Pride of Place

June 2007
Pride of Place
At least 70,000 Egyptians are literally card-carrying descendants of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his family. Senior Writer Manal el-Jesri goes inside the society that certifies their belonging to Al-Ashraaf and wonders: Is this branch of a family that is as ancient as the Holy Qur’an ready to deal with a new Saudi society and the rise of DNA testing?More than social and religious prestige are at stake: Did the Prophet himself not say that the Mahdi who will bring peace to Earth after much war and destruction would be “from my family, from the sons of Fatima”?
By Manal el-Jesri



Sheikh Mohamed Hammad, the imam of Al-Rifaii Mosque, recently had a ru’ya (a divine dream). He’s reluctant to talk about it and becomes a little shy when pressed, but it was this ru’ya that prompted him to start investigating his family’s lineage, setting him off on a journey that has led him to believe he is a descendant of Prophet Muhammad, God’s peace and prayers be upon him.




“A sheikh once told me that if someone dreams of one of the Prophet’s family, and especially if the dream is of a female not wearing a veil, it means he is a mahrim [a male relative],” Sheikh Hammad says. It was the great Sayyeda Zeinab that he dreamt of, that woman so beloved of Egypt’s poor — the protector of the helpless, the chief of the Diwan, Omm Hashem, the Lady Zeinab, the granddaughter of Sayyedna Muhammad, who was given her name by God Himself through His messenger, the angel Gabriel.

Sayyeda Zeinab came to Egypt in the year 61 after Hijra (AH, equivalent to the year 680 on the Julian calendar) after her brother, Sayyedna Al-Hussein, was murdered in the battle of Karbalaa by the legions of the new Umayyad Caliph Al-Yazid I. She died and was buried in Cairo, where an entire district was named in her honor. To this day, the Mosque of Sayyeda Zeinab is a popular destination for Egyptians, poor and rich, in need of succor.

Sayyeda Zeinab’s journey to Egypt showed the Prophet’s other grandchildren and relatives that Egypt would be a safe haven for them in times of need. She had brought her nephews and nieces with her, the sons and daughters of her deceased brothers Al-Hussein and Al-Hassan, and their descendants are those who live among us today as Al-Ashraaf.

At turns feared and persecuted by those in power because of the boundless love and respect the family attracts from the masses, there are now some 70,000 officially recognized families in Egypt who can trace their lineage back to the Prophet and his descendants. While estimates of the number of descendants yet to be registered varies widely depending on which authority you ask, nassaaba (lineage expert, singular and plural) at the nation’s centuries-old Niqabat Al-Ashraaf (Al-Ashraaf Syndicate) diligently sift through stacks of documents and process paperwork to verify who will be recognized as a member of Al-Ashraaf and who will not. Canvassing the entire nation for the family of the Prophet — who died some 1,400 years ago in 632 AH (1234 AD) — is no easy feat, with today’s nassaaba obliged to depend on documents — not just family histories passed down in the oral tradition — to verify lineage.

Although the largest concentration of officially recognized Al-Ashraaf can be found in Cairo and Upper Egypt, disagreements over matrilineal descent and how an application to be recognized as a Shareef is investigated has led Al-Ashraaf scattered across the Arab world to subtly begin questioning the Egyptian syndicate’s credibility. In April, a new Al-Ashraaf association launched in Saudi Arabia, claiming it will certify applicants’ status as Al-Ashraaf using more modern, scientific methodologies — including, perhaps, DNA testing.


For applicants, though, certification as a Shareef is about far more than a piece of paper on the wall.

At the Syndicate

Sheikh Hammad hopes to receive his certificate after the lineage verification committee finishes its investigations. That committee is at the heart of Niqabat Al-Ashraaf on Salah Salem Road. The architecture of the syndicate’s opulent headquarters is Islamic-chic. Ornamental marble covers the outside of the building, the interior of which is furnished in arabesque wood. Carved brass adorns most walls, and the main hall underneath the dome has a magnificent brass and colored glass chandelier.

Sitting behind his desk is Ahmed Kamel Yassin, a retired general now known as Al-Naqeeb (the head of the Syndicate, or Niqaba) as was his brother before him. Yassin can trace his lineage back to both Al-Hassan and Al-Hussein and, more recently, to the Imam Al-Rifaii, the beloved Sufi pole (see box), a heritage that also makes Yassin the Grand Sheikh of the Rifaii Sufi method.

The wall behind Yassin is decorated with a huge replica of the stamp of Prophet Muhammad. He looks at it lovingly when asked about it. “Al-Ashraaf are the descendants of the Messenger of God, and people cherish this lineage. They love it and protect it,” Yassin says.


In Egypt, which boasts the highest concentration of Al-Ashraaf in the world, the Niqaba — headed by Yassin, who is aided by both a board and a committee of nassaaba — has existed since the time of the Fatimid dynasty (910-1171 AD). The first naqeeb was Caliph Al-Muizz Li Din Allah in 968 AD. In his day and for centuries afterward, registering with the Niqaba was pointless, as the naqeeb personally knew all Al-Ashraaf and the idea that anyone would make a false claim never arose.

One of the most illustrious of Yassin’s predecessors was Al-Sayyed Omar Makram, who was in charge during the 1798 Bonaparte campaign against Egypt. The leader of the second Cairo revolution against the French in 1800, his religious role has been cast into the national identity.

For more than a century and a half afterward, the syndicate prospered. Then, in 1953, Al-Naqeeb Al-Sayyed Mohamed Ali El-Beblawy passed away. Gamal Abdel Nasser, the president of the time, conspicuously opted not to appoint a new one. Although the Niqaba was never traditionally associated with the state, it was President Hosni Mubarak who brought it back to life by appointing Yassin’s brother Mahmoud Kamel Yassin as Al-Naqeeb in 1991. Ahmed Kamel Yassin followed in his brother’s footsteps in 1994, also appointed by Mubarak.

(Interestingly, Ahmed Yassin was the first to bring the title of Shareef to Egypt. “It was used in other countries, but in Egypt we used the title of Al-Sayyed to refer to a descendant of the Prophet,” he explains.)

“Everything you see around you is paid for by Al-Ashraaf,” says Yassin. “We receive no support from the Ministry of Awqaf [Religious Endowments]. In the past, Al-Ashraaf themselves had awqaf, profits coming from agricultural land, for example, that helped support the poorer family members. The reason for the existence of the awqaf was because a Shareef is not allowed to accept charity, but can accept help from another Shareef. They are cousins, after all. When I became naqeeb, a young Shareef had an accident. He became paralyzed, and had no source of income. I decided to establish a fund for Al-Ashraaf. The rich members of the syndicate pay into it, and the revenue goes to the poorer members. We also send members to Hajj and celebrate the major religious events and holidays at our assembly hall here. It is a way for Al-Ashraaf to socialize and get to know each other.


“We are all members of the same family, you know,” he says.

It is a distinction shared by some 70,000 individually registered families in Egypt. “It will take us 10 to 15 years to register all the members of Al-Ashraaf. We are close to 5 or 6 million in Egypt,” Yassin says.

Although some members of Al-Ashraaf believe this figure is too high, Yassin insists millions of Al-Ashraaf are yet to be registered. “When Sayyeda Zeinab first came to Egypt, tens of her relatives came with her,” he notes. “The tens gave birth to hundreds, who later gave birth to thousands, and so on. It’s been 1,400 years. The figure of millions is not a strange one.”

To reach all Al-Ashraaf, Yassin adds, “I have set up tertiary syndicates in every governorate, in some cases even in towns, especially in Upper Egypt. It is where most of Al-Ashraaf are concentrated.” According to Yassin, the syndicate is certifying up to 1,000 new members every month.

Despite the staggering number of certificates being doled out, verifying a family’s lineage is no simple matter, Yassin continues. “Some people hold on to their family trees. These are very long parchments which they wrap and put in a tin box, kept safely in the hands of the oldest member of the family. Then there are books about lineage, and next come the keepers, those who memorize the lineage of a family. We have a register here dating back 150 years ago, with the names of all Al-Ashraaf whose lineage has been verified,” he says.

The Keeper

Elsewhere in the Niqabat Al-Ashraaf building, Hajj Sobhi Eid sits in a room full of researchers. It is here that certificates of lineage originate: Everyone in this room is an expert on the Hashimi lineage — the lineage of the Prophet Muhammad’s tribe — but it is easy to recognize Eid as the chief expert in the room. With eyes tired from too many hours spent poring over old books and a look on his face that says, ‘Talk if you must, but I am busy, so make it quick,’ Eid is also a Shareef, one of a dying breed of keepers who can recite his own lineage back to its origin, the Prophet Himself.

“My lineage comes from my mother and my father, who are both Al-Ashraaf,” Eid says in a slow drawl, sounding as if he has not spoken for ages.

