Heikal…the institutional phenomenon

 

Heikal

He preferred to stay silent when receiving any invitation to talk in commemoration gatherings. He preferred to express his feelings of sorrow for those dear to the deceased in a short message or cable, likely because he didn’t like talking about death and wasn’t good at commemorating or even praising. May be if it had been possible to ask him about his eulogy or commemoration, he would immediately have refused preferring everyone should be dismissed to their assigned job. Whenever an individual turns into a unique figure in history, only then accustomed rules-disciplined scientific research can state its judgment which will definitely not be “in favor of” or “against”, but rather detecting, analyzing, and connecting incidents together in order to extract lessons out of it.

It’s the side I knew in Mohammed Hassanein Heikal and definitely others know more than I do. In my opinion, that was the trait that doesn’t necessitate to be described as the best – like professors of Principles of Jurisprudence say – but rather requires the man should be described as a phenomenon and a national and humanitarian institution.

Until scientific research in history, politics, journalism, sociology, and biography takes command regarding Heikal’s life, I believe attributes will be limited to the personal perspective when writing about his departure. It’s normal since main source of writing in this case will stem from Al-ostaz[1] Heikal’s relationship with all these parties. Those who co-worked with him and others who learned and worked under his command in journalism have their perspective and those who witnessed him in policy-making “kitchens”, presidential and monarchic palaces’ avenues, world capitals and resorts, have their own accounts as well. Even those who used to meet him in the very short distance separating his residential apartment from his office, the short distance separating his secretary staff and assistants, those who used to serve him and serve his guests, everyone of those people have his own perspective that outlines his opinion and conviction about Al-ostaz.

Many circled him in a constellation like planets do when orbiting the sun; they stayed attracted and affected by him; he was their night, day, and four seasons; their tides were linked to his existence. Many others, meantime, refused to submit to his attraction; those were either scraps wandering in wide space or planets rotating around other stars. However, those who opposed him couldn’t deny his ability, and when they do, they become worthy to be described like what the poet said:

If eye denies sunlight, it is due to blindness

And if mouth cannot taste water, it is due to illness!

The relationship between us started long time ago when we were young, when my father used to punish us if he didn’t find his copy of Al-Ahram[2] – Friday’s edition in particular –, the edition he ordered to be kept safe until next one comes out. And so Al-Ahram Friday’s edition – due to the significant value of “besaraha[3]” article – used to escape the destiny of being laid over the dining table, under chicks’ feet, or moistened with water in order to be used in cleaning windows’ glass, or even foiled for the purpose of igniting fire in furnaces and stoves! It was until I knew my way to the newspapers’ seller – this time to buy the paper for me, not for my father – when I realized there were newspapers other than Al-Ahram. That was because Al-Ahram was the only one in “curriculum” at home; I have no idea why it wasn’t Al-akhbar, Al-masry, or Al-gomhoriyea, the papers that circulated at that time in addition to Al-Ahram. Our colleague newspapers sellers’ callings were known to everyone… Read about the accident… Read…. Read… Read for Heikal.

In March, 1971 I was the post-graduate studies’ representative in Ain Shams University and faculty of Arts’ student union and in the preliminary year of my Master’s degree study as well when the culture committee of the union decided to arrange a meeting with Al-ostaz. An appointment was scheduled through his then-secretary Fawzia. We went and were seated in a room attached to his office where we sit at a round table circling him. A long discussion was conducted. I don’t know why I sought to provoke him when he said, ending my annoying attempts, “are you here in a game?!” I stopped and he, welcomingly, published almost all the debate with us in Al-Ahram Friday’s edition instead of his article “besaraha”.

Four years later, I went to his house without prior appointment. His blue-eyed blond secretary Mounir opened the door and asked me: do you have an appointment?! I said, like a big celebrity does: just tell him X from Ain Shams University group. Permission was granted and I was allowed to enter. I saw his youngest son lying in Mounir’s place watching TV. Al-ostaz came, welcoming, and immediately asked me: “aren’t you afraid to come here?! At that time, he fell out with then-president Sadat and left Al-Ahram when Sadat incited his partisans to harass and insult the man with what best suits them, not him!

Meetings and conversations between us – either individually or in groups – lasted since 1974 inside Egypt and abroad. I used to record his regard for me through the dedications he wrote to me on his books!!... Starting from “To X, the young fighter…”, to “Dear friend X…”.

