Before the emergence of musical instruments, humans clapped their hands to define and create the rhythm of music. Actually, hand clapping was an art of its own. Dating back to the days of the pharaohs, the art of kaff — Arabic for palm clapping — flourished in the Arabian Peninsula. Improvisational poetry is considered part and parcel of this art. With […]

This in-depth profile looks at key participants in the 2011 Egyptian uprisings as well as the first post-Mubarak presidential election candidates. In addition, you will find a few contemporaneous articles that demonstrate the impassioned atmosphere at that time. Asmaa Mahfouz Asmaa Mahfouz was born on February 1st, 1985. She graduated from Cairo University with a BA [...]

The Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwayn al-Muslimun) is the oldest and most influential Islamist organization in Egypt, most recently in the news when party member, Mohammed Morsi, became Egypt’s first democratically elected president. The Brotherhood’s legacy reaches back to 1928 when it was founded by Hasan al-Banna. Banna, an imam, (Muslim religious officiant or leader) formed the […]