Let’s not beat around the bush

IT SEEMS OFFICIALS at Al Azhar have been busy bees this past month, perhaps wanting to impress the Rice delegation with their own brand of liberty, approving the controversial book about Islam written by a distant ancestor of United States President George Bush.

The 262-page The Life of Mohammed, founder of the religion of Islam and of the Empire of the Saracens, came under fire from Muslim scholars for referring to the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) as an imposter, at one point even likening Muslims to locusts. The book was authored in the 1830s by Reverend George Bush whom US officials deny is a direct ancestor of the current president.

“Two independent genealogies show Reverend Bush was the cousin of Obadiah Bush, who was the great-great-great grandfather of the current president,” read a statement posted on the official US Cairo Embassy website. “This makes the Reverend Bush a distant relative of the current president, five generations removed, but NOT his direct ancestor.”

Ancestor or not, Al Azhar claims it is not trying to impress the US. The book itself is a piece of documentation that paints a lively picture of the life of Prophet Mohammed. It underlines Mohammed’s determination to convey his message and his refusal to give in to frustration in spite of the plots engineered against him by his enemies.”

IF WE ARE what we eat, or rather drink, then we may be not just be locusts, but pigs as well. In what will probably become a precedent-setting study to determine if what we’re consuming is halal or haram, the Center for Islamic Research began investigating carbonated drinks last month.

Sparking the debate was the rampant circulation in Cairo’s streets of rumors that cola drinks contain swine oils. After discussing the matter, and before issuing an official statement declaring the religious legality of soft drinks, center officials agreed to send samples to be analyzed at Al Azhar University labs. As of press time, lab test results were not yet available. The center announced it would release its official decision after reviewing the results expected in the coming few weeks.

For his part, Mohamed Ra’fat Othman, vice-president of the center’s Religious Studies Committee, said it’s natural for these kinds of issues to be raised from time to time. Still, he added he personally believes it would be “difficult” to make available the quantities of pig fat needed for the millions of soda bottles produced daily, and that the substance in question is likely made of artificial oils. Mecca Cola, anyone?

ADDING TO THE motley crew of candidates running for president, former President Anwar Sadat’s nephew, Talaat Sadat, announced last month he would challenge President Mubarak for the country’s highest office in September.

Speaking at a press conference nearby his uncle’s tomb in Nasr City, Sadat said he is “not satisfied with the country’s security policies nor with the way Egyptians are being treated.”

The 51-year-old Ahrar Party member said his political program includes fighting corruption, cutting the Interior Ministry’s budget, releasing political prisoners and, what some analysts have interpreted as, taking a tougher stance on Israel.

“If I am elected never will an Israeli tank come right up to our border and shoot down our sons,” Sadat pledged in reference to the killing of three Egyptian soldiers by Israeli tank fire near the Rafah border last year.

Sadat, who is expected to join a diverse group including El-Ghad leader Ayman Nour, feminist Nawal El-Saadawi, and Aboud Al-Zumur, the former Islamic Jihad leader still in prison for his alleged role in President Sadat’s assassination, continued to criticize the president on several issues including restricting the freedoms of opposition parties. He also indirectly held the president responsible for billions of dollars that, he says, were stolen from the country since Mubarak took office. If elected, Sadat announced his administration would compile a list of all Egyptians who have more than $1 million in US and Swiss bank accounts.

The speech ended, appropriately, with a hasaballah band performing an old praise song to the former president, “Ya Sadat, Ya Habibna.”

WHILE TALAAT SADAT rests on his uncles laurels, prominent figures going all the way back to the Sadat era may soon ‘retire’ from the public arena. Amid a flurry of predications as to when and which newspaper giants would bite the dust, in a surprise move last month Ibrahim Saada, editor-in-chief of Akhbar Al Youm publications, resigned his post in protest of the rumors.

In a front-page editorial on the second-to-last edition of the month of the weekly Akhbar Al Youm, Saada protested a “campaign” led by the NDP’s political committee attacking media heads, such as himself, who have passed the legal age limit for their posts. Other prominent chiefs facing the possibility of forced retirement this year include Al Ahram’s Ibrahim Nafai and Al Gomhuria’s Samir Ragab. Saada is 68, three years over that limit.

“I ask the consultative [Shura] council to accept my resignation because I want to remain at peace with myself and others,” Saada wrote.

Saada said neither himself, nor any of his colleagues, had plans to stay past the legal age limit for their posts.

In a television interview with “Good Morning Egypt” the following day, Shura Council President Safwat Al Sherif agreed with Saada’s stance taken in his editorial. He added that the council kept on Saada and others past the legal age limit for the stability of the institutions. Saada has since agreed to stay on until his replacement is hired.

SPEAKING OF RELICS (figurative ones, that is), plans for the $500 million Grand Museum of Egypt, to be built at the foot of the Pyramids and serve as a gathering place of about 100,000 Egyptian artifacts, were released last month byheneghan.peng.architects, the Irish firm awarded the design contract by the government.

“The museum is situated at the juncture where the fertile valley meets the desert, which, for the ancient Egyptians, was the land of life after death,” Yasser Mansour, head of the government’s technical committee for the project, told Aljazeera.net. “This will be Tut’s final resting place.”

The 38,000 square-meter structure will be built to house some of the world’s most well-known mummies, statues and artifacts including the body of King Tutankhamun, the statue of Ramses II and King Cheop’s Sun Boats. The museum will also be used to display artifacts from more recent periods of the country’s history including the Coptic, Greco-Roman and Islamic eras. For decades thousands of these pieces have been in storage in warehouses due to lack of space in existing museums.

Supreme Council for Antiquities officials are hoping to begin construction by the end of this year so the facility can be ready by 2009. Government officials estimate the museum will draw in as many as 3 million additional tourists per year.

But, as is always the case with giant projects, the government is now facing a funding issue. For starters, officials have announced all $40 million expected in revenue generated by King Tut’s current tour of the US will go toward the museum. In addition, the government is planning a large-scale fundraising drive and is negotiating a loan for an undisclosed amount with the Japanese Bank for International Development. et