A lot of situations, accounts, and heat in conversation went between us sometimes, with rare anger from his side at times. The worst was when someone – a very mean Jordanian Palestinian man – rushed to him in the morning to check on him after X – me – told him Al-ostaz health condition were bad and that he – Al-ostaz – was suffering from a terminal disease. This wasn’t true. Al-ostaz called me, while the mean guy was sitting before him, and said one short statement: “hey, Ahmed, if I’m suffering from a terminal disease, you will be the first to know”. I immediately said: “I’m sure Y is sitting before you”. Al-ostaz said “yes, talk to him”. I talked to the man and went describing him using all mean words I knew.

I discussed him in his relationship with president Gamal Abdel-Nasser, asked him about his romances, universal beliefs, his understanding for the philosophy of history. He, as usual, preferred to listen first to his guest and go on answering afterwards.

Heikal will always be a historical political sociological journalistic phenomenon… and will ever be a model for the individual who turned into a national and humanitarian institution. I stop here for he didn’t like eulogies or attending commemorations.

Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar

This article was published in Al Ahram newspaper on February 19, 2016.

To see the original Arabic version, go to:

http://www.ahram.org.eg/News/131821/1157/477510/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%87%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%85-%D8%AA%D9%86%D8%B9%D9%89-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%B0/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%B0--%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B8%D8%A7%D9%87%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%

#alahram#ahmed_elgammal#Heikal#gamal_abdel_nasser#sadat#journalism#media#newspapers#politics#history#biography#writing

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[1] Al-ostaz: (Arabic: الأستاذ) a word meaning Master in Arabic language. Heikal was named by this title to dignify and honor his long life role in journalism in Egypt and the Arab country either through his journalistic essays or his books.

[2] Al-Ahram :(Arabic: الأهرام‎; The Pyramids), founded on 5 August 1875, is the most widely circulating Egyptian daily newspaper, and the second oldest after al-Waqa'i`al-Masriya (The Egyptian Events, founded 1828). It is majority owned by the Egyptian government. Given the large dialectal variety of the Arabic language, Al-Ahram is widely considered an influential source of writing style in Arabic. In 1950, the Middle East Institute described Al-Ahram as being to the Arabic-reading public within its area of distribution, "What The Times is to Englishmen and the New York Times to Americans", however it has often been accused of heavy influence and censorship by the Egyptian government. (Source: Wikipedia)

[3] Besaraha: (Arabic: بصراحة) meaning frankly in Arabic. It was the title of Heikal’s weekly column article in Alahram newspaper.

Our immunity system…. greatest calamity

We talked before about the injuries that hit our Egyptian immune system starting with the duplication of education system resulting in another terrible duplicity in both conscience and culture. Then, we talked about discontinuity in the graphical line representing Egyptian history. Later, we talked about Egyptians’ migration to oil-rich Arab countries and what came next as a result like domination of individual salvation philosophy, attitude of lavish consumption, and squandering our national deposits over industries that do not establish real renaissance.

Today, we continue talking about the part left in the third injury that has to do with Egyptians’ migration to oil-rich Arab countries; the part we should call the greatest calamity for it’s an injury that hit our Egyptian mentality in the heart affecting both conscience and social relations. The most dangerous was that it had a significantly devastating effect on Egyptians’ relation with their country and their citizenship.

History has proved that the conqueror, whatever his source of power is, is the one who can impose his culture and ideology on the conquered. In very rare cases, the conquered was able to fight back in many ways; one of them was to digest what is imposed over him by the conqueror and then transform it into a new version that guarantees his identity in a way that benefits him. It’s what Egypt has succeeded to do through its long history when conquered by foreign invaders. The invader occupied its land but ended up being digested in it while Egypt stayed as it is. Although Egypt was affected by the Greek-Roman invasion, adopted Christianity, and later Islam, but through all this, it was able to affect and impose its own character on all those, especially on Christianity and Islam as well.

After Infitah[1] and what followed later as to stealing the achievements of October 1973 victory attained by all classes of the Egyptian people, especially lower and middle classes and a little bit of the upper one – Classes here have to do with the economic and consumption criteria – Egyptians decided to leave their country. That exodus had two routes. The first was to North America; Canada and the U.S.A, Europe, and Australia, where most migrants were Egyptian Christians. Some of them were not allowed to do anything useful in their homeland Egypt, so they stayed in their migration country, while some came back and later immigrated. This kind of migration was different to that one heading to oil-rich Arab countries. Since the first usually deepens your feelings of homesickness and nationalism. The second, meanwhile, was the one I call the greatest calamity.

