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Arab Culture & Civilization
Explore this exemplary library of articles and resources on Arab societies and culture. This site was originally created by the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE).
Perhaps no other country better represents the possibilities and the problems faced by many Middle Eastern countries. On the one hand, Egypt has a thriving economy (which saw 7% growth last year), it is seen as an important regional and international player on the world stage, and it is a largely progressive society, with relatively strong rights for women.
On the other hand, the government often brutally represses signs of dissent, and it struggles to meet the demands of Egypt's growing population. Despite its strong economic growth in recent years, Egypt has not raised living standards for many of its citizens and must continue to provide subsidies for basic necessities. That growing population also means that arable land, mostly near the Nile River, is disappearing as new housing is erected, so that Egypt-once the breadbasket of the Roman Empire-cannot feed itself.
As a result of this societal stress, many young people (the median age is 24) have become more vocal in opposition to the government of President Hosni Mubarak, who has been in power since 1981. Denied freedoms by their government, many have joined the Muslim Brotherhood and other more extreme Islamic fundamentalist groups as a way to oppose the administration, while others are searching for more secular solutions, like Ayman Nour's Ghad (Tomorrow) Party. Finding a way to allow more freedoms and create more jobs for young Egyptians is the greatest challenge faced by Egyptian society.
The population of Egypt is relatively homogeneous. The overwhelming majority (over 90 percent) are Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslims. About 6 percent are Christians, who are indistinguishable in other respects from the Muslims. Most of the Christians belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church, the historic church of Egypt, but minorities within the minority are Catholic or Protestant, or derive from the churches of the Levant (Maronite, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic). There are a few small linguistic minorities, of which the largest is the Nubians, who speak two Nubian languages (Kenuz and Mahas) related to the Nilo-Saharan languages of the Sudan. They represent less than 1 percent of Egypt's population, and are concentrated around Aswan. Other linguistic minorities include a few thousand Berber speakers in Siwa oasis, the easternmost outpost of Berber speech, and the small population of Beja (Ababda and Bisharin) in the eastern desert east of Aswan. All these groups are Muslim. There are also urban linguistic enclaves of Armenians, Greeks, Italians, and others. Another urban enclave was the Jews, now largely emigrated, who spoke either Arabic or various European languages. The urban minorities were much larger before the middle of the twentieth century.
Population: Estimated at more than 52.5 million in mid1990 , mostly concentrated along banks of Nile River. Annual growth rate estimated at 2.6 percent.
Education and Literacy: Education compulsory for basic nine-year cycle but attendance not enforced; approximately 16 percent of school-age children did not attend. Literacy approximately 45 percent in 1990.
Health and Welfare: Ministry of Health provided health care at variety of public medical facilities. Urban-rural distribution of health care generally biased in favor of larger cities. Average nutrition compared favorably with most middle- and low-income countries. Average life expectancy at birth fifty-nine years for men and sixty years for women in 1989.
Language: Arabic.
Ethnic Groups: Egyptians, beduins, Greeks, Nubians, Armenians, and Berbers.
Religion: Almost 90 percent Sunni Muslims, 8.5 percent Coptic Christians, 1.5 percent other Christians.
Minorities Although the ancestors of the Egyptian people include many races and ethnic groups, including Africans, Arabs, Berbers, Greeks, Persians, Romans, and Turks, the population today is relatively homogeneous linguistically and culturally. Nevertheless, approximately 3 percent of Egyptians belong to minority groups. Linguistic minorities include small communities of Armenians and Greeks, principally in the cities of Cairo and Alexandria; groups of Berber origin in the oases of the Western Desert; and Nubians living in cities in Lower Egypt and in villages clustered along the Nile in Upper Egypt. The Arabicspeaking beduins (nomads) in the Western and Eastern Deserts and the Sinai Peninsula constitute the principal cultural minority. Several hundred Europeans, mostly Italians and French, also lived in Egypt.
In 1989 an estimated 350,000 Greeks constituted Egypt's largest non-Arab minority. Greeks have lived in Egypt since before the time of Alexander the Great. For centuries they have remained culturally, linguistically, and religiously separate from the Egyptians. In 1990 the majority of Greeks lived in Alexandria, although many resided in Cairo.
Armenians have also lived in Egypt for several centuries, although their numbers have declined as a result of heavy emigration since the 1952 Revolution. In 1989 the Armenian community in Egypt was estimated at 12,000. Cairo was traditionally the center of Armenian culture in Egypt, but many Armenians also lived in Alexandria.
An estimated 6,000 Egyptians of Berber origin lived in the Western Desert near the border with Libya. They were ethnically related to the Berber peoples of North Africa. The largest Berber community lived in Siwah Oasis. The Berbers are Muslims, but they have their own language, which is not related to Arabic, and certain unique cultural practices.
About 160,000 Nubians, also Muslims, lived in Egypt in 1990. Most Nubians lived in cities, especially Cairo, Alexandria, and urban areas along the Suez Canal. In the past, Nubians had lived in villages along the Nile from Aswan southward to about 500 kilometers inside Sudan. Before the construction of the Aswan High Dam forced their resettlement, three linguistically separate groups of Nubians lived in this region--the Kenuzi in northern Nubia; the beduin-descended Arabs in central Nubia; and the Fadija-speaking people in southern Nubia near Abu Simbel (Abu Sunbul). Isolated geographically and politically for centuries, the Nubian Valley was only rarely under the control of any central government. Until Egypt's 1952 Revolution, Nubia lacked strong political links with Lower Egypt. Nevertheless, Nubia had persistent economic ties to the rest of Egypt. Since at least the nineteenth century, Nubian men have migrated to the cities of Lower Egypt, where they typically worked for several years at a time as merchants and wage laborers. Nubian society adapted to the migrants' prolonged absences. Complex kinship and property relations enabled men to leave and still take care of their families, guard their wives, and ensure protection of their herds and crops.
