred up popular resistance in Cairo, but it took a joint Anglo-Ottoman expeditionary force to expel the French in 1801. Following France's withdrawal, a popular uprising in Cairo forced the Ottoman government to name Muhammad Ali as governor of Egypt. Ruling from 1805 to 1848, Muhammad Ali modernized Egypt's administrative, economic, and military structures by introducing Western methods and technologies on a large scale.

In 1854, during the reign of his son, Saʿid Pasha, a French diplomat secured permission to build a maritime canal across the Isthmus of Suez. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 greatly increased Egypt's strategic importance to the European powers and helped attract large numbers of Europeans to settle in Egypt's main cities. The Egyptian government also borrowed large sums of money from European banks at ruinous rates of interest, resulting in a state debt of 100 million Egyptian pounds by the end of the reign of Muhammad Ali's grandson, Ismaʿil ibn Ibrahim, in 1879. Egypt's European creditors established the Caisse de la Dette Publique (Fund for the Public Debt) to supervise the collection and disbursement of government revenues in 1876, followed later in that same year by the Office of Dual Financial Control. By 1881, the government was frantically cutting its expenditures to avert bankruptcy, contributing to the rise of a reformist movement led by Ahmad Urabi. The British intervened to suppress the revolt, bombarding Alexandria on 11 July 1882 and occupying Cairo nine weeks later, marking the start of an occupation that would last for seventy-four years. Initially British rule took the form of a veiled protectorate, honoring Ottoman suzerainty and the authority of the khedive (Egyptian ruler) and his ministers, although in reality Egypt was governed by Sir Evelyn Baring (later Lord Cromer) and his successors. In December 1914, following the Ottoman entry into World War I on the German side, the British government proclaimed a formal protectorate over Egypt.

Following the war, a nationwide revolution, led by Saʿd Zaghlul, broke out. His movement, known as the Wafd, achieved success on 28 February 1922, when Britain formally terminated the protectorate, proclaimed Egypt a sovereign, independent kingdom, and reserved four issues for future negotiations: (1) imperial communications, (2) defense, (3) minorities, and (4) the Sudan. On 15 March 1922 Ahmad Fuʾad was proclaimed king, and a constitution was issued on 9 April 1923. Free elections were held in two stages, resulting in a large parliamentary majority for the Wafd, which reconstituted itself as a political party.

From 1923 to 1936, negotiations took place on the four reserved points. The 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty settled most of the issues between the two countries. Britain's troops remained in Alexandria, Cairo, and the Suez Canal Zone. The treaty was opposed, however, by a number of political forces, including the popular Muslim Brotherhood. On 15 October 1951, Egypt's government unilaterally abrogated the treaty and Egyptian commandos attacked British soldiers and installations in the Canal Zone. Egypt's military defeat in the Arab-Israel War of 1948 coincided with social and political instability that had begun in the early 1940s as a result of increasing class disparities, uncontrolled urbanization, and labor unrest.

Egypt's government failed to respond to these conditions, nor did it respect the will of the people. The monarchy violated or suspended the 1923 constitution and dissolved parliaments whenever its power was threatened. The Wafd, the political party that won every election that was not rigged, held power less than eight years altogether and was dismissed from office on four separate occasions. Between 1923 and 1952, no popularly elected Egyptian parliament ever completed its term, and the average life of a cabinet was less than eighteen months.

These tensions led to frequent demonstrations, widespread political alienation, and the growth of revolutionary movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the Young Egypt Party, Communist organizations, and the Free Officers. The insistence of the palace on absolute rule, the opposition of the ruling class to reform, and Britain's rigid refusal to withdraw from the Suez Canal Zone led the Egyptians to believe that only revolution could bring about reform. On 23 July 1952, the army seized control; three days later King Farouk abdicated in favor of his infant son. In June 1953, the monarchy was terminated and a republic was declared. All political parties, including the Wafd and the Muslim Brotherhood, were abolished.

From 1952 to 1970, the basic characteristics of Egypt's government under Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser were military dictatorship, concentration of power, emphasis on mobilization rather than participation, and the supremacy of the executive branch. In the absence of political parties, three successive organizations became vehicles for political mobilization: the Liberation Rally (1953–1956), the National Union (1956–1962), and the Arab Socialist Union (1962–1977). An imbalance clearly existed between politics and administration. The bureaucracy, police, and army far eclipsed interest groups and political organizations. Whenever possible, the government attempted to penetrate and dominate groups such as trade unions, professional societies, and religious institutions. During the same period, the state took control of the economy in order to achieve rapid development and social justice, a policy known as Arab Socialism.

After Nasser's death in 1970, Egypt's political system began to change. The ruling elite became increasingly civilianized, and a pluralistic political culture began to emerge. Anwar al-Sadat professionalized the army, disengaged it from politics, and appointed more civilians to high posts. For the first time since 1952, civilians held the posts of vice president and prime minister. The gradual democratization of the political structure led in 1977 to the formation of a controlled multiparty system. Domestically, Sadat was eager to establish his legitimacy apart from Nasser's. Most Egyptians acknowledged that the Arab Socialist Union had failed as an instrument of popular mobilization, and intellectuals and professional associations came to advocate political pluralism. Sadat often called for popular plebiscites to ratify his policies, such as the peace treaty with Israel. Externally, Sadat's rapprochement with the United States and his desire to make Egypt seem more democratic reinforced these trends. Although Sadat was assassinated by Islamist militants in 1981, his successor, Husni Mubarak, has cautiously allowed the democratization process to continue by holding multiparty parliamentary elections at regular intervals.

The judiciary, an independent and respected institution, referees many issues, including the formation of new political parties. Applications for new parties must be submitted to a government committee whose decisions are subject to judicial review. Since the committee was established in 1977, it has never approved any applications, but its rejections have been reversed by court verdicts, thus allowing new parties to form.

In 2002, Egypt had fourteen political parties. The most important were the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), headed by President Husni Mubarak and claiming 85 percent of all parliamentary seats; the Socialist Labor Party, led by Ibrahim Shukri, which adheres to Islamist ideology and formerly had a coalition with the Muslim Brotherhood; and the leftist National Progressive Unionist Party, also called Tajammu, led by Khalid Muhyi al-Din. The other parties are the New Wafd, Socialist Labor, Umma, Socialists, Greens, Social Justice, Democratic Union, Nasserist Arab Democrats, Misr al-Fatat (Young Egypt), Democratic Peoples, and Takaful (Solidarity). Few of these parties play any meaningful role in parliament, and only the NDP actually takes part in Egypt's government. Islamist movements, no matter how many Egyptians support them, are not recognized as political parties.

Since 1977, Egypt's political life has been dominated by the NDP, which has not become a credible political force. All of Egypt's political parties suffer from lack of a strong organization and a coherent ideology. Opposition parties have been reluctant to compromise and have failed to master coalition politics. Ideological cleavages, historical legacies, and leadership rivalries have kept them from working together to challenge the NDP. In the 2000 elections, the ruling party won 388 of the 444 seats in Egypt's parliament.

Egypt has not succeeded in integrating Islamist groups into the political process. The Muslim Brotherhood, which wants to make the shariʿa the law for the country, had approximately fifty members in parliament in 1987–1990. Their boycott of the 1990 parliamentary elections and their opposition to the government during the Gulf War weakened their position, yet they remain the most influential Islamist group. Members of the parliament elected in 2000 who were listed as independent were mainly Muslim Brothers. Smaller but more militant Islamist groups, such as al-Jihad and al-Jamiʿa al-Islamiyya, have resorted to violence against government officials, foreign tourists, and Copts, especially between 1992 and 1997. By 1992, Islamist groups controlled most university student unions and professors' associations, as well as a number of professional societies (e.g., of engineers, physicians, pharmacists, and lawyers), and the state passed laws in 1995 to limit their influence. The Egyptian government's efforts to weaken the militant groups have curbed terrorism, but at grave cost to human rights and its own legitimacy. Thousands of Islamists languish in Egyptian prisons, often without having been tried and convicted of any crime. The Islamist newspapers and magazines were closed after Sadat's assassination and have not been allowed to reopen. Mosque sermons are monitored, and any expression of Islamist militancy is suppressed. It is noteworthy that four of the nineteen men implicated in the 11 September 2001 attack against the United States were Egyptians.

