history-of-egypt

"The king pierced the lines of the miserable Khita. He was alone. He turned to look behind him, and, lo! around him were two thousand five hundred chariots of the vile Khita. Each chariot bore three men. The king had with him no chief, no marshal, no captain, no officer. Fled were his troops and his horses! Then lifted he up his voice to God, and said, "I call on thee, Father Ammon. I am amid unknown multitudes. Nations are gathered against me. My numerous soldiers have forsaken me. When I called to them not one listened to my voice. But I think Ammon worth more to me than a million of soldiers. I have never disobeyed thy word. Lo, have I not glorified thee, even to the ends of the earth?" Ammon heard when I called. He gave me his hand. He called to me, from behind: "Ramses, Miamon, I hasten to thy aid. It is I, thy Father. I am worth to thee more than a hundred thousand men." My prayer was answered. To the right I hurled my arrows. To the left I overthrew mine enemy. I was like Baar in his fury. The twenty-five hundred chariots encircling me were broken into splinters. Not a Khitan finds a hand to fight with. Their hearts faint within them, and fear palsies their limbs. I tumbled them into the waters like crocodiles. Head first I pitched them over, one after the other. I slew them by thousands! Then called the king to his archers, to his cavalry, to his chiefs who had failed to fight. He said, "Of what profit are such cowards? Is there one among you who has done his duty to his country? Had I not been given power from above, ye would all have perished. Every day I have made some of you princes. To sons, I have transmitted the honors of their fathers. If any evil has happened to Egypt I have not held you responsible. Whoever has come to me with his complaints, it is I who have administered justice, in person. Never did royal master for his soldiers what I have done for you. Yet you have played the coward, all of you. Not one of you stood by me when I had to fight. What a military deed is this to present at the Theban altar as an offering to Ammon! What a shame! What a disgrace, and to my soldiers, and to my cavalry! Yet the whole world has seen the path of my victory and my might. People saw it, and will repeat my name even in remote and unknown lands. Of the millions who saw me to-day, not one paused in his flight. All dropped their arrows and fled or turned to me in supplication.""

"And when We delivered you from the folk of Pharaoh who were visiting you with evil chastisement, slaughtering your sons, and sparing your women; and in that was a grievous trial from your Lord."

"Alauddin's conquest of Gujarat (1299) and the massacres by his generals in Anhilwara, Cambay, Asvalli, Vanmanthali etc. earned him, according to the Rasmala, the nickname of khuni. His contemporary chronicler proclaims that Alauddin shed more blood than the Pharaos did."

"John of Nikiou, a seventh-century Coptic Christian bishop, recounted in the 690s about what happened when Umar’s army arrived in Egypt some fifty years before: Amr oppressed Egypt. He sent its inhabitants to fight the inhabitants of the Pentapolis [Tripolitania] and, after gaining a victory, he did not allow them to stay there. He took considerable booty from this country and a large number of prisoners.… The Muslims returned to their country with booty and captives. The patriarch Cyrus felt deep grief at the calamities in Egypt, because Amr, who was of barbarian origin, showed no mercy in his treatment of the Egyptians and did not fulfill the covenants which had been agreed with him. When they arrived in John’s native town of Nikiou, they were no more merciful: Then the Muslims arrived in Nikiou. There was not one single soldier to resist them. They seized the town and slaughtered everyone they met in the street and in the churches—men, women and children, sparing nobody. Then they went to other places, pillaged and killed all the inhabitants they found.… But let us now say no more, for it is impossible to describe the horrors the Muslims committed when they occupied the island of Nikiou…"

"How manifold it is, what thou hast made! They are hidden from the face (of man). O sole god, like whom there is no other! Thou didst create the world according to thy desire, Whilst thou wert alone: All men, cattle, and wild beasts, Whatever is on Earth, going upon (its) feet, And what is on high, flying with its wings."

"You are in my heart, There is no other who knows you, Only your son, Neferkheprure, Sole-one-of-Re [Akhenaten], Whom you have taught your ways and your might. [Those on] Earth come from your hand as you made them. When you have dawned they live. When you set they die; You yourself are lifetime, one lives by you. All eyes are on [your] beauty until you set. All labor ceases when you rest in the west; When you rise you stir [everyone] for the King, Every leg is on the move since you founded the Earth. You rouse them for your son who came from your body. The King who lives by Maat, the Lord of the Two Lands, Neferkheprure, Sole-one-of-Re, The Son of Re who lives by Maat. the Lord of crowns, Akhenaten, great in his lifetime; (And) the great Queen whom he loves, the Lady of the Two Lands, Nefer-nefru-Aten Nefertiti, living forever."

"The limits of the dominion of the Egyptian gods had been fixed as the outer fringes of the Nile valley long before the outside world was familiar to the Nile-dwellers; and merely commercial intercourse with a larger world had not been able to shake the tradition. Many a merchant had seen a stone fall in distant Babylon and in Thebes alike, but it had not occurred to him, or to any man in that far-off age, that the same natural force reigned in these widely separated countries."

"When brutes were deified, And Memnon in the sunrise sprang and cried, And love-winds smote Bubastis, and the bare Black breasts of carven Pasht received the prayer Of suppliants bearing gifts from far and wide!"

"Egypt! from whose all dateless tombs arose Forgotten Pharaohs from their long repose, And shook within their pyramids to hear A new Cambyses thundering in their ear; While the dark shades of forty ages stood Like startled giants by Nile's famous flood."

"It was universalism expressed in terms of imperial power which first caught the imagination of the thinking men of the Empire, and disclosed to them the universal sweep of the Sun-god’s dominion as a physical fact. Monotheism is but imperialism in religion."

"[In the 7th century BC] the past was supreme; the priest who cherished it lived in a realm of shadows, and for the contemporary world he had no vital meaning."