Days proved that Egyptians, if conquered in their homeland, used to deal with the invader as we described earlier but they can never lose their unique Egyptian identity. The dangerous variable affecting this equation was the one I guess nobody paid due attention to when Egyptians had to leave their homeland to the land of the conqueror or the most powerful and stay there temporarily for a pre-decided set of years or for long times, where they behaved totally different to when they were conquered in their land. After leaving their homeland, Egyptians have lost their identity and points of influence and distinguish in their society when they went to Iraq, Gulf Arab countries, and Yemen. For example, they lost their cohesion as an agricultural community and as a civil middle class. Both of these two characters; agricultural and civil, were distinguished by cohesion and solidarity, not to mention the integration quality popular among residents of the countryside community due to the nature of the agriculture activity.

In migration to oil-rich Arab countries, everyone sought his own benefits even if it was on his fellow Egyptian’s dead body. We heard a lot – like in my case as I was one of those who migrated for several years – about differences between Palestinian, Lebanese and Sudanese communities’ behavior in oil-rich countries and that of the Egyptian community since Egyptians were not accustomed or trained to migration mechanisms or protocols if we can say. Migrating Egyptians lost very important qualities. Some losses were due to harsh reality circumstances, while others were nothing but deviant behaviors acquired during years of migration.

The concept of Arab nationalism, both its political and cultural parts, was severely damaged, with the Palestinian cause in the heart of it, which is a matter of direct national security to Egypt. Expatriate Egyptians migrating to oil-rich countries were subjected to unfair legal systems like al-Kafil[2], and also did not enjoy the same benefits like those of the citizens of those countries. In addition, some had a negative point of view of Egypt as they had images like Share’ el-Haram[3], foul and falafel[4], pickpockets and prostitutes, and others in their minds. Some, meantime, denied Egypt’s past role in education, culture, art, and political role. Moreover, competition in work fields among Arab expatriates of different nationalities started to have negative effect; many talked about Palestinians persecuting Egyptians and Sudanese denying their mutual history with Egyptians. In this way, concept of Arab nationalism along with its political context was hit in the core in the Egyptian mentality.

After this, the concept of nationalism and citizenship was badly damaged in the mentality of many expatriate Egyptians through two ways. The first was cultural brain washing performed through religious discourse dominated in some Gulf Arab countries’ communities by hard-liners’ interpretations like that of Ibn Hanbal[5], Ibn Taymiyyah[6], and Ibn Abdel-Wahhab[7]; such interpretations that do not recognize concepts of nationalism or citizenship. In those hard-liners’ ideology, such concepts are regarded either as pure fanaticism or cults, and that dying for them is not for the sake of God and hence those who die defending their countries or seeking their independence and freedom of land are not considered martyrs. The other way that killed nationalism was the consumption mentality that identifies homeland in terms of cash, balance in bank account, and real-estate properties.

Things became worse when all this took place during Sadat’s ruling era that lasted until 1981 and continued through the corruption era of his hand-picked successor Mubarak for thirty years. Egyptians used to travel and work in oil-rich Arab countries accumulating what they thought was enough to fulfill their needs like affording to have an apartment, car, household facilities, place to spend the summer, and maybe a bank account in case they needed more money for educating their children and preparing them for marriage, not to mention their commitments toward their big families living in the countryside or city. But when deciding to come back to Egypt thinking it is the last year away from their beloved homeland, Egyptians found inflation, soaring prices, and corruption going higher and eating away their savings. And so, again they migrate back desperate and heart-broken for not being able to afford a good life in their homeland, wondering, whether exclaiming or ironically-speaking, “Where is homeland? It no longer exists!” feeling deep in their hearts that it’s the country where they couldn’t afford to have their basic needs or even allowed to although they travelled, left his beloved people behind, and worked hard day and night.

I here recall an account of domestic migration that happened long time ago in our village when my father found a job as an Arabic language and religion teacher in the mid forties. We moved out to the city of Quweisna[8] for my father to work in al-Massa’e al-Mashkoura school. I remember the grief, crying, and insistence to provide us with all we might need before we travel after every mid-year or summer vacations, including flour and Gella[9] dried plates in order to find fuel to bake the bread. Distance separating our village in Gharbia governorate’s countryside and Quweisna was not more than 70 kilo meters… you can imagine how Egyptians feel thousands of miles away from their country despite having planes, phones, internet, and other technology-facilitating tools available.