Asked about the figure of 5 million Al-Ashraaf in Egypt, the history scholar and top Syndicate investigator shakes his head in boredom. “This is not exactly accurate. Where does this figure come from when we have registered 70,000 families and are about to finish registration? We have covered all of Egypt, although this includes lineage coming from the mother and the father, which is not exactly accurate. A mother’s lineage is called butoun, that of the father is called aslaab, which is what a nassaaba should go by,” he says.

Not minding Eid’s questions on the issue, Yassin has a ready answer for the question of whether the status of Al-Ashraaf can pass through the maternal line, saying, “We are the sons of Al-Hassan and Al-Hussein, the children of Fatima Al-Zahraa, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon Him. She is our source of lineage, so how can we deny lineage to other mothers? In other countries, they even accept the lineage of Sayyeda Zeinab herself, but here in Egypt, a Shareef is a descendant of Al-Hassan and Al-Hussein,” Yassin says.


Eid, though, counters that not all mothers are to be compared to Fatima Al-Zahraa, and a hadith of the Prophet Muhammad appears to give credence to his argument: “All the children of a mother are attributed to their fatherly relation except the sons of Fatima,” the Prophet said. Indeed, the Prophet loved his daughter so much that he considered Al-Hassan and Al-Hussein his own children, he loved them deeply. All three of the Prophet’s own sons died in infancy.

As a youth, Eid was attendant to his grandparents at the time of their ablutions for prayer and was taught the lineage of his own family and that of his relatives at the tender age of 12. Despite his rare proficiency in orally tracing back his lineage, Eid hesitates to talk about that approach to ansaab (lineage), saying he makes decisions on membership in Al-Ashraaf through solid evidence presented in documents and scholarly tracts.

“At home, I have about 40,000 books on ansaab. It is an exact science, and a very dangerous thing to deal with lightly,” he says. What makes it so difficult, Eid explains, is that Arabs, especially Al-Ashraaf, often share origins. “You will find that Al-Hassan and Al-Hussein meet at Fatima Al-Nabawiyya and Al-Hassan Al-Muthanna, who are cousins. If a Shareef says he is Hassani or Husseini, it makes no difference. The Messenger of God told us to recognize and remember our ansaab in order to be kind to our relatives. That is the main purpose,” he says.

Today, the memorization of lineage is still practiced among Arab tribes, be they in Upper Egypt or in other parts of the region. Lineage, after all, was the key factor in adjudicating land claims prior to Islam. With the arrival of Islam, lineage became a source of baraka, or blessing, particularly for Al-Ashraaf.

One’s nasab (singular for ansaab) was particularly important in view of the continuous migration of Al-Ashraaf, who were persecuted by leaders across the region who feared Al-Ashraaf might try to convert their immense popular support into bids for power.


After all, Eid notes, “Abdel Rahman El-Dakhel started the Arab dynasty in Andalusia. There was also Idriss, who migrated to Morocco.” (Idriss is, in fact, one of Eid’s forefathers: the nassaaba’s name ends in Idrissi.) “Idriss and his brother Suleiman migrated to North Africa. Idriss was the son of Abdullah Al-Kamel, the son of Al-Hassan Al-Muthanna, the son of Al-Imam Al-Hassan, the son of Ali ibn Abi Taleb [the cousin of the Prophet and husband of his beloved daughter, Fatima Al-Zahraa]. He founded the Idrissi dynasty in Morocco. The people of North Africa love Ahlul Bayt [the family of the Prophet], and the Berber king married off his daughter to Idriss, who bore him Mohammed and Suleiman. Mohammed later had Idriss [the true founder of the dynasty] who had 12 or 14 or 16 children,” he says.

Most of Al-Ashraaf of Morocco are Idrissis, a handful of whom would later make their way to Egypt.

Map of Love

More than 14 centuries separate the modern age from the time of the Prophet. As can be expected, tracking every member of every family that branched off from this illustrious lineage over the years is a daunting task, making it essential that a nassaaba born into the tradition of lineage tracing has a passion for his work.

“A nassaaba has to be very careful. The sources are many and varied. It could be a history book, a book about a history figure, a book about family trees, or a book about lineage. But not any book is to be trusted,” Eid warns. “You have to study something about the author and whether he wrote what he wrote for money or to leave behind a true legacy. There are authors to trust and authors to take lightly.”


Eid is currently working on a guidebook for future nassaaba with pointers on the correct methods of investigating lineage as well as tips on steering clear of common mistakes. A how-to guide for a nassaaba, if you will.

Take, for example, the common problem of parents naming their child after a revered imam such as Al-Rifaii. “This constitutes a problem because a family could later claim they are descendants of Al-Rifaii. But which Rifaii: the original one or his namesake? This is why it is dangerous, although tempting, to go by the famous names of Al-Ashraaf as the only proof of lineage,” Eid warns.

Even the lineage of some families already declared Al-Ashraaf is open to question, he suggests. Eid, one of the most meticulous experts on ansaab, recounts how things were done back during the time of the old Niqaba, before 1953.

“What they gave members was not a certificate, it was a decree of nasab, and some of those are over 200 years old. Like today, a person had to come forward with their documents and the Niqaba would send detectives to visit the person’s village or town and ask the old people about the claims of lineage. Some people were famous Al-Ashraaf, and sometimes the Niqaba depended solely on this reputation. It was not accurate enough. These days, we depend on documents and history books only. Everything must be well-documented on paper,” Eid says.

Today, many applications are turned down. Eid refuses to talk about the percentage of rejected applications, but says that the status of any nasab falls under four categories: sahih (correct), maqbul (accepted), da’if (weak) and mardud (rejected). “We never tell anyone that their documents are forged, although we have seen some forgeries. We just say that the nasab is mardud,” he says.



Magdi El-Safty, the former deputy of Naqabat Al-Ashraaf from Alexandria, discovered a number of forged family trees.

“Some families had posted their family trees on the internet, and it was very obvious that these trees were forgeries,” claims El-Safty. “I even know of a place here in Alexandria where they forge family trees. It is obvious when a tree is a forgery: You can see it in the calligraphy, the style, the ink and many other variants. I have seen so much that I can tell a forgery from an authentic document right away.”

El-Safty, an accountant by profession, worked as a deputy for the Niqaba for six years, from 1994 to 2000. “At the time I took charge, there were only 50 registered Al-Ashraaf families in Alexandria. I helped register 1,500 members,” he says. As El-Safty sees it, the Niqaba’s main job is to protect ansaab so they are not lost. Although no longer associated with the Syndicate, El-Safty maintains a website — www.alashraf.ws — funded by Kuwaiti Al-Sherif Abdullah Al-Hussein and visited by Al-Ashraaf from all over the world. El-Safty’s site is not backed by the Egypt-based Syndicate.

“For Arabs, the nasab was an important element of their identity. They kept it and recorded it. An old family’s tree would be a six or seven-meter document. When I worked at the Alexandria branch of the syndicate, I always made sure I saw the original before accepting a copy. Some families were registered with the old, pre-1953 Niqaba, and these we used to accept right away, but then some are known to be Al-Ashraaf. In the villages, people know these things. They memorize the families’ lineages,” he says.

With overpopulation, it became difficult to depend on elders’ memories. That is when forgeries started springing up, El-Safty alleges.


“In Upper Egypt, where the tribal feelings are very strong, someone would say ‘I am a Shareef,’ so another, in order to raise the status of his family or tribe, would say, ‘Well, so am I.’ Down there, it makes a huge difference in People’s Assembly elections if you are a Shareef or not. [Upper Egypt boasts the greatest concentration of Al-Ashraaf in Egypt and probably the world. A Shareef there is guaranteed success in any election.] In other cases, drug traffickers procure forged family trees to claim descent to the Prophet. It is their way of diverting attention from their illegal activities,” he says.

With Shareef such a sought-after title, El-Safty is skeptical of the notion Egypt might be home to millions of Al-Ashraaf. “This means that one of every 10 Egyptians is a Shareef. How can this be? Even the figure of 70,000 is too large. The Niqaba accepts the lineage of women, which is not accurate. I believe the true figure to be one third or a little less [of 70,000].”

Back to the Roots

Monoufiyya-born Sheikh Mohammad ibn Ali Al-Talha is the secretary-general of a new association of the descendants of the Prophet, the Mecca-based World Scientific Association of Hashimi Lineage. Al-Shareef Mohammad Al-Husseiny, a Saudi businessman and chief of the Hashimi descendants in Saudi Arabia, serves as the president of the association, which says it aims to connect Al-Ashraaf all over the world — and to weed out the false claims to the lineage.

“As you know, there have been a lot of false claims to Hashimi descent by big families. These claims are hurtful. The association will branch all over the world, with a secretary-general and deputies in every country. We hope this association will put things to rights regarding the issue of descent,” Al-Talha explains.


One way the organization plans to “put things to rights” is to base its registration on DNA testing. “A few years ago, an Egyptian doctor in the US was helping us get tested,” adds El-Safty, who is one of the three nassaaba serving as consultants to Al-Talha, explains. “The test I took was designed to prove if a person is of Adnani descent [Adnan is common ancestor of all Arabs]. But I believe it is possible to reach the DNA of Al-Ashraaf. We can get the defining sample from one of the oldest families whose descent in indisputable and then compare the tested samples to it. The Jews did this, to prove if someone is a Semite or not, and it worked for them.”

