The debate in Egypt now is about not just al-hijab and al-niqab but also what is really the language of Egypt

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Aug 29, 2010 at 09:20

This past week Amr Adeeb the host of the very popular TV program al-Qahira al-yuum or "Cairo today" spent about 40 mintues interviewing an Egyptian thinker and scholar and that is Dr. Ahmad Kamal Abu al-Magd who used to be second in charge of the Egyptian Human Rights Assocation (na'b ra'ees al-maglis al-qawmi li huquq el-insan el-sabiq) and the title of the episode was "An overview of religion in Egypt" (nazra 3ama 3ala al-hala al-deeniya fi masr)

What is most amazing about the interveiw is that Dr. Ahmad dealt with many issues that are facing today's Egypt in a frank manner and I will just go through some of them

1. He is just alarmed about the rise of religious symbols in Egypt including the fact that many women now wear al-hijab and al-niqab. He does not say that this is un-Egyptian but he makes it very clear that if women in Egypt want to cover their heads then this has nothing to do with being better Muslims and that the real Egyptian head cover is really el-tarha and el-bisha which are very Egyptian and there is nothing religious about them

2. The issue of the Copts and their rights and that they should be treated as equal citizens

3. Again the question of what is really the language of Egypt and the fact that the Egyptian constitution says that the official language of Egypt is Arabic (read this as classical Arabic). Many Copts now are saying that the real languages of Egypt are Coptic/Egyptian and Egyptian Arabic and not classical Arabic. His concern here is that if Egyptian Arabic becomes the langauge of Egypt (which it is at least unofficially) then Muslims in Egypt will not be able to read Ibn Khaldun but he was reminded that no one in Egypt cares about reading Ibn Khaldun because he wrote his books in classical Arabic that no one speaks or even care to read. What Egyptians want is to read books in their own language and that is Egyptian Arabic.

What is most amusing about such interview is that most of it is in Egyptian Arabic

4. There is no doubt that Dr. el-Qimni's correct claim that there is no such thing as futuh masr (this is what Muslims call the Arab invasion of Egypt and that it was an invasion and imperialism and colonialism) is still an issue that Egyptians must debate. Dr. Ahmad does not deny such fact but he believes that Arabic in Egypt is here to stay but he does not define which Arabic he was talking about

The moral of the story is that Egyptians are really re-defining who they really are and nothing is holy anymore

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