We shall talk later about the rest of the greatest calamity aspects.

Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar

This article was published in Al Ahram newspaper on February 18, 2016.

To see the Arabic article, go to:

http://www.ahram.org/NewsQ/477359.aspx

#alahram#ahmed_elgammal#our_egyptian_immune_system#Egyptians_mirgrating_to_oil_rich_Arab_countries#alkafil#Sadat#Mubarak

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[1] Infitah: (Arabic: إنفتاح) the Arabic word for the open door policy adopted by President Sadat in the years following 1973 October war. (Source: Wikipedia)

[2] Al-Kafil: (Arabic: الكفيل) is a legal system emerged in Gulf Arab countries when oil started to appear there prompting millions of job opportunities in those countries. According to this system, al-Makfoul (Arabic: المكفول) – the foreigner looking for a job – is put under the responsibility of al-Kafil – the business owner or the oil-country citizen responsible for “importing” those workers. As per this system, al-Makfoul is not allowed to leave the country or leave his job to another unless his Kafil approves this, the matter that is regarded as some kind of slavery performed under the pretext of securing the country against the incoming laboring force.

[3] Share’ el-Haram: (Arabic: شارع الهرم, or el-Haram street) a street in Cairo famous for its night clubs.

[4] Foul and Falafel: (Arabic: فول وفلافل) are two very popular food in Egypt made from beans but in different styles which are affordable for the poor. The writer here means some used to remind the Egyptians with these two dishes in specific in a hint at their current poverty.

[5] Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal: (Arabic:أحمد بن حنبل ‎) was a Muslim scholar and theologian. He is considered the founder of the Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence. Ibn Hanbal is known for his restricted opinions and religious jurisdictions in Islam.

[6] Aḥmad ibn Taymiyyah (Arabic: ابن تيمية) known as Ibn Taymiyyah (22 January 1263 - 26 September 1328) was an Islamic scholar, theologian and logician. He lived during the troubled times of the Mongol invasions, much of the time in Damascus. He was a member of the school founded by Ahmad ibn Hanbal and is considered by his followers, along with Ibn Qudamah, as one of the two most significant proponents of Hanbalism. Ibn Taymiyyah sought the return of Sunni Islam to what he viewed as earlier interpretations of the Qur'an and the Sunnah.(source: Wikipedia)

[7] Muhammad ibn ʿAbdel-Wahhab: (Arabic: محمد بن عبد الوهاب‎; 1703 – 22 June 1792) was a Sunni Muslim preacher and scholar from Nejd in central Arabia who claimed to "purify" Islam by returning it to what, he believed, were the original principles of that religion as the salaf, that is first three generations of Muslims, understood it. (Source: Wikipedia)

[8] Quweisna: (Arabic: قويسنا) is a city in Monufia Governorate, Egypt. It has an area of 49009 feddans (210 square kilometers). (Source: Wikipedia)

[9] Gella (Arabic: جلة) or Dung cakes, made from the by-products of animal husbandry, are traditionally used as fuel for making food in a domestic hearth. They are made by hand by village women and are traditionally made from cow or buffalo dung. One dung cake of an average size gives 2100 kJ worth of energy. This bio-fuel has been used for a long time primarily of two reasons 1. for easy disposal of cow dung 2. easily available and cheap fuel. After burning the residue ash is used to wash hands since it becomes germs free as bi-product of burning and sprinkled also on crops to get rid of certain pests. (Source: Wikipedia)

Our immune system…. third injury

Mawaled in Egypt

I wrote before about the precancerous condition of muslim brotherhood and salafists striking and taking command of Egypt’s body and mind. I also mentioned injuries inflicted with our Egyptian national immune system allowing that cancer to spread. The first injury detected was duplicity of education system after failed attempts attained by both Muhammed Ali Pasha and later Gamal Abdel Nasser to reform the old mosque of al-Azhar. Another injury was represented in the disruption of Egyptian history continuity depicted as adjacent dwarfed lines instead of a continuous one with ups and downs, meaning that accumulation could have been achieved and change guaranteed if it wasn’t for that disruption.

Today I mention a third injury that wreaked our Egyptian immune system; what I call Egyptians’ migration to oil-rich countries, meaning migration of millions of Egyptians either temporarily for a pre-decided set of years or permanently by immigration and visiting Egypt frequently where many left their families bahind in homeland and travelled. This migration was not a coincidence or a surprise for it started relatively long ago when professional teachers, physicians, and engineers travelled to the Arab countries especially those of the Arabian Peninsula; now states of the Gulf Cooperation Council in addition to Yemen, and later Iraq, Sudan and Syria joined as well. The Egyptian treasury used to fund and pay for the salaries or differences in salaries for those travelling. It also used to send in-kind aid like school supplies including notebooks, books, pencils, and even rubber erasers.