(El-Safty’s suggestion of tracing lineage through DNA has merit, but is at best a highly simplistic view of the complex science of population genetics and how it may be used to identify a person’s membership in a particular family.)

Although Al-Talha is enthusiastic about the new association, he’s not certain that all members should be subjected to a DNA test. He himself took the ‘Adnani test,’ but believes DNA testing should be optional. “It will be very awkward if old, established families were to find out that after hundreds of years of believing they are Al-Ashraaf, they discover they are regular people after all,” he says.

The new World Scientific Association, Al-Talha believes, will have more credibility than Egypt’s Niqaba, which he criticizes for having a leader who is not a lineage expert. Traditionally, naqeebs have all been nassaaba, but that has not been the case recently.

“I believe his job is not to just sign the certificate. He must be an expert, he must have a say. Some certificates have been issued that were not accurate. Our credibility, as a result, has been affected. Some people just want the certificate for prestige,” Al-Talha claims.

The association, which says it hopes to collaborate with the Syndicate, will accept members after a much stricter verification process. “The secretary general, aided by three nassaaba [including El-Safty, in the case of Egypt], will personally review every application. Our recommendation will be sent to Mecca, where further verification is to take place. The certificate will be issued in Mecca,” Al-Talha says.

There’s more at stake here than just social and religious prestige, Al-Talha warns. Exactly who is and isn’t a Shareef will one day be important in helping people accept the Mahdi, the man whose advent was promised by the Prophet Muhammad and who will bring peace to Earth after much war and destruction. The Mahdi, you see, will be a descendant of the house of Muhammad. The Prophet s “The Mahdi is from my family, from the sons of Fatima.”

Like Eid, Al-Talha believes Fatima was special: she was the Prophet’s favorite daughter, which is why matrilineal descent is only specific to her. “I believe it is wrong to include the sons and daughters of a Shareefa in the lineage. If we were to weed out all those, we can safely say there are only around 5,000 Al-Ashraaf in Egypt,” he says.

Al-Talha, an expert on ansaab, is proud to talk about his own. “Al-Talha are originally Moroccan. Our ancestor is Sayyedi Sho’eib Abu Madyan, who was a great Sufi pole during his time. He died in the year 598 AH (1201 AD). Sayyedi Talha and his father Madyan ibn Sho’eib came to Egypt in the year 603 AH (1206 AD). The governorate of Kafr El-Sheikh used to be called Kafr El-Sheikh Talha. King Fouad then changed the name to El-Fouadiyya, but after the revolution it was changed back to Kafr El-Sheikh,” Al-Talha says. “The area of Hayy El-Magharba in Jerusalem is a waqf that was awarded to our family, in addition to five villages in Palestine. The Wall of El-Buraq [also known as the Wailing Wall to the Jews, it is a holy place for Muslims because it is where the Prophet Muhammad tethered his winged steed on his night trip to Jerusalem] is part of this waqf. Dr. Ahmed Abu Madyan, a Shareef and our relative, has been considering taking the issue to the International Court of Justice, [Israel claimed the land following the 1967 War].”

Pride of Place

Al-Talha was recently in Cairo to visit the Grand Mufti of Egypt Aly Gomaa to receive a fatwa regarding the Hashimi descent, after hearing of a fatwa issued by Sheikh Abdullah bin Jibrein, one of Saudi Arabia’s most famous Wahhabi thinkers.

“Ibn Jibrein had said that there is nothing called Hashimis anymore. He also said that those who claim to be Hashimis should be able to accept charity, which was prohibited by the Prophet himself. He based his claims on the fact that the existing Hashimis are too far removed in time from the Prophet. This is ridiculous. Some people have family trees that go back to the time of Sayyedna Adam. The Mufti told me the fatwa of Ibn Jibrein is the talk of Wahhabis and he is going to write a fatwa to disclaim it,” Al-Talha says.

The insistence of Al-Ashraaf, including Al-Talha and El-Safty, on protecting their noble lineage is a good thing, but does seem rather frantic. Al-Naqeeb Yassin takes a much more relaxed approach. To him, the heritage is something to be proud of, but is nothing to obsess over.

“Al-Shareef holds no advantage over anyone else. The Prophet said there is no difference between an Arab and a foreigner except through taqwa [fear of God]. I give every Shareef who has just registered his family a booklet, in which I write this advice: ‘My brother the Shareef, by belonging to Ahlul Bayt, you must know that this does not make you any different from the rest of the people. It is an honor that is only made better through fear of God. You must model yourself on our master, the Prophet. [] You must obey God and the Prophet, pray a regularly and work, because Islam is a religion for life and the beyond.’

“It is dangerous to be overly proud of being a Shareef,” Yassin continues. “It was a real problem in Upper Egypt, because Shareefas refused to marry anyone who was not a Shareef, and as a result we had a great number of unmarried women. I have fought this habit, and I believe I have been able to change things.” et

For six years, Sheikh Mohamed Hammad was imam of Sayyeda Zeinab Mosque, witnessing the daily crowds of visitors seeking her shrine. Today the imam of Al-Rifaii Mosque, Sheikh Hammad has long pondered why it is that Egyptians, rich and poor alike, seek blessing and succor from the deceased in times of need, even though the Saudi Arabian, or Wahhabi, interpretation of Islam frowns upon the practice.

“Why do people who have money troubles go to Sayyeda Nafeesa? Why do people who are in some kind of crisis visit Sayyedna Al-Hussein? And why do people in trouble go to Sayyeda Zeinab, why do those who are feeling depressed go to Sayyeda Aisha? I have thought about this for long, but then at a celebration in the Mosque of Sayyeda Zeinab, I found myself reciting this verse: ‘They shall have all that they wish for, in the presence of their Lord: such is the reward of those who do good” (Suret Az-Zumar 39:34).’

“And then I thought, ‘But why do people have to go to their shrine to ask for their assistance, or rather their intervention, in seeking God’s help?’ The Prophet said a grave is either one of the gardens of Paradise or one of the pits of Hell. So if you stand in front of the shrine of one of these descendants, then you are at the gate of Paradise,” Hammad explains. “This is why supplication is answered by God. People have tried this, it has worked for them, this is why they keep going back.”

Although the descendants of the Prophet’s uncles are also considered Al-Ashraaf in other parts of the world, the descendants of Al-Hassan and Al-Hussein are those considered the true Ahlul Bayt (Family of the Prophet). According to the Qur’an (33:33 — Suret Al-Ahzab): “And Allah only wishes to remove all abomination from you, ye members of the Family, and to make you pure and spotless.” In Sahih Muslim, one of the most accurate compilations of the Prophet’s sayings, the Prophet is quoted explaining verse 33: “The verse of purification was revealed concerning five people: myself, Ali, Hassan, Hussein and Fatima.”

This is why Egyptians are proud to say that their country is the resting place of a great number of the Prophet’s first descendants. In fact, a whole street is dedicated to the revered family. Cutting through the district of Khalifa, the street connects the mosque of Al-Sayyeda Nafeesa, the beloved of Egypt’s women, to the mosque of Sayyeda Zeinab. Dozens of the grandchildren and children of Al-Hassan and Al-Hussein are buried on both sides of this street, and their mausoleums and mosques are visited by Muslims from all over the world.

Dr. Saeed Abul-Isaad, the secretary of the general Mashyakah (Sheikhdom) of Sufi Methods, a semi-independent entity that sees eye-to-eye with both Al Azhar and the Mufti but that has its own elections and administrations, also believes in the baraka (blessing) of the descendants. His book Nailo El-Khayrat El-Malmousa, Bizayarati Ahlil Bayti wal Salihina bi Misra El-Mahroussa, is a guide to the lineage and locations of Egypt’s saints and descendants.

As a Sufi, this baraka is the core of his belief. The four Sufi Aqtab, or poles, are all direct descendants of the Prophet (PBUH). These are Ahmed Al-Rifaii (buried in Iraq, his grandson is buried in Al-Rifaii Mosque in Cairo), Ibrahim Al-Dessouki (buried in Dessouq, Egypt’s Delta), Ahmed Al-Badawi (buried in Tanta, Egypt’s Delta) and Abdel Qader Al-Jilani (buried in Iraq).

“God ordered us to visit and love the relatives of the Prophet,” Abul-Isaad says, quoting Qur’an 42:23, “Say: ‘No reward do I ask of you for this except the love of those near of kin. (Ashshura)’.”

This is why, he points out, Egypt was called Masr El-Mahroussa in the past. “It is because it is mahroussa [protected] by the Ahlul Bayt who came to it seeking refuge after they were persecuted everywhere else,” he says. “Although my book cites tens of shrines, these make up only a fraction of the true number of descendants buried in Egypt. Egypt has always been a refuge. Before Islam, there was the Prophet Youssef, the Prophet Moussa, and the Prophet Issa, who were all protected in Egypt. Egypt’s hospitality coincided with the generosity of Ahlul Bayt.”