Both Islamists and the Egyptian government have stifled the growth of a civil society. For publishing scholarly articles critiquing early Arabic literature, Nasr Abu Zayd, a Cairo University professor, was obliged to leave Egypt after a secular court, inspired by Islamists, asked his wife to divorce him for allegedly renouncing Islam. Saʿd alDin Ibrahim, a respected sociologist, was tried and condemned to hard labor by a military court for defaming Egypt, accepting foreign money for his research center without government authorization, embezzlement, and bribing public officials. After a widespread public outcry, he was released, retried by a civilian court, and set free. Neither case speaks well for the independence of Egypt's judiciary.

What is the balance sheet for the democratization process in Egypt? On the positive side are a liberal tradition, a strong sense of national identity, and a complex civil society. Another positive element is a middle class that has organized itself into a growing network of business associations, trade unions, and professional syndicates, thus helping to form a civil society outside the political process. On the negative side, Egypt has a tradition of authoritarianism. The ruling elite has grown up with and worked within a single-party system. The ruling and opposition parties have little internal democracy. Many parties espouse ideologies that are incompatible with democratic institutions. The government uses the armed forces and the police to stifle dissent, creating an atmosphere of fear and leading to either apathy or conspiracies against public order. Ultimately, Egypt's democracy and political stability will rest on its ability to increase economic production and to narrow the yawning gap between the few rich and the many poor.

See also Alexandria; Arab–Israel War (1948); Arab Socialist Union; Baring, Evelyn; Bonaparte, NapolÉon; Cairo; Communism in the Middle East; Copts; Farouk; Free Officers, Egypt; Fuʾad; Infitah; Islam; Ismaʿil ibn Ibrahim; Jamiʿa al-Islamiyya, al-; Liberation Rally; Ottoman Empire; Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar; Mubarak, Husni; Muhyi al-Din, Khalid; Muslim Brotherhood; Naguib, Muhammad; Nasser, Gamal Abdel; National Progressive Unionist Party; National Union (Egypt); New Wafd; Nile River; Sadat, Anwar al-; Shariʿa; Suez Canal; Wafd; World War I; World War II; Young Egypt; Zaghlul, Saʿd.

Bibliography

Amin, Galal. Whatever Happened to the Egyptians?: Changes in Egyptian Society from 1950 to the Present. New York; Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2000.

Fahmy, Ninette. The Politics of Egypt: State-Society Relationship. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Goldschmidt, Arthur, Jr. Modern Egypt: The Formation of a Nation-State. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1988.

Hopwood, Derek. Egypt: Politics and Society, 1945–1990, 3d edition. New York; London: HarperCollins, 1991.

Kienle, Eberhard. A Grand Delusion: Democracy and Economic Reform in Egypt. New York; London: I.B. Tauris, 2001.

Vatikiotis, P. J. The History of Modern Egypt from Muhammad Ali to Mubarak, 4th edition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.

Waterbury, John. The Egypt of Nasser and Sadat: The Political Economy of Two Regimes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983.

Weaver, Mary Anne. A Portrait of Egypt: A Journey through the World of Militant Islam. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1999.

ali e. hillal dessouki updated by arthur goldschmidt

Egypt

For most contemporary Egyptians, the family remains the central and most important institution in their everyday lives. Few individuals live independently from their immediate family or kin, and single-person households are almost unheard of. Individuals of all classes constantly articulate and defend the importance of family within the community and the nation. Issues relating to family relations, gender roles, and authority are pervasive throughout the society, as evidenced by conversations in homes, on the street, and in the media. Further, the proper functioning of families is part of a religious dialogue that is increasingly heard in all sectors of the society.

Egypt's estimated population in 1999 was 66,050,004, with 36.1 percent of the population under age fifteen, 60 percent between ages fifteen and sixty-five, and 3.7 over age sixty-five. Ninety-five percent of the country's population is Muslim, and approximately 5 percent is Coptic. Approximately 98 percent of the population between twenty-five and sixty-five is or has been married, indicating the continuing primacy of founding a family through marriage for Egyptians of all classes.

Defining Family in Egypt

Linguistic issues. In Egypt, the widely recognized importance of family stands in direct contrast to the ambiguity of linguistic terms dealing with the institution. When referring to their families, Egyptians tend to use the Arabic word ahl, a broad term that encompasses various relationships, including immediate family related through blood ties, members of the household, and individuals related through marriage, and can, therefore, refer to up to 100 to 200 people. Another term, a'ila, is also commonly used, and can refer to either a nuclear or extended group of people, depending on context. The term a'ila carries with it the connotation of close relationship and mutual obligation.

The smallest family unit specified by Egyptian terminology is the word bait, which means "house." Bait is used to specify the actual residence of a family or the group of people who live under the same roof most of the time. Although this usually refers to the nuclear family, it can also include a spinster aunt, a widowed parent, or any other member of the extended family who is a part of the residential group. Egyptian family terms seem to be even more ambiguous than those of other Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, for example, where individuals have a stronger sense of specificity of genealogy (Rugh 1984).

The Egyptian linguistic ambiguity about kinship terms allows individuals to manipulate the concept of family to fit the context and situation. Constant references to family and family name allow individuals to place one another within the society and to identify important ties and reciprocal obligations. The honor, social standing, and wealth of a family are all interconnected, making the identification with family a primary social marker for every Egyptian.

Social class and family. Class divisions within society play a vital role in Egyptian life. Egyptians have an incredibly fine-tuned sense of class, and this plays a part in every aspect of an individual's life. Primarily, these divisions are based on family, wealth, education, and experiences and/or education abroad. In addition, reputation, religious piety, and foreign ancestry (for example, having a Turkish mother, grandmother, etc.) may raise a family's social status in the eyes of others. The division by class is a distinctive but complex dividing line in the society that is constantly reflected in the written and oral media.

Furthermore, even though the major cities of Cairo and Alexandria are divided into newer and older, as well as richer and poorer sections, it is not customary for Egyptians to move, even if their financial situation improves substantially. As a result, older, well-to-do Egyptians are often found living in sections of the city that are considered middle class or, at times, even lower-middle class. Among these families, it is common for the older generation to buy apartments in their buildings for their children as they marry, thereby keeping them close. Among low-income communities, all family members routinely continue to live in the same apartment, and as the children marry, their spouses move in with the extended families. Among this group, individuals rely even more heavily on their families because they have fewer ties to other structures of power in the society.

The role of the natal family. In Cairo, the importance of family for women and men in all arenas can hardly be overestimated. Although women, upon marriage, become incorporated into the household of their husbands, they remain members of their natal families. They retain their fathers' family names after marriage and, in case of divorce or widowhood, are expected to move back to their natal home. Men bear the financial responsibility of caring for all single women in their families, even if these women have been previously married. Thus, women are brought up with the expectation that their primary ties and ultimate sources of economic security will be in their relationships to their fathers, brothers, and sons. These relationships with both female and male members of the immediate family remain the strongest links in women's lives.

The role of extended families. Some version of the extended family is the ideal among all classes, and living in the same building or neighborhood as fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers, or cousins is still considered the best situation (Macleod 1991). The extended families that are often found in Egypt do not follow the traditional patterns in which genealogically related persons of two generations live together or in which married siblings form one household. Rather, extended families are based on the incorporation of unmarried relatives into a family. Widows, divorcees (especially those with no children), and bachelors do not live separately and would be stigmatized should they make this choice. Further, unmarried sons or daughters live with their parents until marriage, regardless of age. After divorce or the death of a spouse, both men and women, especially if they do not have children, are expected to return to their parents if they are still alive; otherwise, they are supposed to live with a brother, sister, or other relative. Another popular extended family pattern is the one in which a child is "borrowed" by a relative with no children of his or her own. Among lower-class people, one tends to find this phenomenon more often among grandparents who need the assistance of a child for housework. Among more well-to-do families, an uncle or aunt will offer to take care of a siblings' children for an extended time period, primarily for sentimental reasons or because the biological parents already have other pressing obligations such as an extended leave abroad.

