CLEOPATRA BEACH

By | June 19, 2011 | Egypt, Off the Beaten Path, Travel + Leisure | 3 Comments


Cleopatra Beach

Cleopatra Beach.

By M. Butcher

Cleopatra Beach in off the Mediterranean along  the North Coast of Egypt.  It is a beautiful place to take a walk and even have a picnic.  The water is clear but the beach is rocky. It is a nice place to visit but swimming is not permitted as the waves smash against the rocks and can carry you away. The sand is almost white.

Our kids love to run and play in the waves and rocks close to the shore, as you get farther out, the rocks get slippery and it gets harder to walk. There are lots of rocks to climb on and the kids like to pretend they are the king of the castle. Read more…

AHMAD IBN MAJID (15th Century CE – 9th Century AH): THE LION OF THE SEAS

By | May 30, 2011 | Explorers, History, Pax Islamica | 4 Comments

Determing Latitude using "Fingers".

by Islam El Shazly

Ahmad ibn Majid ibn Muhammad ibn Omar ibn Fadl ibn Dwaik ibn Youssef ibn Hassan ibn Hussein ibn Abi Mo’alaq ibn Abi Al-Raka’eb Al-Najdey.

The Shooting Star.

The Lion of the Seas.

His books, charts, and maps guided sailors for years, and his improvements on nautical tools and nautical inventions transformed how sailors navigated the seven seas forever.

He was a Muslim Arab, navigator, cartographer, and author; born to a famous family of seafarers around 824 AH/1421 CE, in Julphar, Sharjah, one of the emirates of the UAE. Back then it was part of the coast of Oman. Read more…

Alexandrian Weekend Away

By | May 3, 2011 | Egypt, Travel + Leisure, Travel Chronicles | 1 Comment

Surf Breakers.

by M. Butcher

On a Thursday night after my husband finished work, we decided to drive to Alexandria for the weekend. We called around and got a room at a hotel right on the Corniche. We left soon afterwards and for the most part the drive was pleasant. We had to slow down many times because of construction on the road but it didn’t take too long to get there. Read more…

THE LIONS OF LIBYA

By | April 23, 2011 | History, Politics | Comments Off on THE LIONS OF LIBYA

Libyan opposition flag with tags generated from (http://feb17.info/). By Mohammed Shamma.*

February 17, 2011. It was Libya’s turn to rise against the sociopath that has been ruling them for the past 42 years, Qaddafi’s time is almost over, and soon, insha’Allah, he will be joining his brothers Bin Ali and Mubarak in the trash bin of history.

The day of the Libyan uprising has arrived. Read more…

Alexandrian Graffiti

By | March 25, 2011 | Egypt, Politics, Travel + Leisure | Comments Off on Alexandrian Graffiti

by M. Butcher

We have all seen it in our travels, on the sides of the road, on bridges, buses, and overpasses. Almost everywhere a spray can may reach. As with art, graffiti is subjective, what some consider to be art, others consider it to be trash. Our modern idea of Graffiti has changed and we are seeing more beauty in the designs on the street.

Graffiti is the name given for images or letters scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any method on public property. Graffiti and graffito come from the Italian word graffiato meaning scratched. It has existed for long time going all the way back to Ancient Greece and even the Roman Empire. Read more…

WALK PROUD. WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN.

By | February 20, 2011 | Egypt, Pax Islamica, Politics | 3 Comments

Opposition supporters wave flags amid the crowd in Tahrir Square in Cairo February 9, 2011. Egyptians counted the economic cost of more than two weeks of turmoil on Wednesday as re-invigorated protesters flocked again to Cairo's Tahrir Square to demand President Hosni Mubarak quit immediately. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

by Islam El Shazly

For the first time in history a revolution has been organized as a public event with an open invitation, more like a date between two lovers, the time and the place was known almost two weeks in advance. Without further confirmation, people from all over Greater Cairo started converging onto Midan Al-Tahrir – Tahrir Square – and it was not just left at that, people started gathering at major squares in every governorate in the country. A new day was dawning on Egypt. A new era that no one saw coming. The date was January 25, 2011. Read more…

TUNISIA THE GREEN

By | January 15, 2011 | Politics | 1 Comment

The flag of Tunisia. By gablackburn, Flickr.

By Islam El Shazly

Since Tunisia gained independence from France and it has been known all over the world as a beacon of freedom and economic stability in the Arab world; it was more liberal than Lebanon and with a stability that Lebanon cannot achieve in the near future.

But that was an illusion, the “freedom” that Tunisia enjoyed was not real. The stability it revelled in masked a different reality. When France moved out, they left behind a group of people bred to rule in favour of their masters in Paris. Read more…

MASR – THE PEOPLE

By | January 12, 2011 | Egypt, Politics, Travel + Leisure | 1 Comment

Egypt: Partly submerged palms above Nile dam, Upper Egypt. Lantern Slide Collection, Brooklyn Museum.

By Islam El Shazly

The people of Egypt are for the most part gentle emotional people, they have been deprived of their right to participate in the way this great country is being governed. From the time of Mohammed Ali Pasha, through the British occupation then the calamity that was the Coup d’état of 1952 and its disastrous after-effects, the people have not been able or allowed to voice their concerns about their country. Read more…

JOURNEY TO UPPER EGYPT

By | January 8, 2011 | Egypt, Travel + Leisure, Travel Chronicles | 1 Comment

By Dean Chartier

This is my first effort in writing about my travels here in Egypt, I’m kind of starting in the middle of the trip, odd I know, why not start at the beginning? Well my journey to up the Nile was a pretty amazing trip for me, even though it was kind of touristy. I was able to peel most of the tourism away and have a good look at life in that part of Egypt. I will not speak much of visits to the temples and other historic sites, I’m sure you can find that information elsewhere, and for me it was kind of secondary anyways. This was my first trip to a Muslim country since I became Muslim and my trip up the Nile allowed me to get away from most of the western influence I have seen in Cairo and Alexandria. I will write more about those experiences a little later.

Fishermen in Alexandria.

Another reason this was a special experience for me is that being from Canada, I don’t get to hear the call to prayer from a Masjid, or have the luxury of having a Masjid within an easy walk of wherever I am. Read more…

AL-MU’IZZ STREET – CAIRO’S GRAND STREET

By | December 18, 2010 | Egypt, History, Travel + Leisure, Walking Tours | 1 Comment

A long time ago in Cairo, with the pyramids in the distance, farm lands and the aqueduct. From the book "The Grand Street".

By Islam El shazly

The Grand Street of Historic Islamic Cairo, the heart of the once capital of the Fatimid Empire; as old as Cairo, it saw its fair share of kings and vagabonds. Walking through it amidst the ancient villas and the architectural marvels left behind by four dynasties, is like being transported into the world of the Prince of Persia – without all of the sand demons.

Taking a turn into one of the little alleys that spring out throughout the length of the street on a quiet day, stop for a moment and close your eyes, you can almost feel the ghosts of all the people who walked through here over the ages. There are shadows here. The time of the Fatimid also gave rise to their cousins, the Assassins. They lurked in the shadows. Read more…