Fahmy Howeidy

April 2007
Fahmy Howeidy
Just back from a tour of Iran, where he met with high-profile Shi’a politicians, prolific writer and Islamist thinker Fahmy Howeidy turns his attention to the Sunni-Shi’a divide and how outside powers might exploit it
By Manal el-Jesri



Fahmy Howeidy is one of Egypt’s most controversial writers. Or: Fahmy Howeidy is one of the nation’s least controversial writers. Your view on that particular question depends entirely on the side of the political aisle on which you sit. But one thing is inarguable: He enjoys the distinction of being the columnist most-censored by his own employer. Every few months, and sometimes every few weeks, we hear that his Al-Ahram editorial has been cut.




“I thank them for doing this,” Howeidy says. “I have already published my censored articles in a book, and I am putting together a new one.” The censoring, for those not aware, is completely pointless and unnecessary for the busy journalist, whose pieces run simultaneously in eight different newspapers. Any persistent reader can access the ‘missing’ by simply pushing a button.

Flitting between his commitments as an Islamic thinker and writer, Howeidy has no time for the attitude Egypt’s premier government-owned newspaper takes toward his work.

We must agree that the US does not care about Shi’a or Sunnis. All they want is to protect their own affairs. They just want to use both as pawns.
“I have no explanation for the censorship; those who censor are to be asked. When I write, I do not think about who will agree and who will oppose. The reader is the one on my mind. Sometimes, I write things I feel will not be published, but I still have to say them. We are not employees; we are writers. I am not concerned about President Hosni Mubarak. My concern is the man on the street. my pen is not connected to the state. I serve the reader, but the government wants people to serve it,” he complains.

Unwilling to mince his words, Howeidy’s opinions are strong and unadulterated. Case in point is his view of the increasing tensions between Shi’a and Sunni Muslims.

As a member of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), he recently visited Iran and engaged in debate with the political and religious leaders of that predominantly Shi’a country. His visit preceded Seymour Hersh’s already infamous March 2007 New Yorker story “The Redirection,” in which the veteran investigative journalist exposed Washington’s involvement in widening the gap between Muslim sects to serve US goals in the region.

“One of the most important things Hersh said was how the Americans are playing on this issue and are [bent] on fanning the flames when it comes to the relationship between Shi’a and Sunnis,” Howeidy says. “This is one point. What I want to say is that the Americans want to infiltrate the region through the sectarian cracks. Many of the American studies do not talk about Iraq as a country, but as a group of sects. As if there is no Iraqi citizen, just sects,” he says.

To Howeidy that’s not new direction in American foreign policy, but something that the current US administration has been pursuing from the word “Go.”

“When [Paul] Bremmer first came to Iraq, he divided the council to represent the different sects. This was back in 2003. This makeup then transferred to the ministries. They gave some ministries to the Shi’a, some to the Sunnis, while the Kurds got the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And then the ministers tried to color their ministries with their own sectarian colors. Things started to develop from there, until the sectarian differences spread to [geographical] regions. Then we started talking about Shi’a in the South, a Sunni triangle in the middle, Kurds in the North. For you to make an area Shi’a, you have to move the Sunnis out. The American role has been very, very [negative],” Howeidy says.

American meddling, believes Howeidy, has given a voice to extremists in each of the religious and ethnic sects, but Iran, he maintains, must share some of the blame.

You may have a number of observations against Iran, but you have to admit it is an independent country that can afford to make its own decisions. They support the Palestinians, who are Sunnis. They supported Bosnia, which is Sunni.
“When Iran found the atmosphere was suitable, it decided to spread out. They have started to expand into Iraq. Some of the groups in Iran, not necessarily endorsed by the government, and encouraged by the Ayatollahs, started to spread Shi’ist centers. Iran’s responsibility lies in not standing firmly against this. Iran has not acted like an Islamic country, but like a sectarian one. They were happy to see Shi’a Islam spreading, but did not notice that by gaining Shi’ism, they were losing their friends. We are amongst those friends, and we criticized them and spoke to them about our concerns when we were there last month,” Howeidy says.

“I spoke to the foreign minister, and to Ali Wilayati, Ali Larijani, also to [Hashemi] Rafsanjani. We spoke to seven or eight high-level officials. They are all moderate and were able to understand our point of view that you can gain 100 new Shi’a in Egypt, but lose important support. In a country with a population of 72 million, 100 Shi’a will not make a difference. But in small countries like Tunisia, or in remote areas in Sudan, things are different. When clashes started happening, the Sunnis had to speak out.”

The IUMS, a Sunni organization, is trying to open channels to the Shi’a world, which could prove priceless in preventing anyone from exploiting the Shi’a-Sunni divide, Howeidy says. “We must agree that the US does not care about Shi’a or Sunnis. All they want is to protect their own affairs. They just want to use both as pawns. They occupied Iraq with help from the Shi’a. Now they aim to attack Iran, so they need to court the Sunnis. They want to create a Sunni axis to confront Iran. But these are all plans that could change later on,” Howeidy says.

The aims Howeidy speaks of are, as he puts it: oil first, and providing protection for Israel second. “The most important thing is to protect these two goals. Anything else can go to hell,” he says. While the US administration constantly warns of the formation of a Shi’a crescent in the region, which if united may pose a threat to Sunni states, Howeidy believes a united Shi’a front is out of the question.

“Let me tell you why the idea of a Shi’a crescent is difficult. Iraq will not stabilize, bombings will continue. The Sunnis are still quite strong there. What is the next part of the crescent? Syria? The Alawite regime is not everlasting. In Lebanon, yes, the Shi’a are strong, but what can the Shi’a of Lebanon do on their own? I believe the idea of a Shi’a crescent is an American creation. The US is just trying to build up support in the Sunni world for a strike against Iran,” he claims.

In “The Redirection,” Hersh writes of Sunni militias in various areas of the Arab world, supported by the US and Saudi Arabia.

“There is a lot of talk about such things,” Howeidy agrees. “We heard talk about the Future militias of [Saad] Hariri, and we also heard about Palestinian training in camps in Lebanon. Rumors about such things fill the country, but I have no facts that I can give you. I can tell you, though, that there are efforts to heat things up. Rumors, inaccurate and accurate information are used to tarnish the situation in Lebanon, and to abort Hassan Nasrallah or silence his March 11 supporters, and thereby prop up the Hariri and Siniora group. They also want to decrease Sunnis’ admiration for Iran, so that when Iran is bombed, the Arab world will just sit and watch,” Howeidy surmises.

But does he think the US really will strike Iran? “When we talk to Americans, they say that by any sane calculations, such an act will not take place. Some Americans say, ‘But who said [the Bush administration] is sane?’ There are arguments on both sides. Nobody knows who will win in the end.”

Back in the 1980s, the prolific writer penned a book investigating the Iranian experiment and what would happen in the event it would emerge as an independent Islamic country. He points out that the book was written when the Iranian revolution was 10 years old — 17 years ago — and things have changed.

“You may have a number of observations against Iran, but you have to admit it is an independent country that can afford to make its own decisions. They have a high degree of democracy, much more than other countries. Iran the state is not antagonistic toward the Sunnis. They support the Palestinians, who are Sunnis. They supported Bosnia, which is Sunni, and when Shi’a Azerbaijan clashed with Orthodox Armenia, they supported Armenia. There is a degree of pragmatism in Iranian politics that we cannot overlook. Yes, there are some extremists, like there are Egyptian extremists who fight here and there. Nobody accuses the Egyptian government of supporting them,” Howeidy maintains.

What angers the writer is the absence of an official Egyptian role in this whole discourse.

“The Egyptian role has either diminished or disappeared completely. This contrasts with how the Egyptian people feel. The people stand strongly by Palestine and Lebanon. Part of the country’s crisis is the inability of the government to mirror society correctly. When America boycotts Palestine, why must Egypt close its Rafah borders?” asks Howeidy, who complains that Egyptian politicians would rather focus on domestic issues than on the country’s role in regional affairs.

According to Howeidy, this weakness can clearly be seen in the increasing outward manifestations of the Islamic identity. “It is good that people are expressing their identity, but this expression must be active. When people cannot find a strong government to protect them, they resort to their sects for protection,” Howeidy says.

“The country does not share a common project; common grounds do not exist. There are no great national battles for us to fight as one, so instead of identifying ourselves as Egyptian citizens, we talk about being individuals with individual goals.

“When the national identity wanes, it is each unto himself.” et

A Dying Revolution?

January 2008 - Egypt Today

A Dying Revolution?
In 1952, modern Egypt was born. Gamal Abdel Nasser’s promises and ideals set lofty new goals for a nation. Half a century later, we look at the legacy of the Revolution and ask: Does anything remain of Nasser’s vision today?