Another common middle- and lower-class family pattern found in Egypt is the incorporation of nonrelatives, such as apprentices and work assistants, into a particular household. Such individuals have a special position, because although not all of them sleep in the house of their employer, their food and laundry is part of the household. Upper-middle and upper-class families employ domestic servants who may or may not live in the household. Often a domestic live-in servant will come from the family's natal village, even if the family has not lived there in several generations.

Migrants, a group often ignored, exhibit an alternative family pattern: they do not usually bring their families when they first enter the city from the countryside. When they arrive in the city, they tend to live in the same neighborhoods as others from their natal village. Each will live with other relatives in the local neighborhood until he becomes established and acquires a house of his own.

The continuing primacy of extended families can be explained by the fact that for most Egyptians, family provides a sense of place, a congenial setting, and a social network for financial and personal support. People often mention that life in the West, with its emphasis on individual needs and pursuits, looks very lonely and self-centered. Although the actual composition of a household may vary widely within the same class level or within a larger extended family, the structure and ideology of family remains crucial for the network of resources and sense of identity that it continues to provide.

Gender and Family

Egyptian society is organized on the principle that men and women simply have different natures, talents, and inherent tendencies. This becomes most apparent in the realm of the family where each gender has a different part to play. Men are created for going out in the world and are responsible for providing financially for the family. Women are suited for remaining within family boundaries, caring for the home, the children, and the husband. Further, women's inherent sexuality is believed to be constantly endangering the social harmony of society (specifically, men) and is, therefore, best controlled through women's modesty and women remaining as much as possible within the private sphere of the family. This belief is reinforced through cultural and religious norms that are increasingly advocating that family roles of both women and men are fundamental in maintaining societal structure; dominant gender constructions therefore support keeping women in the home and oppose women working and abandoning their primary roles (Macleod 1991). Nonetheless, contemporary images of women as economic assets and providers are rapidly coming into conflict with what are perceived as divinely inspired roles.

Gender roles in Egypt derive much of their legitimacy from the Qur'an. In particular, women are often the focus of quotes that supposedly refer to the appropriate roles and behaviors of women. At the same time, references to the role of women are scattered broadly throughout the Qur'an and are subject to interpretation.

Existing side by side and sometimes in contradiction to the reality of women's daily struggles in Egypt is the cultural and religious ideal of complementarity between the sexes. Within this concept, women are not devalued as persons, somehow considered to be inherently less valuable than men, or thought to be lacking in abilities. Instead, Egyptians tend to emphasize that everyone—men, women, and children—is thought to be part of an interrelated community, and that gender complementarity is part of the message of the religion. This concept of gender complementarity, particularly in the realm of the family, is an integral part of understanding the social structure of Egyptian society.

Marriage and Family

Marriage remains at the center of contemporary Egyptian social life. It is the primary focal point in the lives of both women and men, followed only by the birth of a child. The rights and obligations of husband and wife are defined by Islamic law, the division of labor by gender, and Egyptian cultural practice.

A Muslim marriage gives a wife the unconditional right to economic support from her husband regardless of her own financial resources. She also remains in control of her property, including inheritance or earned income. However, in case of divorce, the ex-wife is only entitled to three months' alimony and to those possessions that she brought with her at the beginning of her marriage or those that she acquired with her own income, as well as any portion of her mahr that is due her. Mahr is a sum of money or durable property that, according to Islamic practice, a husband agrees to pay to his bride at any time prior to or during the marriage or upon divorce.

In return for the unconditional economic support of his family, a husband has certain rights within the marriage, the most important of which is the right to restrict his wife's physical mobility, which is often interpreted as the right of a husband to prevent his wife from working outside the home. He also has the unilateral right to end the marriage without the consent of his wife. And in case of divorce, the husband legally receives custody of the children after they have reached the age of seven. It is, however, customary for girls to remain with their mothers after a divorce. Recently, changes in the law in favor of women have curtailed some of husbands' rights. Primarily, women are now able to file for divorce, especially in cases of domestic violence, and men must now legally file for divorce and cannot divorce a woman simply by uttering "I divorce thee" three times, as is permitted by the Qur'an. Cultural practices, such as cross-cousin marriages and sizable sums of money through the mahr, have evolved to protect women and counterbalance the unequal rights in cases of divorce. However, the relatively low incidence of divorce in Egypt (according to the last census at 2%), particularly after children are born, suggests that marriage is a stable institution.

The Marriage Negotiation

All Muslim Egyptian marriages are characterized by a formalized set of negotiations that begin once the suitability of the marriage partners has been determined. The prelude to the marriage contract is the betrothal, which is the request by the man for the hand of a certain woman in marriage. It is at this point that the man will approach her family with the view of describing his status and negotiating with them the marriage contract and their respective demands. For the betrothal to be valid, both parties should be aware of the circumstances of the other and should know the potential spouse's character and behavior. This information is obtained through inquiries, investigations, and the direct contact of the couple in the presence of a chaperon. Once the man's offer is accepted by the woman, or by those who are legally entitled to act on her behalf, the betrothal will have taken place. It is usual at the point of betrothal that the man offers his future bride a gift, which in Egypt is referred to as the shabka. In some instances, particularly if the man does not know the bride's family through previous contacts, or if he wants to make an extremely favorable impression on the young woman, the man will offer her the shabka before the khutba, thereby showing his good will, his good intentions, and, perhaps his good financial standing. The shabka is, by middle-class American standards, a very expensive gift of jewelry. Betrothal does not, however, constitute a marriage contract: It is merely a mutual promise of marriage between the two parties, and it is not legally binding for either. In practice, the khutba is easily dissolved.

Among Egyptians, the betrothal becomes a public acknowledgment of the couple's right to spend chaperoned time together. It is a general rule that now the prospective bridegroom will join the woman's family for dinner regularly, giving the couple an opportunity to get to know each other in the presence of others. In addition, other members of the two families will start visiting one another. In particular, the man's mother and sisters or female cousins will begin spending long periods of time with the prospective bride

The Islamic Marriage Contract

The key to understanding any Islamic marriage (and 95% of all marriages in Egypt are Islamic) is the contract that is formed by the two parties. From a legal standpoint, the marriage contract establishes a series of rights and obligations between a couple that have a long-lasting effect on many aspects of their lives. In all schools of Islamic law, marriage is seen as a contract, the main function of which is to make sexual relations between a man and a woman licit. A valid and effective marriage contract outlines certain respective legal rights and duties for wife and husband, together with other rights and duties common to both of them. This contract, however, represents more than a mere exchange of money or material goods. It is a form of social exchange and is thus a legal, religious, economic, and symbolic transaction. The contract is attended to with utmost seriousness and is preceded by a set of lengthy negotiations, almost all of which center around the material protection of the woman and her unborn children once she enters the state of matrimony. Nevertheless, the marriage contract may include conditions that are advantageous for either or both spouses. Conditions that are specified in the contract range from the woman's right to dissolve the marriage, to an agreement that neither party may leave the town they agree to live in, and even that the husband may not marry another woman. The contract, as a matter of course, also acts as a medium for bringing the various members of the two families together and provides them with the opportunity to discuss in detail the preliminary workings of the marriage. Most important, the marriage contract symbolizes the public acknowledgement of the formation of a lawful sexual partnership that will be sanctioned both religiously and socially, and that marks the beginning of a family and the care and upbringing of children. Marriage remains the focal point for channeling sexuality, founding a family, and joining two extended families into a reciprocal relationship of obligations.

Changing economic conditions and new perceptions of the relative value of education and of wage employment have led to new configurations of family strategies among all classes of Egyptian families. Today, even in the most patriarchal family contexts, decisions concerning education, employment, and spending are to a large extent collectively reached. Further, economic circumstances force many Egyptian families to depend on the earnings and contributions of women and children as well as adult males. Access to new opportunities in Egypt and abroad have been distributed unequally and have led to perceptions of relative economic disadvantage. Nevertheless, not all families, even those within a single class, have experienced these shifts in identical ways. Family strategies reflect this range of experience.

See also:Islam; Kinship

Bibliography

abdel kader, s. (1992). the situation analysis of women in egypt. cairo: central agency for population, moblization and statistics (capmas) and unicef.