After 1952 the central government increased its involvement in Nubia, mostly by building schools and public health services. With the construction of the Aswan High Dam, the government's involvement in the area destroyed Nubia, as water inundated the Nubian Valley. In 1963 and 1964 the government resettled approximately 50,000 Nubians to thirty-three villages around Kawm Umbu, about fifty kilometers north of the city of Aswan. As compensation, the government gave the Nubians new land and homes and provided them with some financial support until their new holdings were productive.
Nubians were dissatisfied with their resettlement for several reasons. They did not like their government-built, cement-block houses, which were uncomfortable and vastly different in design from their old homes. Further, their resettlement at Kawm Umbu disrupted family ties and ignored historical rivalries among the three Nubian ethnic groups. The government also required the Nubian farmers to join agricultural cooperatives and pressured them to cultivate sugarcane, a crop that had not been part of their traditional culture. Dissatisfaction with the resettlement program led many to migrate to cities. A large number of migrants rented their land to sharecroppers and tenants from Upper Egypt. After the Aswan High Dam was completed in 1971, a handful of Nubians left the resettlement area and returned to Nubia, where they established farming villages along the shores of Lake Nasser. By the early 1980s, Nubians had constructed at least four villages, complete with traditional homes.
Egypt's largest minority group consisted of several tribes of beduins who traditionally lived in the Eastern and Western Deserts and the Sinai Peninsula. Because the beduins spoke Arabic dialects, the government did not consider them ethnic minorities. Nevertheless, almost everyone in Egypt--including the beduins-- considered these people as culturally distinct. The beduins have historically been nomads, but since the nineteenth century, most tribes have adopted sedentary agricultural life-styles, in response to various government incentives (see Social Organization , this ch.). Among the beduins, traditional tribal social structure comprised lineage segments linked to specific territories, water, and pasture. Descent was patrilineal, and most beduins sought patterns of kinship and marriage that would strengthen the bonds between patrilineally related males. A patrilineage acted as a corporate group that shared the home territory's resources and lived together for most of the year. In the event of a feud, the group would collectively seek revenge, either through the death of the other group's males or through collective payment of compensation. A family's livelihood depended on its sheep, goats, and camels. Inheritance customs usually kept the family herds in the hands of fathers, sons, brothers, and cousins related through the male line.
In 1990 the total number of beduins in Egypt ranged between 500,000 and 1 million--less than 1 percent of the country's population. Over the centuries, their numbers fluctuated as governments alternately ignored and persecuted them. In the 1890s, beduins comprised as much as 10 percent of the total population. During the twentieth century, sedentarization and urban migration have caused many beduins to become assimilated into Egypt's dominant culture.
Since the 1952 Revolution, Egypt has intensified its efforts to persuade beduins to abandon their nomadic life-style. The beduins of the Western Desert generally resisted pressure to become farmers. Some beduins engaged in the profitable trade of smuggling goods across the Libyan border into Egypt while others became involved in the hotel and restaurant business in the summer tourist town of Marsa Matruh. The beduins in the Eastern Desert continued to maintain close ties with nomads on the Arabian Peninsula and profited from the high demand for meat and livestock in Saudi Arabia. The Aswan High Dam submerged some summer pasture and disrupted some migratory routes along the Red Sea coast that beduins customarily used in bringing their herds to Nubia during that season. Beduin settlements tended to be overcrowded, a situation that exacerbated feuding among various lineages. And, as beduin herds encroached on cropland, friction between agriculturists and pastoralists intensified. An increasing number of beduin families began to emulate tribal leaders by sending sons to college to prepare them for civil service careers in local government.
Other Religious Minorities Egypt's other religious minorities in 1990 included approximately 350,000 adherents of the Greek Orthodox Church, 175,000 Eastern and Latin Rite Catholics, 200,000 Protestants, and fewer than 1,000 Jews. The Greek Orthodox Church was headquartered in Alexandria, where most of its members lived. Most members of the Greek Orthodox were of Greek origin, but followers also included Arabs, Armenians, and the affiliated Coptic Orthodox Church. The Catholics embraced seven distinct rites that Rome historically authorized to use languages other than Latin as integral parts of their liturgies. Approximately 85 percent of all Catholics in Egypt belonged to the Coptic Catholic Church. Other Catholics included followers of the Armenian, Chaldean, Greek, Latin, Maronite, and Syrian rites. There were also numerous Protestant churches. The government suspended the Anglican Church in 1958 after the Anglo-French occupation of the Suez Canal but permitted it to resume functioning in 1974. The Anglican Church in Egypt was part of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East. Other Protestant churches included the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Union of Armenian Evangelical Churches in the Near East, and the Coptic Evangelical Church.
This page on Egypt from the al-Bab website provides several pages with information about Egyptian culture, food, politics, economics, history, news, and travel.
A Multidisciplinary unit, includes historic and modern sections, case study approach, primary sources, stand-alone components. Lessons explore the history, culture, society, geography and environment of this fascinating city that sits at the crossroads between ancient and modern, East and West, tradition and innovation.
This website on the 2004 Egypt Seminar by University of California Santa Barbara provides curricular materials from the seminar. Included are basic principles of Islamic art; lessons on making Egyptian paper; and information on Egyptian culture.
One of 12 lesson plans on People and Place: Human-Environmental Interactions. This case study focuses on the zabbaleen, people who work as garbage collectors and recyclers in Cairo.
Arabic