By Manal el-Jesri

We all cried when Hussein Riyadh, playing the poor gardener in Rodda Qalbi (Give Me My Heart Back, 1958), lost his temporary blindness the moment he heard the news: The Revolution had started. After all, his blindness was the result of a stroke brought on by the Pasha firing him; how dare the gardener’s riff-raff son harbor feelings toward the Pasha’s daughter, Inji? Ali, the son, who later becomes an army officer, vows to avenge his father. And then the Revolution takes place and differences between Inji and Ali melt. Previously separated a legacy of class conflict dating back centuries, the Revolution allows them to be together.




Rodda Qalbi, based on a novel by Youssef El-Sibaii (himself a Free Officer), was the quintessential post-Revolution story. The Revolution’s propaganda machine wanted the masses to know why the events leading up to July 1952 had to happen. The corrupt imperialist regime represented by King Farouk and his court, as El-Sibaii’s story portrays it, simply had to go for modern Egypt to be reborn, for Inji and Ali to be together.

But fast forward 55 years and many analysts argue that modern Egypt is still stuck in the metaphorical birth canal. The 0.5 percent ruling elite has been replaced by a 5 percent ruling class. The poor are still getting poorer, the rich are still rich, and one cannot imagine the modern Inji, a graduate of international schools and universities and daughter of a successful business leader, marrying the modern Ali, a graduate of state schools and universities who would probably be today the son of a microbus driver.

More than five decades after the uprising, it is hard not to wonder about the social, political and historical forces that shaped the events of the day. And so profound has the Revolution’s impact been that the event seems in retrospect to have been both inevitable and, to many, inevitably doomed to have been overtaken by the tide of events that followed.

Come the Revolution

Dr. Raouf Abbass, the noted historian and president of the Egyptian Society for Historical Studies, believes that Egypt, 55 years ago, was at just the historical moment when change was inevitable.

“In the lives of nations, moments come when the existing political regime is completely helpless in the face of the demands of internal and international politics,” says the Ain Shams professor emeritus. “A deadlock takes place, which is then broken by some catalyst, which then opens new horizons. This catalyst is called a revolution, be it a people’s revolution, like that of 1919, a military coup, like the Revolution of 1952, or as a result of the efforts of a national unity front representing all factions including the military, like the Revolution of 1881, which they name the Orabi Revolution.”

The 1952 Revolution, according to Abbass, can only be understood within this context. “We have to look back at the Revolution of 1919 and what it was able, or unable, to achieve. Nineteen fifty-two came to fulfill the demands which ignited 1919, namely national liberation, independence, social justice, so on. The regime, based on the constitution of 1923, failed to accomplish this.

“Regarding independence, for example, they agreed to embark on negotiations with the British,” he says. “The British, acting like the Israelis do with Palestinians, were ready with the rock against which all the demonstrations were crushed. They talked about Sudan, about the difficulty of leaving because the Suez Canal was the main artery connecting them with their empire, etc. Social justice was absent because of foreign hegemony over the Egyptian economy. The ruling class, economically speaking, had their interests with the occupying forces, and thus tried to reach a kind of compromise.”

Following the Second World War, the scope of the crisis both broadened and heightened. “Public movements, some organized and some unorganized, started spurting up. The biggest crisis was the demonstration of January 25, on the day preceding the Cairo Fire. I joined this demonstration as a primary school student, which ended at Abdeen Square [in front of the royal palace]. We shouted slogans against the king, like, ‘Ila Ankara Yabn el-Mara [To Ankara, Son of a Whore],’ and so on. We called for the king to leave, reminding him that his family is not Egyptian. January 26 was, of course, the end of the tragedy.”

On January 26, 1952, what has since become known as Black Saturday, rioters railing against foreign hegemony and what they saw as a colluding bourgeoisie ran amok. Fires were started in the capital’s Downtown area, in the process burning down a number of luxurious buildings considered popular haunts among expats, including the Shepheard Hotel.

Following the fire, Abbass says, “The regime crumbled completely, and did not have anything else to offer. It was like a clinically dead person who was connected to life-support. If the life-support was turned off, he would die. Here, July 23 was inevitable. It had to happen because the alternative would have been total chaos.”

Goals and Ends

Abdallah El-Sinnawi, editor-in-chief of the Nasserite Party newspaper Al-Araby, explains that before the revolution, a number of political groups and currents existed, such as the Marxists, the Muslim Brothers and the Wafdist Youths who had branched off from the Wafd, the most popular party at the time, and who dreamt of social justice.

“Then the Revolution came, and it tried to justify its existence. It adopted a number of values, most importantly the idea of Arab unity, coalitions, social justice and socialism. The social trend, the Revolution’s bias towards the deprived classes, was clear from the beginning. This was important because society was ruled by 0.5 percent of the population. There was no true democracy, as most Egyptians prior to the revolution were kept out of the political equation. The idea of social mobility was out of the question. People did not share in the national resources. Of course, the revolution depended greatly on the idea of mobilization, in order to realize its revolutionary goals,” explains El-Sinnawi.

Dr. Abdel Ghaffar Shokr, the vice-president of the Arab and African Research Center, defines three major characteristics of the revolution, foremost among them the rejection of foreign hegemony, be it political or economic. “Beginning with its rejection of the existence of military bases on its lands, Egypt wanted its political and economic decisions to be dictated by Egyptian circumstances and by the needs of Egyptian society. This was one of its most important characteristics,” he says.

The second characteristic was its bias toward the poor. “It paid attention to the poor and working classes, which was evident in the agricultural reform laws which changed the very nature of social relationship in the rural Egypt,” says Shokr. “Very early on, in 1953, there was a law preventing the arbitrary dismissal of workers, followed by a series of laws that gave workers the right to participate in running the public sector establishments, and also gave them a cut of the profits.”

The third was a mechanism the government utilized to bring about political and economic independence — a policy of independent economic and social development. “It had a three-year policy for industrialization, and a complete primary and secondary plan for social development,” Shokr says.

Another important goal, he adds, was bringing to the forefront a discussion of Egypt’s regional role. “The July revolution believed in the existence of common interests and goals between the Egyptian people and the peoples of the Arab nations. It also believed that national security demanded an active relationship with Arab nations, which would ultimately lead to Arab unity.”

The policies of the era, which included a pledge to provide services such as education, healthcare and jobs for graduates, strengthened the middle classes. “The middle class is the intellectual class, it generates ideas and dictates the direction of public opinion via its professionals, intellectuals, etc,” Shokr says. “This class was formed in Egypt following the reforms of Ismail Pasha, and has played a very important role in the Egyptian struggle toward better conditions, be they economic, political, nationalistic or democratic.”

A Revolution for All Time?

To many Egyptians, President Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Revolution are one and the same. With his charismatic aura, fiery speeches and ability to move millions, the beloved leader is considered the key figure in the coup d’etat.

“Abdel-Nasser was the product of his era, of the era following World War Two and the division of the world into two camps, a Western camp and a Communist camp,” says El-Sinnawi. “Together with his comrades of the Non-Aligned Movement — Nehru, Tito, Sukarno — and the leaders of the African liberation movements, Nasser trod a new path that would preserve the independence and the interests of the newly liberated countries. He supported liberation movements all around the world, including Latin America. Hugo Chavez, for example, calls himself a Nasserite. Of course, he is as hated by the West as Abdel-Nasser. Castro and Guevara, as they fought on the mountains of the Sierra, were inspired by the Suez War [the Tripartite War of 1956]. He was a phenomenon born of the times, one of the last great men. During his time, there was Mao Tse Tong, Nehru, Castro, Eisenhower —all of whom represented ideas and inspired people around the world.”

Although Nasser is now dead, the journalist believes his ideas live on. “I believe the defeated leader will live longer and greater than the victorious leader Salah El-Din. Salah El-Din has lived in the Arab memory for a thousand years as the liberator of Jerusalem, but I believe the defeated leader will live much longer. He embodied a dream that is much bigger than the liberation of Jerusalem: the dream of historical liberation, of Arab unity, of social justice. His era was the greatest era for social transformation, for the empowerment of the poor. What happened in Nasser’s era was unprecedented in Egyptian history. Even his opponents, when they speak about his faults, adopt a language that is closer to loving blame,” El-Sinnawi says.

Nasser has lived on in our minds and hearts, but has the revolution lived on? Does it need to? The answer, Abbass states emphatically, is “No” on both counts.

“Beginning with the time of Sadat until today, every time the regime feels it is in a crisis, it remembers the July Revolution and talks about it, as if this regime is the extension of the July Revolution. No revolution is supposed to live for half a century. A revolution is a tool for change. It changes an old regime and builds a new one in its place. The moment it accomplishes this, a country moves on to a new era. This new regime will either speak for a certain class, if it is a social revolution, or for a group of social forces and the elites of this group who have a vision regarding the rebuilding. At this point, the revolution ends. A new regime is born, depending on a strong constitution for its legitimacy,” says Abbass.