CAPMAS. (1986). National Census, Cairo.

capmas. (1990). labour force sample survey (lfss),cairo.

capmas and unicef. (1991). women's participation in the labour force. cairo.

el-nashif, h. (1994). basic education and femaleliteracy in egypt. cairo: third world forum, middle east office.

macleod, a. e. (1991). accommodating protest: workingwomen, and the new veiling in cairo. new haven, ct: yale university press.

rugh, a. (1984). family in contemporary egypt. syracuse,ny: syracuse university press.

unicef (1993). report on the state of women and children in egypt. cairo.

bahira sherif

Egypt

Recipes

1 GEOGRAPHIC SETTING AND ENVIRONMENT

The Arab Republic of Egypt is located in the northeastern region of the African continent, bordering both the Mediterranean and Red Seas. The climate is arid and dry and most of the country receives less than one inch of rainfall each year. The Mediterranean may offer Egypt's northern coastline up to eight inches of rainfall each year, and keeps year-round temperatures cooler than the inland deserts. The widespread lack of rainfall makes it extremely difficult to grow crops. Egypt has no forests and only 2 percent of the land is arable (land that can be farmed).

The well-known Nile River, the longest river in the world, runs north and south through eastern Egypt and empties into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile River Valley, which includes the capital city of Cairo, is the most fertile land in Egypt. Approximately 95 percent of the country's population lives alongside the Nile River. However, overcrowding in this region is threatening Egypt's wildlife and endangering the Nile's water supply.

2 HISTORY AND FOOD

Thousands of years ago, ancient Egyptians left evidence of their love for food. Well-preserved wall paintings and carvings have been discovered on tombs and temples, depicting large feasts and a variety of foods. Many of these ancient foods are still eaten in Egyptian households today. Peas, beans, cucumbers, dates, figs, and grapes were popular fruits and vegetables in ancient times. Wheat and barley, ancient staple crops, were used to make bread and beer. Fish and poultry were also popular. Dried fish was prepared by cleaning the fish, coating the pieces with salt, and placing them the sun to dry. Fasieekh (salted, dried fish) remained a popular meal in Egypt as of 2000.

The unique Egyptian cuisine has been influenced throughout history, particularly by its neighbors from the Middle East. Persians (modern-day Iraqis), Greeks, Romans (modern-day Italians), Arabs, and Ottomans (from modern-day Turkey) first influenced Egyptian cuisine thousands of years ago. More recently, the foods of other Arabic people in the Middle East such as the Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrians, as well as some foods from Europe, have affected the Egyptian diet. However, Egyptian cuisine maintains its uniqueness. After thousands of years, rice and bread remain staple foods, and molokhiyya (a spinach-like vegetable) and ful mudammas (cooked, creamy fava beans), a national dish, are nearly as popular as long ago.

Ful Mudammas (Broad Beans in Sauce)

Ingredients

• 2 cans (15-ounce each) cooked fava beans
• 6 cloves garlic, or to taste
• 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice, freshly squeezed
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 1½ Tablespoons parsley, minced
• Garnish, such as radishes, hard-boiled eggs, chopped scallions, pita bread (toasted and cut into wedges)

Procedure

1. Press the garlic cloves through a garlic press into a medium bowl.
2. Mash the garlic and salt together.
3. Next, add the lemon juice, olive oil, and parsley to the garlic mixture and combine thoroughly.
4. Drain the beans well, rinse, and put beans into a large pot over low heat.
5. Add garlic mixture and stir with a wooden spoon to combine thoroughly.
6. Serve warm with the garnishes arranged on a platter.
7. Each person is served a plateful of Ful Mudammas and adds the garnishes of his or her choice.

Serves 4 to 6.

3 FOODS OF THE EGYPTIANS

Egypt has a variety of national dishes. Ful (pronounced "fool," bean paste), tahini (sesame paste), koushari (lentils, macaroni, rice, and chickpeas), aish baladi (a pita-like bread), kofta (spicy, minced lamb), and kebab (grilled lamb pieces) are the most popular.

Koushari (Lentils, Macaroni, Rice, and Chickpeas)

Ingredients

• 1 cup lentils
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup elbow macaroni
• 1 cup rice
• 1 can (15-ounce) chickpeas (also called ceci)
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil

Sauce:

• 1 cup canned tomato puree
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 2 onions
• 1 garlic clove, or to taste

Procedure

1. Prepare lentils: Place the lentils in a sieve and rinse thoroughly. Place them in a large saucepan with 3 cups of water and 1 teaspoon salt.
2. Heat until the water begins to boil. Lower the heat, and simmer for about 1 hour until lentils are tender. Drain and set the lentils aside.
3. Prepare the macaroni: Fill the same saucepan with water (add salt if desired). Heat until the water begins to boil.
4. Add the macaroni and boil about 12 to 15 minutes, until macaroni is tender. Drain and set the macaroni aside. (It is okay to combine the macaroni and lentils.)
5. Prepare the rice: Heat the 2 Tablespoons of olive oil in the same saucepan. Add the rice and cook for 2 or 3 minutes, thoroughly coating the rice with oil.
6. Add 2 cups of water and heat until the water begins to boil. Cover the saucepan and simmer until the rice is tender, about 15 minutes.
7. Remove from heat and allow to cool for about 5 minutes.
8. Assemble koushari: Drain chickpeas and rinse. Add chickpeas, lentils, and macaroni to cooked rice and toss very gently with a fork.
9. Make sauce: Peel the onions and cut them in half lengthwise. Slice each half crosswise into thin slices.
10. Heat ¼ cup olive oil in a skillet. Add onions and cook, stirring often with a wooden spoon, until onions are golden brown.
11. Add garlic clove and cook 1 or 2 more minutes. Stir in tomato puree and heat until bubbly.
12. Now pour the sauce over the lentil mixture and heat over very low heat for about 5 minutes, until completely warm.
13. Serve with pita bread.

Serves 4 to 6.

Aish, the Arabic name for bread, means "life." It accompanies most meals and is served in various forms. The most common bread is pita, usually made with whole wheat (or sometimes white) flour. Long, skinny French-style loaves of bread are also widely eaten throughout the country. Traditional Egyptian cheeses, as well as feta imported from neighboring Greece, are frequently served alongside bread at meals.

Despite the country's dry climate and shortage of arable land (land that can be farmed), Egypt grows a variety of fresh fruits. Mohz (bananas), balah (dates), burtu'aan (oranges), battiikh (melon), khukh (peaches), berkuk (plums), and 'anub (grapes) are commonly grown.

Ful (creamy bean paste made from fava beans), one of the country's several national dishes, is a typical breakfast meal. It is often served in a spicy sauce, topped with an egg. Lunch, normally served between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., usually includes meat or fish, rice, bread, and seasonal vegetables. Salad (mezza, or mezze if more than one is served), topped with typical Middle Eastern fare such as olives, cheese, and nuts, may also be eaten. Meat (usually lamb, chicken, fish, rabbit, or pigeon), vegetables, and bread make up a typical dinner in Egypt. Tea and a dessert, such as baklava (honey pastry), basbousa (cream-filled cake), or konafa (cooked batter stuffed with nuts), are familiar after-dinner treats.

Tea and coffee are widely consumed. Egypt's numerous coffee and teahouses brew very strong coffee and tea (often mint tea), usually offering both full of sugar. Coffeehouses are typically filled with men who gather to play dominoes or backgammon. Coffee is served saada or "bitter" (no sugar) or ziyada or "very sweet." Egyptians also enjoy a drink called sahleb, made from wheat, milk, and chopped nuts.

For a typical dessert, Egyptians may serve mint tea with sugar and a sweet, flaky pastry called baklava.

Shai (Mint Tea) and Baklava

Ingredients

• 1 package mint tea (loose or in tea bags)
• Sugar
• 4 to 6 cups water (depending on how many people are being served)

Procedure

1. Bring water to a boil.
2. If using loose tea, measure 1 teaspoon of tea leaves into a teapot for each person being served.
3. Otherwise, place one tea bag per person into the teapot.
4. Pour boiling water over tea.
5. Allow to steep (soak) for about 3 minutes.
6. Pour tea into cups. (In Egypt, small glass tumblers are used.)
7. If loose tea is used, allow the tea leaves to settle to the bottom of the pot, and pour carefully to avoid disturbing them.
8. Add 4 or 5 teaspoonsful of sugar to each cup.
9. Enjoy with a piece of baklava, purchased from a bakery.

