THE EGYPTIAN UPRISING AGAINST MUBARAK ADMINISTRATION
CHAPTER ONE
ISSUES, POLITICS AND RELIGION IN EGYPT
Egypt is officially known as the Arab Republic of Egypt. It is in north-eastern Africa and south-western Asia. Most of the country lies in Africa, but the easternmost portion of Egypt, the Sinai Peninsula, is usually considered part of Asia; it forms the only land bridge between the two continents. Most of Egypt’s terrain is desert, divided into two unequal parts by the Nile River. The valley and delta of the Nile are the main centers of habitation. The capital and largest city is Cairo.1
Egypt has been a coherent political entity with a recorded history since about 3200 BC. One of the first civilizations to develop irrigated agriculture, literacy, urban life, and large-scale political structures arose in the Nile Valley. The annual flood of the Nile provided for a stable agricultural society. Egypt’s strategic location between Asia and Africa and on the route between the Mediterranean basin and India and China made it an important hub of international trade. Beginning in the 4th century BC, a series of conquerors brought new religions and languages to the land. However, Egypt’s rich agricultural resources, pivotal commercial position, and long-term political unity have sustained a high level of cultural continuity. Although present-day Egypt is an overwhelmingly Arabic-speaking and Islamic country, it retains important aspects of its past Christian, Greco-Roman, and ancient indigenous heritage.2
Muslim Arab invaders conquered Egypt in ad 641, and Egypt has been a part of the Muslim and Arab worlds ever since. The foundations of the modern state were established by Muhammad Ali, who served as viceroy of Egypt from 1805 to 1849, while the country was a province of the Ottoman Empire. Britain occupied Egypt in 1882. After 40 years of direct British colonial rule, Egypt became an independent monarchy in 1922. However, British policies enforced by a continuing military occupation limited its independence. In 1952 a group of military officers led by Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew the monarchy and established Egypt as a republic. Nasser negotiated the evacuation of the last British troops from Egypt by 1956. In 1979, under President Anwar al-Sadat, Egypt became the first Arab nation to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state of Israel. Egypt remains an important political and cultural center for the entire Arab world. In 2005 Egypt held its first-ever multiparty presidential election.3
Egypt has the oldest continuously existing civilization in the world. Most scholars believe that the Egyptian kingdom was first unified in about 3100 bc. Egypt maintained its independence and unity for many centuries thereafter. It suffered disunity now and then and experienced brief periods of foreign domination—by the Semitic Hyksos in the 17th and 16th centuries BC, the Assyrians in the 7th century BC, and the Persians in the 6th and 5th centuries BC—before the arrival of Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great in 332 BC. Alexander made Egypt a part of his vast empire. Alexander’s empire broke up after his death in 323 bc. One of his generals, Ptolemy, became ruler of Egypt, and in 305 bc he assumed the title of king. Ptolemy founded the Ptolemaic dynasty. Under these rulers, Egypt became a center of the Hellenistic world—that is, the vast region, encompassing the eastern Mediterranean basin and the Middle East, in which Greek culture and learning were preeminent from Alexander’s conquest until the 1st century BC. Although the Ptolemies preserved many native traditions, they remained unpopular because they kept Egyptians from important governmental posts.4
The Romans conquered Egypt in 30 BC, ruling it as a province of their empire for the next several centuries. One of the first countries to be exposed to Christianity, Egypt became predominantly Christian by the end of the 3rd century ad. In 395, when the Roman Empire was divided, Egypt was included in the Eastern Roman Empire, later called the Byzantine Empire. By the 5th century a bitter religious dispute over the nature of Christ, involving a doctrine known as Monophysitism, had developed in the Eastern church.5 This dispute pitted the Coptic Church, Egypt’s indigenous Christian body, and other Middle Eastern Christians against the Byzantine rulers. The conflict weakened Byzantine rule in Egypt and helped open the way to the conquest of Egypt by an Arab army in 641. Many Egyptians welcomed the Arab conquerors as liberators.