El-Sinnawi agrees: “President Sadat kept talking about moving from the revolutionary legitimacy to the constitutional legitimacy. This never took place. Persisting to operate under revolutionary legitimacy is ridiculous. Revolutions are not meant to be everlasting. The main morals and ideas of a revolution, like the French revolution, for example, live on, but then a strong constitution is written to maintain the social and political gains of this revolution. Another example is the American Revolution and its declaration of civil and political rights. Societies grow, but they preserve the experiences that they have paid for in blood and sweat.”

As a tool for change, Abbass identifies the deposition of the corrupt regime as the main aim of the movement. “But after that it did not have a specific program. Its program was born out of trial and error. It succeeded greatly in social and economic development, but like a three-legged stool, you need that third leg if it is to continue standing. This third leg, political development, was missing. It overlooked the creation of a democratic system that paved the way for true public participation in the political process, and which boasted real plurality.

“The idea of listening to the opposition was not adopted, and, in fact, was pushed out of the picture completely,” Abbass continues. “The state was run with a security concept. Yes, it was an era of confrontation, and we were engaged in a war against colonialism and against Israel. We were in a state of emergency, so we blocked the door in the face of the existence of that third leg.”

‘Fatal’ Flaws

Even the revolution’s most vocal supporters are aware of a number of fatal flaws that detracted from its utopian dreams. In addition to its totalitarian tendencies, Shokr believes the first factor that led to its breakdown was the defeat of 1967.

“This was the number one cause of the breakdown,” he claims. “But the second cause was the development pattern the government of the time chose to adopt. They did not formulate a complete industrialization plan, for example, that would have ultimately led to the manufacturing of the tools of production. They would build a factory for assembling car parts in agreement with a major international manufacturer. The economic system they followed carried the seeds of its own crisis.”

Like El-Sinnawi, Shokr is quick to point out the lack of a vision for political development. “The social forces, themselves the target of all the development policies, were not given any political freedom, which in turn led to the weakening of labor and professional unions, or agricultural co-ops,” explains Shokr. “As a result, after the open-door policies, these groups which were the most affected were too weak to stand up for their rights.”

Last but not least of the things that went wrong was the untimely death of Abdel-Nasser. “He was a historic leader who had total control of different government organizations. His death sent the country into chaos, and with the ascension of Sadat, a new wing came to power, made up of powerful landowners who had previously been stripped of their lands like Sayyed Marei, and rich contractors represented by Osman Ahmed Osman,” Shokr says.

El-Sinnawi too highlights a number of faults that characterized the coup. “The arrests were exaggerated; so was the punishment of political opponents. Bigger social steps had to be taken. They needed to be ready for war, especially after 1956, which was a lethal mistake. There had to be a true study of the reasons that caused the failure of the Syrian-Egyptian union. There were mistakes, and these mistakes made it possible for colonialist conspiracies to resurface, and to bring us to the situation we are in today,” he says.

But though he agrees the Revolution carried the seeds of its own undoing, El-Sinnawi maintains that great revolutions are not judged by piling all their good accomplishments in one stack, and all their faults in another, and then weighing them against each other. “Revolutions are judged by their influence on the history of their country, region and surroundings, by their effect on human history, and by the new ideas they have generated, the visions, the dreams. The French revolution, although bloody, influenced all the bourgeoisie revolutions that came after it. Just listen to the music Beethoven dedicated to Bonaparte,” he reasons.

The July revolution, admittedly, was an era that saw all forms of art flourishing in Egypt. It was the era of Abdel Halim, Omm Kolthoum, Mohamed Abdel Wahab, Salah Abu Seif, Souad Hosni and Salah Jahin, to name only a few of the pioneers of Egyptian arts.

A Lost Legacy

With all its inherent shortcomings, it wasn’t long before the dream began to crumble. The decline started, according to El-Sinnawi, in the wake of the 1973 war. “Starting with the open-door policies, the government began to marginalize the poor, so there was a wide return to poverty. The revolution fought the idea of poverty, striving toward greater development. Now there is growth, but no development. What has happened is that the power of the president has remained all encompassing, but it was emptied of its revolutionary qualities, and of its liberation projects. We are now witnessing totalitarianism that is completely attached to the American policies in the region, which coincide with the Israeli policies. The poor are left outside the area of political decision-making, and we are returning to a time that is worse than the time preceding the revolution.”

Shokr agrees: “The [revolution’s] regime was an authoritarian one where democracy and opposition were absent. The current regime has squandered all the revolution’s gains, but is holding on to the authoritarianism. The absence of democracy is the only existing legacy of the revolution. As for the bias towards the poor, you can see the neo-liberalist policies and the transfer to the market economy, which prove that the poor are no longer accounted for. The economy is now based on privatization, and all social policies that supported the poor are being re-thought, such as health insurance and social insurance. The government is moving from being a provider of support and services to merely an organizer of economic relationships in society. The poor can no longer find any support from the government.”

This despite the fact that they make up the bulk of the nation’s population. “Half of the Egyptian people live in poverty, according to UN and World Bank reports, which indicate that the average Egyptian makes less than $1 per day and is unable to secure his basic needs,” says Shokr. “More than 10 million Egyptians live in shantytowns at the peripheries of cities, and are deprived of healthy living conditions and healthy homes.”

As for the middle class, the true dynamo of peaceful change? That seems to be disappearing — and fast. “The middle class is in a real crisis. It is still there, but most of it has moved down to the lower classes,” outlines Shokr. “According to academic standards, these are middle classes living the conditions of the lower classes. Unemployment in this class is unprecedented, and it is no longer able to play its classic role, which it played prior to and during the revolution.”

As flawed as it may have been, the Revolution did manage to restore social justice of sorts, explains Shokr. For once, it seemed there was hope for peasants and workers. “People gained some rights, but now these rights are taken away from them,” he notes. “This only deepens the crisis of the workers, and of the peasants, of the middle classes and of the intelligentsia. This anguish is stored, and could then appear as strong movements. Until last year, we did not think the workers were capable of demonstrating. The law states that if workers want to strike, they have to ask the permission of their syndicate, which then convenes and sends a letter to the owner asking his permission, giving him a two-week notice. But suddenly we found tens of strikes in violation of this law, and the government was able to do nothing. It had to submit to their demands.”

Charting the Future

With rising prices and growing religious conservatism, even the government is now admitting that it must take action to quickly ensure the poorest of the poor feel the benefits of its economic liberalization policy. “There is total despair regarding the future,” says El-Sinnawi. “The increase in the levels of unemployment and the shantytowns as opposed to the resorts people are living in. Social mobility based on education, competence or talent no longer exists. Wealth is passed on and is growing, and poverty is passed on and is growing, too. We are not talking about capitalism at work transparently. Public opinion has no say in things. We are witnessing the marriage of power and money. Things are worse than they were before the revolution.”

The most worrying factor remains the absence of a strong middle class. “Before ‘52, we had a growing bourgeoisie that had not accomplished much, but which existed since the beginning of the modern state built by Mohamed Ali,” El-Sinnawi says. “Today, the ruling class has grown, constituting about five to seven or eight percent of the population, but the rest are just poor and crushed downtrodden classes with no chances. Before the Revolution, most of the Egyptians were outside history. But the Revolution gave them something back. Since then, most of their rights, their very humanity, have been stripped away. In a third-world country, education and health should be provided by the government. Peasants, workers, the poor, are all going back to a worse spot.”

Even the political atmosphere was better before 1952, Abbass points out. “Some political movements existed and proved themselves at the time. The liberal parties had nothing to offer, but the Marxists, the Muslim Brothers, and the fascist Masr El-Fatah were active and had followers.”

Today, El-Sinnawi alleges, we are living in a time of political decay. “Society is losing confidence in itself and in its future and in its ability to manage the country. The only cure is amputation. We will not be able to move toward any real progress unless we go through real political and constitutional reform. I am starting to feel scared of these words, because the government uses them to submit us to more injustice and miserable conditions. The idea of political participation has been crushed, but the only hope to go forward is to change the current political regime. This can either take place through peaceful means, which is what we strive for, or through a violent act similar to the 1952 Revolution. But nobody knows what the future will bring; we are all waiting for the say of fate. The political elite certainly hope for the former solution, but is currently unable to enforce its agenda for peaceful democratic change. The political movements are too weak to stand up for democracy.”

Abbass sees no chance for positive change in light of the current crisis. “All revolutions begin as revolts of the hungry. The French revolution started this way, and so did the Russian revolution before the Bolshevists took over. For the hungry, anyone with a piece of bread in his hands is the enemy, not just the capitalists. Something bad could come out of such an uprising. A new dictatorial regime could take over, and replay the same politics of subjugation to the US policies, giving the people small, aspirin-like reforms to keep them quiet.”

The Islamists, Abbass continues, seem to be the strongest force around capable of channeling a possible uprising. “I have been talking about this for a long time. It is time to establish a national unity front made up of all political groups. The Free Officers were a national unity front, they just happened to be in the military. All groups and factions were represented within them. Such a front will agree to a nationalistic program, acting like a bulldozer to remove the debris resulting from the collapse of the old regime.”