It was until Infitah[1] phoenix landed on our beloved country prior to the first half of the seventies when the October, 1973 war prompted the high prices of oil and its revenues in turn. After the war, hundreds of thousands of young men; those who were residing in trenches since the 1967 defeat until victory was achieved, came out searching for the outcome of their victory achieved in blood, souls, and knowledge. They were disappointed when they saw their triumph stolen and eaten away by Infitah tycoons. It was then when the tragedy of crunching lower and middle classes started… land and construction materials’ prices went high, deal was set between all parties of the Egyptian, regional, and international mafia; between those of the executive and parliamentary authorities at that time, then-head of state president Anwar Sadat, and private sector tycoons with its then-famous fat cats on one side, and other regional parties who had vengeance with the July, 1952 regime on the other side. Other international parties had vengeance as well, not to mention their earnest endeavors to reshape the region making sure no other Nasser is born, and also for the Hebrew state to stay the ultimate and only power in the region. This era had a name that best describes its nature; the era of Cash or Cashism. Massive amounts of money of aid, loans, and money transferred by expatriate Egyptians flooded. All those fortunes were stolen and transferred overseas while part of it was used to build a cemented wall extending from Sinai shores in the east to Matrouh[2] in the west.

The nation’s savings hard-earned by its people migrating to the Arab oil-rich countries turned into apartments and chalets inhabited for a month or less a year. Tens of billions of hard currency were squandered over toilettes, kitchens, and buildings, and thus, industries like ceramics, sanitary equipments, moquette, and other consumable goods thrived, such industries that do not establish any industrial renaissance in the proper sense of the word. Air-conditioners replaced Mashrabiyat[3] and wooden windows since buildings’ facades transformed into wide sheets of glass and aluminum, turning homes into closed glasshouses where germs can proliferate and human and family warmth is missing!

Spread of individual salvation philosophy was the greatest calamity that hit the Egyptian conscience and later mentality. Adopting the malicious doctrine of “end justifies the means”– no matter this end is – led to violating laws, traditions, ethics, and religions’ true teachings.

People turned into machines collecting money, tools for acquisitions, and even into consumption-addict creatures in the broad sense of consumption; normal, luxurious, and extravagantly lavish. Disputes used to run in public and secretly, no matter right or wrong, about dreams possible to come true or fancy illusions as to living neighborhoods, apartments’ areas, chalets, gold, diamond, vacations, high-end clothes… etc. Genie of acquisition and showing-off was unleashed to squander what was left in our Egyptian conscience; that conscience that was once a solid mixture of patriotism, moderate consumption behavior, and high morals such as the one saying that any human is evaluated by his work, productivity, knowledge, culture, strong will, and freedom of his country. It was the philosophy of individual salvation set up by Infitah policies and consecrated by Egyptians’ migration to oil-rich countries that contributed to destroying the Egyptian middle class, killing its awareness and amputating its progress-seeking leg for its other underdevelopment-mired one to inflate, as it is said that bourgeoisie has a leg walking forward and another desperate to go back.

With that philosophy clearly represented by a development-inhibiting set of values came the disaster that can be described in all superlative words and expressions; that is cultural submission by Egyptians for the economically strong and predominant; that is oil-rich countries.

It’s not a matter of chauvinism or narrow-minded fanaticism but merely the historical truth that Egypt has been dominating for long time. It’s a fact stated in history exactly like the fact that Christianity came to Egypt from Palestine and Levant countries, and that Islam came to Egypt from the Arab Peninsula, and that using irrigation tools more developed than Shadoof[4] was adapted from the Greeks and Romans like Tanboor[5] and Saqieya[6]… etc. Egypt, and for centuries, has been spreading its soft power in all fields even in what came to it from abroad when Egypt reproduced it again in a new version. The Arianism belief in Christianity and moderate interpretation school in Islam were examples of this, not to mention Egypt’s contributions to the Greek philosophy and the Roman culture. Egypt had also its military might that didn’t adopt aggression or invading other countries as a doctrine but rather was for protection and security even if distances were far. Egypt had its economic might as well that was known to all around when it was unlimitedly generous that money was called Masari[7] as derived from the word Masr[8]. Egypt, and for long times, has been a pioneering centre for hymns and church melodies, Inshad[9], Sufi Tawasheeh[10] and supplications, Quran reciting, and schools of Qira’at[11], not to mention music, singing, folklore dancing, oriental dancing, musical composing, telling jokes, light sense of humor, pioneering in parliamentary life, setting up universities and research centres, and many other unlimited fields. But as we all know, even a worm will turn, Egypt underwent circumstances like any other society that was once standing in the foreground for long times and later declined and degradation took place.