Serves 4 to 6.

Lemon and Garlic Potato Salad

Ingredients

• 2 pounds of red potatoes, scrubbed but with skin left on
• ½ cup parsley, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• Juice of 1½ lemons
• 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Procedure

1. Boil potatoes until tender (½ hour to 1 hour, or until a fork can easily pierce the skin) and let cool.
2. Add parsley, garlic cloves, lemon juice, oil, and salt and pepper; mix well.
3. Chill and serve.

Serves 4.

Gebna Makleyah (Oven-Fried Cheese)

Ingredients

• 1 cup firm feta cheese, crumbled, or traditional Egyptian cheese such as labna or gebna
• 1 Tablespoon flour
• 1 egg
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• Olive oil
• Lemon wedges and pita bread cut into triangles, for serving

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Place the cheese, flour, egg, salt, and pepper in a bowl and mix well with very clean hands.
3. Roll the mixture into 1-inch balls.
4. If the mixture seems too loose to hold the ball shape, add a little more flour.
5. If the mixture seems too dry, add a bit of lemon juice, vinegar, or water.
6. Pour 2 or 3 Tablespoons olive oil onto a cookie sheet to grease.
7. Arrange the cheese balls on the cookie sheet, rolling them around to coat thoroughly with the oil.
8. Bake 5 minutes.
9. Wearing an oven mitt, open the oven door and shake the cookie sheet to prevent cheese balls from sticking and to turn them.
10. Bake 5 more minutes, until golden brown.
11. Remove with a spatula and drain on absorbent paper.
12. Serve warm with lemon wedges and triangles of pita bread.

Serves 4 to 6.

4 FOOD FOR RELIGIOUS AND HOLIDAY CELEBRATIONS

Approximately 90 percent of Egyptians are Muslims, which means they practice the religion of Islam. The most important time of the year for Muslims is a monthlong holiday called Ramadan. During the month of Ramadan (the ninth month on the Islamic calendar, usually November or December), Muslims fast (do not eat or drink) from sunrise to sunset, and think about people around the world who do not have enough food. Muslim families will often come together to prepare hearty meals, including a variety of sweets, after sunset. Muslims end Ramadan with a three-day celebration called Eid al-Fitr.

Eid al-Adha, a three-day long "great feast," is another important holiday for Muslims. In recognition of the Bible story of Abraham's sacrifice of his son, Jacob, families will sacrifice (kill) a sheep or a lamb. The animal is slaughtered and cooked whole on a spit over an open fire, and some of the meat is usually given to poorer families. These animals are also sacrificed on other important occasions, such as births, deaths, or marriages.

Throughout the year, several moulids may take place. A moulid is a day (or as long as a week) celebrating the birthday of a local saint or holy person. Several events take place during this time. Food stands decorating the town's streets are usually set up near the holy person's tomb. Cairo, the capital of Egypt, celebrates at least three moulids every year. The largest moulid, Moulid el Nabit, commemorates the birthday of Muhammad and takes place in Cairo in early August.

Just under 10 percent of Egypt's population are Christians, whose most important holiday is Easter, falling in either March or April. It is common for families to come together to share a hearty meal, much as Christians worldwide do. Egyptian Christians observe the Orthodox calendar, which places Christmas on January 7 each year.

Bamia (Sweet and Sour Okra)

Ingredients

• 1 pound small okra pods
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1 Tablespoon honey
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice, freshly squeezed
• ½ cup water

Procedure

1. Wash the okra and pat it dry with paper towels.
2. Discard any blemished or hard pods.
3. Heat the olive oil in a heavy saucepan and sauté the okra in the oil for 3 to 5 minutes, turning each pod once.
4. Add the honey, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and water. Cover, lower the heat, and simmer for 15 minutes, adding more water if necessary.
5. Serve hot.

Serves 4 to 6.

'Irea (Cinnamon Beverage)

Ingredients

• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 2 teaspoons sugar, or to taste
• 1 cup cold water
• Mixed nuts

Procedure

1. Place the cinnamon and sugar in a small saucepan with the cold water and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.
2. Lower the heat and allow the mixture to simmer for 10 minutes, or until it is brownish.
3. Remove the cinnamon sticks and pour the drink into a cup.
4. Serve with mixed nuts sprinkled into the cup.

Makes 1 cup.

Khoshaf

Ingredients

• 1 cup dried prunes
• 1 cup dried apricots
• 1 cup dried small figs, halved
• 1½ cups raisins
• 1 cup sugar, or to taste
• 2½ cups boiling water

Procedure

1. Place all the fruits in a bowl and mix together gently.
2. Sprinkle the sugar on top of the dried fruits.
3. Carefully pour the boiling water into the bowl, cover, and allow to cool to room temperature.
4. Refrigerate for several hours, or overnight if possible. (Khoshaf is best when allowed to marinate overnight or for several hours before serving.)

Serves 4.

Lettuce Salad

Ingredients

• 1 small head of lettuce, shredded
• ¾ cup orange juice
• Pinch of salt
• 1½ teaspoons pepper, or to taste

Procedure

1. Toss lettuce with orange juice.
2. Season with a pinch of salt and pepper.

Makes 6 to 8 servings.

5 MEALTIME CUSTOMS

Dining customs vary throughout the country and between different religions. When guests are in the presence of Muslims (who make up approximately 90 percent of Egypt's population), there are some general guidelines one should follow. The left hand is considered unclean and should not be used for eating, feet should always been tucked under the table, and alcohol and pork should not be requested.

When invited to be a guest in an Egyptian household, it is polite for guests to bring a small gift to the host, such as flowers or chocolate, to show their appreciation for the meal. Before dinner, cocktails (often nonalcoholic) are frequently served. This is a time for socializing and becoming acquainted. Mezze (salads and dips) would also be served at this time. When dinner is ready, usually between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., guests seat themselves and food is placed in the middle of the table. Bread will almost always accompany meals, which may include vegetables, rice dishes, soups, and meat dishes. Following dinner, guests will move into another room and enjoy coffee or mint tea. Guests should always compliment the cook.

Most Egyptian peasants cannot afford a large meal. Their diet includes vegetables, lentils, and beans. Meat, which is more costly, is eaten on special occasions. Most middle-class families eat a similar diet, but add more expensive ingredients when they can afford to. All social classes, however, enjoy quick bites at Egyptian cafes or street vendors. Traditional teahouses will serve tea in tall glasses (rather than teacups) and cafes normally offer strong, sweet Turkish coffee. Street vendors sell a variety of inexpensive foods, including ful (fava beans) and koushari (a macaroni, rice, and lentil dish) as a lunchtime favorite. Vendors also sell a variety of asiir (fresh-squeezed juices) made from fruits like banana, guava, mango, pomegranate, strawberry, from sugar cane, and even hibiscus flowers.

Spinach with Garlic

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 can (15-ounce) tomato sauce
• 10 ounces frozen spinach, thawed
• ½ cup water
• 2 cups cooked rice

Procedure

1. Heat oil in a large skillet.
2. Add onions and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, until onions are softened.
3. Add the garlic and continue to cook for 2 minutes.
4. Add the tomato sauce and bring to a boil.
5. Simmer for 10 minutes on low heat.
6. Add the spinach and water, and heat to a boil again.
7. Cover and simmer on low heat for 15 minutes.
8. Serve warm over cooked rice.

Serves 4.

6 POLITICS, ECONOMICS, AND NUTRITION

In 1999, agriculture made up approximately 16 percent of Egypt's economy, employing about one-third of all Egyptians. However, Egypt's agriculture is also contributing to the slowing of economic growth. A shortage of arable land (land that can be farmed) has become a serious problem. The lack of farmable land has caused Egyptian farmers to move to other countries.

Irrigation necessary to grow its major crops, such as sugar cane, barley, wheat, corn, cotton, and rice, is also a growing problem. The Nile River is Egypt's main water source for both drinking and irrigation, and overuse could risk the country's delicate water supply. More than two thousand years ago, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote: "Egypt is the gift of the Nile." Without the Nile River, Egypt would be virtually dry and crops to prevent hunger and malnutrition could not grow. Much in part to the irrigation from the Nile River, Egypt has one of the lowest childhood malnourishment rates on the continent. About 9 percent of children younger than five were considered malnourished.