Shokr, on the other hand, believes that what is happening today is a natural stage of decline, which will be followed by an era of renaissance. “Based on my study of the history of humanity, I have seen societies decline and then embark on development. Egypt is no different. The era we live in now is similar to the era of 1914 to 1919, an era in which all political groups had lost hope in the possibility of change. In 1907, a number of active parties were formed, in addition to labor unions, co-ops and newspapers. By 1911, these began to weaken, and then the First World War took place and Britain declared Egypt a protectorate. They got rid of all the political opposition, but in 1919 a revolution took place. The same happened during the 1930s, but after 1945 nationalist groups became active again.”

In the case of a new political and social renaissance, will the values of the 1952 Revolution still be viable?

Shokr believes they will be. “The Revolution’s policies are still good enough to pull Egypt out of its crisis. There is a need for such policies, for real social, political and economic development. We do not have to repeat July’s mistakes; history is there to teach us. We must consider the poor classes again, help them to become responsible for themselves through a good health and social insurance program. We need to add democratic development, and a renewed, strong role in the Arab region, which will help Egypt’s national security.

“If people support such policies through free elections, they may just work.”

A Celebration of Life and Art
Hamed el-Oweidy was a world-renowned artist, top book designer, political activist — and husband to Egypt Today Senior Writer Manal el-Jesri. A promise to write about him turned into a love affair and a 12-year marriage. She never did get around to writing that story until now for
By Manal el-Jesri
Egypt Today
May 2008



El-baqa’a liLLah (God is Everlasting) are two tiny words that carry so much meaning. When the young resident doctor at the Sherif Mokhtar Intensive Care Unit came to say them to me not even 40 days ago as I write this, life as I knew it ended. Hamed el-Oweidy — my lover, my friend, my sounding board, my anchor — was to walk this earth no longer. My husband, the celebrated calligrapher, graphic designer, music critic and writer, died on March 14, 2008, and I thought at the time that I was going to come apart at the seams. Strangely enough, I did not. And here I am, doing something that I had promised Hamed I would do 13 years ago.




I am writing about him.

You see, this is how we met. He was a familiar face to me at the time as I would see him frequenting what intellectuals like to call “intellectuals’ cafes” and liked the salt-of-the-earth quality about him. When I heard he was holding a calligraphy exhibition in celebration of Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi’s millennial anniversary, my interest was piqued. I confess I knew very little about calligraphy at the time, and as an obsessive compulsive I cannot look at written text because I keep reading it over and over.

Still, the writer in me wanted to find out more.

The chance came a few months later when I found out Hamed was going to Italy to exhibit his work at the Egyptian Arts Academy in Rome. I had just interviewed Hamdy Attia, an up-and-coming painter who soon after moved to Rome. Would Hamed be kind enough to take him a copy of the magazine? I met him at Estoril to give him a copy and to arrange for an interview once he came back. The rest is history: He called me every day from Rome, brought me back a beautiful Murano glass necklace, and nine months later we were married.

The story I was to write about him? It never happened. There was too much conflict of interest. Besides, our other story was a lot more interesting.


Hamed loved this about me. He would proudly tell his friends that I never wrote about him because I had too strict a code of ethics. It was a kind of private joke. When, five years ago, he held an exhibition in celebration of the anniversary of Amal Donqol’s passing, I wrote about Donqol and mentioned that “this writer’s husband” was exhibiting works inspired by the poetry at the Supreme Cultural Council. It just made him laugh. And this was one of the most unique things about Hamed: He never craved publicity or coverage, although his work was known and appreciated all over the world — and frequently the subject of rave reviews in the Arabic-language press in the past few years.

That’s why some of his colleagues at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, where Hamed had worked as art director since 1995, were surprised at the amount of interest Hamed’s passing sparked. Many thought that Hamed was just that quiet graphic designer who produced their books and periodicals on demand.

Dr. Abdel Moneim Saeed, the Center’s director, wrote in his weekly op-ed in Al-Ahram: “All of Egypt was there for the azaa. In an unprecedented Egyptian scene, which I found myself describing to Assem Hanafy, Naguib Sawiris the well-known businessman sat next to the poet ‘of public unrest’ Ahmed Fouad Negm. On the other side was Dr. Rifaat el-Saeed the president of the Tagammoah party What existed in the presence of Hamed el-Oweidy’s soul was a repetition of what happened with Younan Labib Rizq, Ragaa el-Naqqash and Magdy Mehanna at the moment of passing and memorial. I do not know why death has this effect on Egyptians. It makes them more noble, more transparent and more intimate and unified. When everyone, be they government or opposition, conservative or leftist, rich businessmen or their pro-poor critics who stand against capitalism, sits together, it was because they realize that one of them had passed.”

And each of the people who attended remembered something personal about Hamed, although very few knew everything about him. Some had known the young Upper Egyptian who came from Qena to study engineering in Cairo, but who later decided to switch to the faculty of mass communication simultaneously with his studies at the Egyptian Calligraphy School. Others knew the budding socialist who helped launch Al-Ahali newspaper together with his mentors, the great Abdel-Ghani Aboul Einein and the greatest Egyptian cartoonist, Ahmed Hegazy. Some knew the calligrapher/student who carried his box of tools around to different offices, writing logos and plaques to support himself and his family back in Upper Egypt after his father passed away. Others remembered Hamed as the calligrapher who won a competition carried out by a leading Japanese publishing company and subsequently went to work in Tokyo for two years in the mid-1980s, during which time he designed the poster for the opening of the Cairo Opera House — and penned the logos of countless Japanese products while still managing to hold a resoundingly successful calligraphy exhibition in Japan’s largest city.

Some know Hamed to be the creative book-cover designer who has worked with Egypt’s leading publishing houses. Others know him as the designer whose penmanship can be seen repeatedly on Egyptian and Arab newsstands: Al-Ahali, Al-Arabi, Al-Karama, Al-Qahira, Sout El-Omma, Al-Badil, Kol El-Osra, Al-Ahram El-Riyadi, Al-Ahram Al-Arabi, Ahwal Masriyya, Al-Yasar Al-Gadid, to name only a few. Others know Hamed as the music critic who owns a priceless music library of mowashahat and adwar and taqatiq (old forms of Arabic song) in addition to unique recordings by Egypt’s greatest Qur’an reciters. Some know him as the opposition writer who wrote about his recent Hajj trip and the atrocities that take place in Mecca on the watches of the official Egyptian organizers of the Hajj convoy. More recently, others know Hamed as the student of qira’at, or reciting, which was his first step towards realizing his dream of writing the Qur’an in a new, modern way.


And many more know Hamed as a modern artist. Hamed was the only classical calligrapher who was able to use the strength of the Arabic letter in all its malleable beauty to come up with very modern forms and constitutions. He took calligraphy out of the frame — and even took the letters out of words. He broke the classical sobriety of the calligraphy painting, introduced colors that none had dared use in calligraphy before, and brought calligraphy to a new level without compromising the rigid rules of the different forms. I can easily and with a good conscience say that no one in the whole world wrote Thuluth or Farsi like Hamed. Thuluth is an Egyptian calligraphy form, while Farsi is, of course, Persian; Hamed loved the richness of the first and the simplicity and cleanliness of the second.

He breathed his calligraphy. When we were first courting, I was surprised to sometimes see him tracing shapes in the air. “I am imagining the relationship between letters,” he told me, reassuring me I was not about to marry a crazy person. I came to enjoy those moments, the times when I delved into a book and he sat in the same room either doodling in the air or on paper, both of us silent, both of us content just to be.

I believe the most unique things about Hamed’s calligraphy, in addition to the freedom he gave his letters, were his choice of text and the way he perceived it. For example, in one of his most classical works, Elayhi yas’ado al-kalimo al-tayyib wal amal el-Saleh yarfa’ah (verse from the Qur’an that means “to God rise the good words and deeds”), the calligraphy rises up gradually from the right to the left. The verse looks compact, a perfect example of Thuluth, but as he frees it from the frame, giving just a few strokes of pastel pinks and blues to the background, you can actually see a good person’s deeds and words going up to the heavens. It is uplifting. If you understand it, it changes you — it can make you a better person.

There were a number of phrases and sayings that Hamed repeatedly worked on and that can be seen in different phases of his work, be it the beginning or the end. Among them: Al-Elm min waraa al-hurouf (knowledge comes from letters), Takallamo to’rafo (speak and you will be known), Al-Kitabato darbon min al-salat (writing is a form of prayer), Qayyido el-elma bil kitaba (preserve knowledge through writing), Fal kalimato in toktab la toktab min ajli al-tarfih (when a word is written, it is not written for entertainment), and my favorite: Annaso a’da’o ma jahilo (people are the enemies of what they are ignorant of).

Hamed visualized what he wrote, he felt and transported you into his art. When he took words from a poem, he focused his audience’s attention on new meanings, new possibilities.