We shall continue talking about cultural dependency that wrecked our Egyptian national immune system later.

Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar

This article was published in Al Ahram newspaper on February 11, 2016.

To see the original Arabic version, go to:

http://www.ahram.org.eg/NewsQ/476072.aspx

#alahram#ahmed_elgammal#our_Egyptian_immune_system#Egypt#Egyptian_migration_to_Arab_oil_rich_countries#infitah#Sadat

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[1] Infitah: (Arabic: إنفتاح) the Arabic word for the open door policy adopted by President Sadat in the years following 1973 October war. (Source: Wikipedia)

[2] Matrouh Governorate: (Arabic: محافظة مطروح) is one of the governorates of Egypt. Located in the north-western part of the country, it borders Libya. Its capital is Marsa Matrouh. (Source: Wikipedia)

[3] Mashrabiyat is plural of Mashrabiya or Shanasheel: (Arabic: مشربية  or  شناشيل‎) is the Arabic term given to a type of projecting oriel window enclosed with carved wood latticework located on the second storey of a building or higher, often lined with stained glass. The mashrabiya (sometimes shanshool or rushan) is an element of traditional Arabic architecture used since the Middle Ages up to the mid-20th century. It is mostly used on the street side of the building; however, it may also be used internally on the Sahn (courtyard) side.

Mashrabiyas were mostly used in houses and palaces although sometimes in public buildings such as hospitals, inns, schools and government buildings. They are found mostly in the Mashriq – i.e. the eastern part of the Arab world, but some types of similar windows are also found in the Maghreb (the western part of the Arab world). They are very prevalent in Iraq, the Levant, Hejaz and Egypt. They are mostly found in urban settings and rarely in rural areas. Basra is often called "the city of Shanasheel". (Source: Wikipedia)

[4] Shadoof: (Arabic: شادوف) is an irrigation tool. A less common English translation is swape and it is also called a well pole, well sweep. or simply a sweep in the US. It uses a bucket attached to a lever with a fulcrum fixed in the ground. The shadoof was an early tool used by Mesopotamian and Nile River peoples to draw water. It is still used in many areas of Africa and Asia and very common in rural areas of India such as in the Bhojpuri belt of the Ganges plain where it is named "dhenki". (Source: Wikipedia)

[5] Tanboor: (Arabic: طنبور) also called The Archimedes screw, the Archimedean screw, or screwpump, is a machine historically used for transferring water from a low-lying body of water into irrigation ditches. Water is pumped by turning a screw-shaped surface inside a pipe. (Source: Wikipedia)

[6] Saqieya: alternative spelling sakieh or saqiya: (Arabic: ساقية‎) is a mechanical water lifting device which uses buckets, jars, or scoops fastened either directly to a vertical wheel, or to an endless belt activated by such a wheel. The vertical wheel is itself attached by a drive shaft to a horizontal wheel, which is traditionally set in motion by animal power (oxen, donkeys, etc.) Because it is not using the power of flowing water, the saqieya is different from a noria and any other type of water-wheel. It is still used in India, Egypt and other parts of the Middle East, and in the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands. It may have been invented in Hellenistic Egypt, Persia or India. (Source: Wikipedia)

[7] Masari: (Arabic: مصاري) the word used to name money in Arabic in some Arab countries.

[8] Masr: (Arabic: مصر) the Arabic word for Egypt.

[9] Inshad: (Arabic: إنشاد) a kind of chanting that makes musical sound with the voice. It’s found in both Islamic and Christian heritage.

[10] Tawasheeh: (Arabic: تواشيح) A form of postclassical form of Arabic poetry arranged in stanzas and an Islamic music genres emerged in Egypt.

[11] In Islam, Qira'at (Arabic: علم القراءات) which means literally the readings, terminologically means the method of recitation. Traditionally, there are 10 recognised schools of Qira'at, and each one derives its name from a famous reader of Quran recitation. (Source: Wikipedia)