7 FURTHER STUDY

Books

APA Productions. Insight Guide: Egypt. New York: Langenscheidt Publishers, 1999.

Balkwill, Richard. Food and Feasts in Ancient Egypt. New York: New Discovery, 1994.

Haag, Michael. Cadogan Guide to Egypt. London: Cadogan Books, 1998.

Hachten, Harva. Best of Regional African Cooking. New York: Hippocrene Books, Inc., 1998.

Imeme, Sally-Anne, and Stefan Cucos, eds. Odyssey Guides: Egypt. Chicago: Passport Books, 1997.

Lonely Planet: Egypt. 5^th ed. Victoria, Australia: Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd., 1999.

Mallos, Tess. The Complete Middle East Cookbook. Boston: Tuttle, 1993.

Web Sites

Recipes for Food and Cuisine in Egypt. [Online] Available http://touregypt.net/recipes/ (accessed January 28, 2001).

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt is one of the most studied and best known of the early civilizations. With its great pyramids and temples that have survived to the present day, and with the fascinating mummies found in tombs filled with riches and lined with hieroglyphs, or picture drawings, ancient Egypt provides a fascinating historical record. Tracing its roots to about 4000 b.c.e., the civilizations that we know as ancient Egypt existed for nearly four thousand years before they broke up and came under the control of the Roman Empire. During its peak, from about 2700 b.c.e. to about 750 b.c.e., ancient Egypt developed a complex and powerful civilization and also created fascinating customs surrounding dress and body ornamentation.

The power of the pharaohs

The first Egyptian cultures formed along the banks of the Nile River in northern Africa sometime before 4000 b.c.e. Ever since that time, the Nile has been at the center of Egyptian culture. One of earth's great rivers, the Nile's waters allowed for the development of agriculture in a dry land, and communities formed along its banks. The Nile flows north from Lake Victoria in present-day Uganda through Sudan and into Egypt and empties into the Mediterranean Sea. In ancient times Egypt had been divided into Upper Egypt to the south and Lower Egypt to the north. In about 3100 b.c.e. the two cultures were united under King Menes. (Some believe, however, the king who united the two Egypts was named King Narmer.) He became the first pharaoh, the Egyptian name for the ultimate ruler, and he wore the pschent, a crown that symbolized the union of the two regions of Egypt.

From the time of Menes on, Egypt was ruled by pharaohs whose reign was known as a dynasty. The pharaohs were thought to be directly related to the gods. In fact, Egyptians believed that the pharaohs were gods. The pharaohs had ultimate power in Egypt and were the head of the religion and the government; any decision that they made was accepted without question. The society that they ruled over fully accepted the power of the pharaoh, and Egypt was long protected from foreign attack by the vast deserts that lay to the west and the Red Sea that lay to the east. For these reasons Egyptian society was very stable. Pharaoh succeeded pharaoh for nearly three thousand years, and many elements of Egyptian culture stayed the same throughout this time, including many of their clothing traditions.

Egyptian timeline

The history of ancient Egypt is broken into several periods or eras. There are stretches of time in Egyptian society that we know more about than others. During the well-known periods, Egyptians left enduring records of their society in the form of buildings and hieroglyphs that describe the period. These times were the most stable, with peaceful succession of rulers. From the lesser-known periods, few records remain. Out of the well-known periods there are three that are extensively studied: the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, and the New Kingdom. The Old Kingdom period, which lasted from about 2700 b.c.e. to about 2000 b.c.e., saw the construction of the first great monuments of Egyptian architecture: the great stone pyramids at Giza on the west bank of the Nile near the current Egyptian capital of Cairo. During the Old Kingdom Egyptians developed an accurate solar calendar much like the one we use today, and they made great achievements in art and culture. The Middle Kingdom period lasted from about 2000 b.c.e. to about 1500 b.c.e. It is known for achievements made in literature and for the increasing contacts that Egyptians made with surrounding cultures in the greater Middle East. Egyptians borrowed customs from other cultures and incorporated them into their lives.

The New Kingdom period lasted from about 1500 b.c.e. to about 750 b.c.e. During this time Egypt truly became an empire. It conquered its neighbors to the south and expanded its control into other parts of Africa. Egypt became very rich during the New Kingdom, and it displayed its wealth in lavish temples and more highly decorated clothes. Egyptian society began to break down after about 1000 b.c.e., and it was conquered by Macedonian leader Alexander the Great (356–323 b.c.e.) in 332 b.c.e. From that point on the stable and distinctive culture of ancient Egypt slowly disappeared.

Distinctive Egyptian culture

Though ancient Egyptian culture existed for nearly thirty centuries, many elements of the culture stayed quite similar over this vast span of time. Religion remained very important to the Egyptians. Religious rituals accompanied every part of Egyptian daily life. One key belief held by Egyptians was that of eternal life. They believed that life would go on after death, so they preserved dead bodies very well. Those people who could afford it had their bodies made into mummies, or bodies that were preserved and wrapped in cloth. Nobles, or high officials, and pharaohs were always well preserved and their bodies were kept in tombs that were filled with goods that they might need in the afterlife. The great pyramids and temples were the greatest of these tombs but were frequently ransacked by robbers over the ages, destroying many preserved treasures. The only pharaoh's tomb to be found intact belonged to King Tutankhamun, the young king who ruled in the fourteenth century b.c.e. His solid gold coffin and the many riches found nearby, which were discovered in 1922, show how rich the lives of these pharaohs must have been. The great pyramids of ancient Egypt, which survive to this day as a marvel of human engineering, show how seriously Egyptians took preparations for the afterlife.

The other great source of stability in ancient Egypt was the Nile River. While religion and the pharaohs controlled one aspect of life in Egypt, the Nile—the longest river in the world—controlled other aspects. Its seasonal floods richened the soil that provided the basis for Egypt's agricultural economy. Egyptians grew a variety of grains, such as wheat and flax. They also grew vegetables. All of the major settlements in Egypt were built along the Nile, for much of the rest of the area was desert. Egyptians lived in small towns, and they built homes from mud bricks which helped keep the walls cool in the hot temperatures.

In the contemporary world fashions change all the time. But in ancient Egypt certain kinds of clothing were worn by generation after generation of people with very little change. For Egyptians, this stability was not a problem but rather a symbol of the secure nature of their society.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Batterberry, Michael, and Ariane Batterberry. Fashion: The Mirror of History. New York: Greenwich House, 1977.

Chrisp, Peter. Ancient Egypt Revealed. New York: DK Publishing, 2002.

Contini, Mila. Fashion: From Ancient Egypt to the Present Day. Edited by James Laver. New York: Odyssey Press, 1965.

Cosgrave, Bronwyn. The Complete History of Costume and Fashion: From Ancient Egypt to the Present Day. New York: Checkmark Books, 2000.

Donoughue, Carol. The Mystery of the Hieroglyphs: The Story of the Rosetta Stone and the Race to Decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphs. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Kinnaer, Jacques. The Ancient Egypt Site. http://www.ancient-egypt.org (accessed on July 24, 2003).

Payne, Blanche, Geitel Winakor, and Jane Farrell-Beck. The History of Costume. 2nd ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.

Shuter, Jane. The Ancient Egyptians. Austin, TX: Raintree Steck-Vaughn, 2000.

Egypt, having been occupied by the British since 1882, became a British protectorate in 1914. The protectorate was ended in February 1922 by a declaration of independence under which the country became a constitutional monarchy with universal male suffrage. However, pending negotiations, responsibility for four matters—defence, the security of the empire's communications, the protection of foreign interests and of minorities, and the Sudan—still rested with the British government. This rendered independence almost meaningless, and even after the signing of the Anglo–Egyptian Treaty of August 1936, the year when King Farouk (1920–65) ascended the throne, the British still retained certain rights. These included the right to continue to defend the Suez Canal, a vital artery to Australasia and British Far East possessions, until the Egyptian Army—which, on the outbreak of war, comprised eleven infantry battalions, one regiment of light tanks and another of armoured cars—was capable of doing so. A clause in Article 7 of the Treaty, which the UK invoked on 1 September 1939, stated that in the event of war the king would give ‘all the facilities and assistance in his power, including the use of ports, aerodromes, and means of communication’. In effect, this resulted in the country's virtual occupation by British forces. Alexandria was the main base of the British Mediterranean fleet throughout the war and the HQ of the C-in-C, Middle East Command, was situated in the capital, Cairo.