His love of music and famous Qur’an recitations can be easily seen in his work. The mélange of letters, be they from the same style or in different styles (and which he spread out before introducing the main verse or even calligraphic constitution), is like the chorus and the introductory music that precede the main part of a song. Meanwhile, his variations on the shapes of the letters and the words are like the variations the reciter improvises to emphasize a meaning of the Holy Qur’an, or simply to please the listeners, as in the case of Sheikh Mostafa Ismail.

Unlike other calligraphers, Hamed’s art was a form of political protest. His famous La Tosaleh (Never Acquiesce) based on Donqol’s equally famous poem protested the atrocities committed by Israel, as did his work Mohammad, based on Mahmoud Darwish’s ode to Mohammad el-Dorra, the Palestinian boy who was killed while seeking refuge behind his father as the whole world placidly watched. This work, Mohammad, was the back page or centerfold of most opposition newspapers when Hamed released it. Equally suggestive was his Oghnia li Baghdad (Song for Baghdad), a poem by the celebrated Ahmed Abdel Moati Hegazi in protest of the American invasion of Iraq. Hamed believed in the value of work, and the value of protesting calmly and through what he did best, his work.


In that, in protesting through diligent work, he was similar to his best friend, Magdy Mehanna, who protested strongly but quietly through his daily column in the leading independent daily, Al-Masry Al-Youm.

As I sit in our bedroom, writing this piece, I can see Hamed’s galabiyya hanging outside our closet. Behind the door is an older winter galabiyya that also belonged to Hamed, but which we refer to as ‘galabiyyet Mehanna.’ It is an ancient garment that predates our marriage, but which Hamed never had the heart to throw away because Magdy used to wear it whenever he stayed over in Hamed’s apartment. The integrity that bound Hamed to Mehanna, and to a group of very special friends including Diaa Rashwan, Abdel-Fattah el-Gibali, Diaa Hosni, Khaled el-Sirgani, Nabil Abdel-Fattah, Magdi Sobhi and Mostafa el-Saeed, set this group of friends apart from the rest of the opposition. And because they were a class apart, they were respected and even feared by the more compromised members of the opposition.




But the link between Hamed and Mehanna was a deeper, more symbolic one. Two months ago, I sat in this very spot, my face awash with tears as I wrote a eulogy for Mehanna. He passed on a Friday of complications related to his liver disease, and the day he died, something broke inside Hamed. I felt it, but was not able to verbalize or even cognitively realize it. I was full of fear when I wrote about Mehanna, and now I realize that I somehow knew Hamed was next. After Mehanna died, I did not see Hamed cry, but he refused to shave or change. Hamed had cirrhosis of the liver like Mehanna, but had refused to consider the option a of transplant. Instead, Dr. Hosni Salama, a well-known hepatologist, convinced him that an adult stem-cell injection would cure him.

On a Sunday, Hamed underwent the procedure, and for the first time in his disease history went into a coma, followed by another coma a few days later. Then, finally, came his first episode of bleeding, which sent him into shock and caused peritonitis. He died on a Friday, exactly five weeks after Mehanna and barely more than a month after his stem-cell injection.

I still remember him lying down on the couch opposite me as we watched clips of Mehanna’s funeral on television. Hamed had attended the ceremony and came back steaming because leading figures from the governing National Democratic Party (NDP) had presided over the funeral and were the first to march in front of Mehanna’s coffin. This disgusted Hamed, who called his friends lamenting how the people Mehanna spent his life criticizing were trying to “cleanse themselves” by “riding” his funeral. Five weeks later, the same was to happen to him.

Hamed was 50 when he died, almost the same age as Mehanna. Both have accomplished so much. It is always like this with the prolific writers and artists: They give so much to the world that they burn themselves out. As I look at the many stories printed after my husband’s death, I am happy for Salah and Aida, our 10-year-old twins. He left them so much to be proud of: his art, his designs, his writing, so much love in the hearts of the many people who knew him — and the even greater love he showered upon them.

He also left them a beautiful family in Upper Egypt. I had not realized how amazing his family was until I went one week after Hamed’s death to visit his grave. That first week had been the worst in my life, and I believe I was on the verge of breakdown. But the minute I set my foot in Qus, I felt Hamed hugging me and reassuring me that it was not over. I felt him as I stood in front of his grave in that peaceful Oweidat graveyard, and I felt him as I sat in the mag’ad (living room) of his family’s Qus home. His elder brothers (who were shaken by Hamed’s death and had week-old beards) and his 74-year-old mother (who had just lost another son) all greeted me with open hearts. And suddenly I understood why Hamed was so unique. This was a family without guile, without pretense. They accepted themselves for who they are. And all of them are excellent calligraphers. His elder brother, Saleh, teaches calligraphy in Safaga and is a published and well-respected poet.



Saleh has promised to teach my twins calligraphy, something Hamed had planned to do but never really got around to. But he had planted the seed there. Salah, my son, has terrible handwriting at the moment, but a deep love for Egypt’s most beautiful mosques. Every week, Hamed and Salah used to go to a mosque of Salah’s choosing. It had to be an old mosque, one famous for its calligraphy and architecture. They went to Amr ibn Al-Aas, Ibn Tuloun, Sultan Hassan, Al-Hussein, Al-Sayyeda Zeinab, Al-Sayyeda Nafeisa and Mohamed Ali, where Hamed got into an argument with security because they asked him to buy a ticket if he wanted to get in.

“I will write about this and give them quite a scandal. Imagine Muslims having to buy a ticket to get into a mosque,” I remember him fuming that day. Hamed, through these weekly excursions, was able to instill in Salah a love for the spiritual beauty of Egypt’s mosques. At 10, Salah can tell you that Amr ibn Al-Aas and Ibn Tuloun are the simplest but most peaceful, while Sultan Hassan has the best calligraphy and architecture. Being a girl, Aida is exempt from Friday prayers and thus did not go on these trips with Hamed. But she has something better: a very unique spot in his heart, one that was a little bit bigger and more special than anybody else’s.

Hamed had many dreams for the children. And he had many dreams for Egypt and for calligraphy, his passion. He hated driving, and when his health permitted, he walked around Downtown and Old Cairo looking at the buildings, the architecture and the street signs. He could tell which calligrapher had written which sign, and his heart broke every time an old sign was replaced with a new one lacking all the aesthetic elements of good calligraphy. He dreamt of seeing these signs preserved from theft and negligence, to be either placed in a museum or pointed out as an example of great naskhi or thuluth or farsi. He also dreamt of applying his modern vision and expertise to the writing of a purely Egyptian copy of the Holy Qur’an.

But his greatest dream was to preserve the art of calligraphy from oblivion, from becoming something that only belongs in museums. He had often expressed his disappointment in modern artists who use Arabic calligraphy in their art. It was not that he wanted a monopoly on the art, but that he wanted the artists to understand the classical beauty of each letter. Once they did, they would be able to use it better, he believed. He also dreamt of seeing Arabic calligraphy become one of the specializations at the Faculty of Fine Arts. Hamed believed calligraphy, which he called the art of Muslims, had great undiscovered potential and wanted to introduce it to the young artists studying academically at the faculty.

The children’s primary-school Arabic and religion books drove him crazy. It saddened him that our twins enjoyed their English books more than their Arabic ones, and consequently were better English than Arabic students. Hamed could not understand why they had to use five or six different fonts — “fontat wes’kha,” (dirty fonts), he called them. The paper quality drove him crazy, the printing quality drove him crazy, and the sheer lack of interest displayed by the Ministry of Education just broke his heart.



As a graphic and book designer, he prized readability. His covers and the insides of the books he designed were never too ostentatious or busy. He understood the value of space in a page, the value of a good picture and the value of a clear, readable font. He designed a font that he sold to a Gulf magazine and was in the process of designing another because he believed that what gives a publication character is having its own especially designed font.

And this is exactly what set Hamed apart from other calligraphers. While classical calligraphers lament the advent of the technological age, believing that the computer will soon take away all their business, Hamed believed the computer is a helpful tool that is to be befriended and respected. If you feed it good calligraphy, it will help the art, not harm it, he used to tell me.

The Tuesday before he died was the last day he was lucid and in a good enough mood to talk. Our very dear friend Abdel Fattah el-Gibali was standing next to Hamed’s ICU bed, while I sat across from him. Suddenly, smiling, Hamed started tracing something in the air. It was the first time that I saw him go back to this beloved quirk in over six months, and I broke down and ran out of the room. I thought he missed his calligraphy. But el-Gibali knew better: Hamed wanted him to tell me that this is not the case. It was just that he could see Al-Ka’aba. He was tracing the writings all around it.

Amir Abdel-Meguid, the famous composer and Hamed’s close friend, went on Omra with Hamed last Ramadan, and later described to me how Hamed used to roam around like a soul that had found its home around the Ka’aba. He had become besotted. Another of his unrealized dreams was to write the calligraphy for the kiswa (covering) of the holy shrine. He had so much to give, but had already given so much. During his final months, he had become such a transparent soul that the shackles of this ordinary life were not for him any longer.

El-Baqa’a LiLLah. I have heard this phrase hundreds of times since Hamed left this world, and they are the two words that now give me hope of being with my love again one day.