At the start of the war, the Egyptian prime minister, Ali Mahir, led a coalition of independents and Sa'adists which had been formed from an anti-British wing of the Wafd nationalist party. Ali Mahir became military governor of the country, which was divided into four military districts, martial law was proclaimed, strict monetary and economic measures and censorship were imposed, German nationals were arrested, and diplomatic relations with Germany were severed. But Ali Mahir was basically pro-Axis, as was Farouk, and Egypt did not declare war on Germany. Diplomatic relations were also severed with Italy in June 1940, when Italy entered the war, but again Ali Mahir refused to declare war. He acted only reluctantly against Italian citizens and property in Egypt, and ordered Egyptian Army frontier guards not to fire on Italian troops.

Farouk was no constitutional monarch. He wielded considerable political power and he was popular with his people, but his country was occupied by the British and real power lay with the British ambassador, Miles Lampson. On 23 June 1940 Farouk was forced by the British to dismiss Ali Mahir, and it was not until this had happened that the Italian legation staff left the country. The opposition Wafd party, though nationalists, wished to co-operate with the British and the British wanted it to form a government, but Farouk, whose power the Wafdists had tried to curb, opposed this. Instead, a compromise prime minister, Hasan Sabri, was appointed who continued to hedge his country's bets. On 17 September 1940 Italian troops invaded Egypt (see Western Desert campaigns) but, despite an earlier declaration that it would declare war if the country were invaded, the Egyptian government maintained a state of non-belligerency. The Italians were subsequently driven back by the British, but air raids on Alexandria caused alarm—650 civilians were killed in one during June 1941—and the shortage of foodstuffs spread internal discontent.

In November 1940 Sabri died and was replaced by Husayn Sirry, whose coalition government the Wafdist opposition refused to join. During that winter domestic conditions deteriorated sharply. There was a severe shortage of basic commodities, the black market flourished, and the introduction of rationing failed to cure the problem. The government then restricted the amount of land that could be cultivated for cotton so that more food could be grown, but so acute was the shortage of bread in January 1942 that some Cairo bakeries were stormed by hungry mobs.

The same month a crisis developed when two ministers resigned, the British forced the government to sever relations with Vichy France, and Farouk, who had not been consulted, accused the government of infringing his royal prerogative. Axis forces in the desert were now approaching Egypt and amid cries from demonstrators in the streets of ‘Forward Rommel; long live Rommel’, Sirry resigned on 2 February. The British insisted that Farouk ask Mustafa al-Nahhas, head of the Wafd, to form a government, but the king wavered and prevaricated. British troops and armoured cars then surrounded the royal palace and Lampson demanded Farouk's abdication. Instead, Farouk ac cepted a Wafdist government under Nahhas, a decision that was shortly afterwards endorsed by a general election.

Nahhas was firmly pro-British. Ali Mahir was put under house arrest in April 1942 and when Rommel's Axis forces advanced into Egypt in mid- 1942 Nahhas interned suspects and closed the Royal Automobile Club of Egypt where pro-Axis sentiments were openly expressed by the more fashionable members of society. Throughout 1942 anti-British sentiment remained strong, especially in the Egyptian Army whose one-time chief of staff, Aziz al-Masri, was a prominent supporter of the Axis cause, and pro-Axis sympathizers and agents (see Kondor mission) were constantly trying to undermine the British war effort. But in November El Alamein was fought and won and the war moved away from Egypt. However, despite the antagonism of Farouk, who twice tried to dismiss him, and twice had to be dissuaded by the British, Nahhas remained in power until October 1944. By then the British had lost interest and Farouk replaced him with the Saadist leader Ahmad Mahir. In February 1945 Mahir, who had just obtained parliament's approval to declare war on Germany and Japan, was assassinated, and it was his successor who made the declaration of war on 26 February, allowing Egypt to become a founding member of the United Nations (see San Francisco conference).

The rise of nationalism in the country became more marked once an Axis invasion—viewed, despite anti-British sentiment, with some trepidation—was no longer a possibility; after further negotiations and Farouk's abdication in July 1952, the last British troops left Egyptian soil in 1954. See also anti-imperialism.

Bibliography

Cooper, A. , Cairo in the War, 1939–1945 (London, 1989).
Vatikiotis, E. J. , The Modern History of Egypt (rev. edn., London, 1980).
Warburg, G. , Egypt and the Sudan: Studies in History and Politics (London, 1985).

Egypt Part of the Ottoman Empire from 1517, it became practically autonomous under the rule of the Khedives (governors) during the nineteenth century. Domestic unrest led to its occupation by British forces in 1882 to protect its interest in the Suez Canal, which served as a vital link of the trade route between Britain and India. It was declared a British protectorate in 1914, though increasing nationalist resistance, which after World War I found its political expression in the Wafd party led by Saghlul Sa'd, forced the British to introduce a constitutional monarchy in 1923. Egypt was given internal autonomy, though the continuation of a substantial British military presence effectively gave Britain a veto in Egyptian affairs. This fuelled further nationalist agitation under the new leader of the Wafd party, Nahhas, who was instrumental in formalizing Egypt's relationship with Britian in the Anglo-British Treaty of 1936. By this, British occupation was formally ended and Egypt's independence recognized, though a British military presence would continue along the Suez Canal. The treaty also allowed for the expansion of British forces in times of war, which caused a mushrooming of the British military presence in Egypt during World War II, when it became a base for repelling Rommel's advance in the North African campaigns. In response, nationalist sentiment and popular agitation reached new heights.

After the war, the weak and corrupt leadership of King Farouk I and his ministers, the humiliation of the armed forces during the war against the newly independent state of Israel (1948–9), and continued nationalist hostility to the British armed forces precipitated the coup by the Free Officers group on 22–3 July 1952, led by Neguib. The monarchy was abolished in 1953, and in 1954 Nasser assumed power. He held that a complete break with the country's imperial past could only be undertaken through fundamental political, economic, and social reform. He outlawed all political opposition, and replaced the traditional political and administrative elite with his followers. Through extensive land redistribution he significantly reduced the hitherto glaring income inequalities of Egypt's predominantly agrarian population. His programme of ‘Arab socialism’ sought to plan industrial output, which was to be facilitated by the nationalization of the country's largest banks and key industries. The most important part of this programme, the nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956, sparked off the Suez Crisis, which increased further his reliance on the support of the USSR, as well as his reputation as a strong Arab leader. The latter was damaged when Egypt took part in the disastrous Six Day War, which forced the closure of the Suez Canal until 1975 and put the Sinai peninsula as well as the Gaza strip under Israeli control.

Nasser remained in power until his death in 1970 and was succeeded by Sadat, who restored national pride through the Yom Kippur War of 1973. This strengthened his authority to such an extent that he was able to carry out a complete reversal of Nasser's policies. The economy was liberalized, foreign capital investment encouraged, and formerly close links to the USSR severed. Most significantly, he was the first Arab leader to sign a peace agreement with Israel (at Camp David) in 1978, thus anticipating by more than a decade the mutual recognition between Israel and the Arab states. Peace with Israel also yielded a return of the Sinai peninsula, whose oil resources became an important factor of the Egyptian economy in the 1980s.

Sadat was assassinated in 1981, though his policies were continued by Mubarak. Mubarak eventually succeeded in breaking Egypt's diplomatic isolation from the Arab community from 1987, and on 26 May 1989 Egypt was readmitted into the Arab League. His government had considerable difficulties in managing the economy, which was crippled by foreign debts, rapid urbanization, and a large population growth. The Gulf War, in which Egypt committed troops to the allied forces, heightened its economic problems owing to the interruption of trade with Iraq, and the repatriation of over 700,000 Egyptians who had worked in Iraq or Kuwait before the war. The main issue in Egyptian politics, however, was the increasing popular support for Islamic fundamentalism, which challenged the authority of Mubarak's secular regime. In the elections of 1995 and 2000, Mubarak was forced to resort to substantial corruption to secure a parliamentary majority for his National Democratic Party, and deny the Muslim Brotherhood substantial representation. In 1998, Egypt completed a stabilization programme involving privatization and the reduction of public debt. This had stimulated economic growth throughout the decade, and led to a cancelling of half of Egypt's debt with the IMF. From 1997, Egypt was a growing target of terrorist attacks especially against tourists, many of which were financed by Osama Bin Laden. Of the terrorists directly implicated in the September 11 attacks, a disproportionate number came from Egypt, pointing to the continuing popularity of radical Islamic fundamentalism beneath the apparent stability of Mubarak's regime. The strength of Islam and the corresponding pro-Palestinian sentiments among the population put Mubarak in an increasingly difficult position as Sharon used force against the Palestinians under Arafat.

Egypt

Climate and Vegetation

Egypt is a dry country, and sparse rainfall occurs in winter. It has mild winters and hot summers. The Nile valley forms a long, green ribbon of fertile farmland. Dry landscape covers 90% of Egypt; the Western Desert alone covers c.75%.

History and Politics

The Egyptian state was formed (c.3100 bc). The Old Kingdom saw the building of the pyramids at Giza. The ruins of the Middle Kingdom's capital at Luxor bear testament to Egypt's imperial power (see Egypt, ancient). In 332 bc, it was conquered by Alexander the Great and the capital moved to Alexandria. After Cleopatra, the Roman empire was dominant. In ad 642, Egypt was conquered by the Umayyad dynasty, who were supplanted by the Abbasids. Arabic became the official language and Islam the dominant religion. Under the Fatimids, Cairo became a centre of Shi'ite culture. Saladin's rule (1169–93) was notable for the defeat of the Crusades. His dynasty was overthrown (1250) by Mameluke soldier slaves.

In 1517, Egypt was conquered by the Ottomans, who ruled for nearly three centuries. Egypt was occupied (1798–1801) by Napoleon I. France was expelled by Muhammad Ali, who established the modern Egyptian state. The construction of the Suez Canal (1867) encouraged British imperial ambitions. Britain subdued Cairo (1882) and the British army remained even after Egypt became an independent monarchy under Fuad I (1922). Fuad was succeeded by Farouk (1936–52). The creation of Israel (1948) saw the involvement of Egypt in the first of the Arab-Israeli Wars. In 1953 the monarchy fell, and Gamal Abdal Nasser led (1954–70) the new republic. Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal (1956) was briefly contested by Israel, Britain and France. In 1958, Egypt, Syria and Yemen formed the short-lived United Arab Republic. Nasser promoted Egypt as leader of the Arab world. Egypt was defeated by Israel in the Six-Day War (1967). Nasser was succeeded by Anwar Sadat. After defeat in the Yom Kippur War (1973), Sadat signed the Camp David Accord (1979) with Israel. Israel withdrew from Sinai (1982). Egypt was expelled from the Arab League and Sadat was assassinated by Islamic extremists.

Hosni Mubarak became president (1981– ). A state of emergency has been in force since 1981. Mubarak led Egypt back into the Arab League (1989) and improved relations with the West. In 1992, Muslim fundamentalists re-launched an armed struggle. Terrorist attacks included the massacre of 58 tourists in Luxor (1997), damaging the vital tourist industry.

Economy

Egypt is Africa's second most industrialized country (after South Africa), but remains a poor developing country (2000 GDP per capita, US$3600). In return for rescheduling its foreign debt, Egypt has undertaken privatizations. Farming employs 34% of the workforce. Egypt is the world's second-largest producer of dates. Buffalo and cotton are also important. Textiles are the second most valuable export (after oil).

Political map

Physical map

Websites

http://www.touregypt.net

Egypt (Miṣr), and USA The Arab Republic of Egypt (Jumhūrīyat Miṣr al‐'Arabīyah) since 1971. In 1958 Egypt and Syria together formed the United Arab Republic; in 1961 Syria withdrew, but Egypt retained the name for another ten years. (Egypt and Syria had been united under Saladin at the end of the 12th century and again in 1260.) Previously the first Arab Republic of Egypt from 1953 after the monarchy was abolished; the Kingdom of Egypt (1922–53) when it gained nominal independence; a British protectorate (1914), having been occupied by the British in 1882, although remaining nominally an Ottoman Turkish province, when Turkey entered the First World War on Germany's side; a province of the Ottoman Empire (1517), although it was under French rule in 1798–1801. The Mamlūks, emancipated military slaves of non‐Arab origin, came to the fore in 1250 and retained control until the arrival of the Ottoman Turks. Between 969 and 1169 Egypt was ruled by the Fātimids from modern Tunisia. Before being conquered by the Arabs in 642, Egypt had been a province of the Byzantine Empire (395) and of the Roman Empire (30 bc). Between 332 bc, when Alexander III the Great^† took Egypt, and 1922 the country was ruled by people who were not Egyptians. The ancient Greek and Roman names for the country, Aiguptos and Ægyptus respectively, come from the Egyptian hūt‐kā‐ptah ‘Temple of the Soul of Ptah’ from hūt ‘temple’, kā ‘soul’, and the god Ptah. The Egyptian name for the country was Khemi ‘Black Land’, more probably because of the dark skins of the ancient Egyptians, but possibly because of the colour of the earth when flooded by water from the River Nile. The name Khemi is believed to have given us the word ‘alchemy’, in Arabic al‐kīmiyā. The Egyptian language is now extinct, the last form of the language, Coptic, only surviving in the liturgy of the Coptic Church. The modern Arabic name for Egypt, Miṣr, was brought by Arab conquerors from the Hejaz in the 7th century. It is an ancient Semitic word which could be interpreted as a border region or province. Egypt, not being an Arabic word, is only used by Egyptians when speaking English. Egypt has given its name to ‘gypsy’ since gypsies were originally thought to have come from Egypt; in fact, they came from India.

Egypt. British interest in Egypt arose from concern to protect the route to India. Napoleon's occupation of Egypt in 1798 was terminated by the peace of Amiens three years later, when control of the country was restored to the Ottoman empire. The opening of the Suez canal in 1869 increased the strategic importance of Egypt to Britain, and British troops occupied the country in 1882 when Anglo-French attempts to sort out the government's debts had led to a revolt by the heavily taxed peasantry. A British protectorate was declared in 1914 when Germany's alliance with the Ottoman empire in the First World War posed a new threat to British interests. Nominal independence, under a constitutional monarch, was restored in 1922, but Britain maintained a military base to control the Suez canal until Gamal Abdel Nasser seized power in 1952 and nationalized the canal.

Kenneth Ingham

Egypt the ancient kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt were ruled successively by thirty-one dynasties, which may be divided into the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, and the New Kingdom. Egypt was a centre of Hellenistic culture and then a Roman province before coming under Islamic rule and then becoming part of the Ottoman Empire (modern Egypt became independent in 1922).

Gypsies derive their name from the popular belief that they originated in Egypt, and St Mary of Egypt was sometimes referred to informally as Mary Gypsy.
spoil the Egyptians profit from the wealth or belongings of another (spoil here means plunder or despoil); with biblical allusion to Exodus 12:37.

Egypt British interest in Egypt arose from concern to protect the route to India. Napoleon's occupation in 1798 was terminated by the peace of Amiens three years later, when the country was restored to the Ottoman empire. The opening of the Suez canal in 1869 increased the strategic importance of Egypt, and British troops occupied the country in 1882. A British protectorate was declared in 1914 when Germany's alliance with the Ottoman empire posed a new threat. Nominal independence, under a constitutional monarch, was restored in 1922, but Britain maintained a military base until Gamal Abdel Nasser seized power in 1952 and nationalized the canal.

Egypt

The people of Egypt are known as Egyptians. They trace their origin to the intermarriages of ancient Egyptians with invaders over many centuries from Asia and Africa. Several tribes of Bedouins or Bedu (nomads) live in the deserts and the Sinai Peninsula. See the chapter on Saudi Arabia in Volume 8 for more information on the Bedu.

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