"Sister we know that the Savior loved you more than the rest of women."

"Will matter then be destroyed or not? The Savior said, All nature, all formations, all creatures exist in and with one another, and they will be resolved again into their own roots. For the nature of matter is resolved into the roots of its own nature alone."

"He who has ears to hear, let him hear. ... He who has a mind to understand, let him understand."

"What is the sin of the world? The Savior said: there is no sin, but it is you who make sin when you do the things that are like the nature of adultery, which is called sin. That is why the Good came into your midst, to the essence of every nature in order to restore it to its root. Then He continued and said, That is why you become sick and die, for you are deprived of the one who can heal you."

"Matter gave birth to a passion that has no equal, which proceeded from something contrary to nature. Then there arises a disturbance in its whole body."

"Be of good courage, and if you are discouraged be encouraged in the presence of the different forms of nature."

"He greeted them all, saying, Peace be with you. Receive my peace unto yourselves. Beware that no one lead you astray saying Lo here or lo there! For the is within you. Follow after Him! Those who seek Him will find Him. Go then and preach the gospel of the Kingdom."

"Do not lay down any rules beyond what I appointed you, and do not give a law like the lawgiver lest you be constrained by it."

"Mary stood up, greeted them all, and said to her brethren, Do not weep and do not grieve nor be irresolute, for His grace will be entirely with you and will protect you. But rather, let us praise His greatness, for He has prepared us and made us into Men."

"What is hidden from you I will proclaim to you."

"I said to Him, Lord, how does he who sees the vision see it, through the soul or through the spirit? The Savior answered and said, He does not see through the soul nor through the spirit, but the mind that is between the two that is what sees the vision."

"Desire said, I did not see you descending, but now I see you ascending. Why do you lie since you belong to me? The soul answered and said, I saw you. You did not see me nor recognize me. I served you as a garment and you did not know me. When it said this, it (the soul) went away rejoicing greatly. Again it came to the third power, which is called ignorance. The power questioned the soul, saying, Where are you going? In wickedness are you bound. But you are bound; do not judge! And the soul said, Why do you judge me, although I have not judged? I was bound, though I have not bound. I was not recognized. But I have recognized that the All is being dissolved, both the earthly things and the heavenly. When the soul had overcome the third power, it went upwards and saw the fourth power, which took seven forms. The first form is darkness, the second desire, the third ignorance, the fourth is the excitement of death, the fifth is the kingdom of the flesh, the sixth is the foolish wisdom of flesh, the seventh is the wrathful wisdom. These are the seven powers of wrath. They asked the soul, Whence do you come slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space? The soul answered and said, What binds me has been slain, and what turns me about has been overcome, and my desire has been ended, and ignorance has died. In a I was released from a world, and in a Type from a type, and from the fetter of oblivion which is transient. From this time on will I attain to the rest of the time, of the season, of the aeon, in silence."

"Then Mary wept, and answered him: 'My brother Peter, what can you be thinking? Do you believe that this is just my own imagination, that I invented this vision? Or do you believe that I would lie about our Teacher?' At this, Levi spoke up: 'Peter, you have always been hot-tempered, and now we see you repudiating a woman just as our adversaries do. Yet if the Teacher held her worthy, who are you to reject her? Surely the Teacher knew her very well, for he loved her more than us. Therefore let us atone, and become fully human so that the Teacher can take root is us. Let us grow as he demanded of us, and walk forth to spread the gospel, without trying to lay down any rules and laws other than those he witnessed.'"

"[The Gospel of Mary is an] intriguing glimpse into a kind of Christianity lost for almost fifteen hundred years...[it] presents a radical interpretation of Jesus' teachings as a path to inner spiritual knowledge; it rejects His suffering and death as the path to eternal life; it exposes the erroneous view that Mary of Magdala was a prostitute for what it is—a piece of theological fiction; it presents the most straightforward and convincing argument in any early Christian writing for the legitimacy of women's leadership; it offers a sharp critique of illegitimate power and a utopian vision of spiritual perfection; it challenges our rather romantic views about the harmony and unanimity of the first Christians; and it asks us to rethink the basis for church authority. All written in the name of a woman."

"I know that a democratic Egypt can advance its role of responsible leadership not only in the region but around the world. Egypt has played a pivotal role in human history for over 6,000 years. But over the last few weeks, the wheel of history turned at a blinding pace as the Egyptian people demanded their universal rights. We saw mothers and fathers carrying their children on their shoulders to show them what true freedom might look like. We saw a young Egyptian say, “For the first time in my life, I really count. My voice is heard. Even though I’m only one person, this is the way real democracy works.” We saw protesters chant “Selmiyya, selmiyya” — “We are peaceful” — again and again. We saw a military that would not fire bullets at the people they were sworn to protect. And we saw doctors and nurses rushing into the streets to care for those who were wounded, volunteers checking protesters to ensure that they were unarmed. We saw people of faith praying together and chanting – “Muslims, Christians, We are one.” And though we know that the strains between faiths still divide too many in this world and no single event will close that chasm immediately, these scenes remind us that we need not be defined by our differences. We can be defined by the common humanity that we share. And above all, we saw a new generation emerge — a generation that uses their own creativity and talent and technology to call for a government that represented their hopes and not their fears; a government that is responsive to their boundless aspirations. One Egyptian put it simply: Most people have discovered in the last few days…that they are worth something, and this cannot be taken away from them anymore, ever. This is the power of human dignity, and it can never be denied. Egyptians have inspired us, and they’ve done so by putting the lie to the idea that justice is best gained through violence. For in Egypt, it was the moral force of nonviolence — not terrorism, not mindless killing — but nonviolence, moral force that bent the arc of history toward justice once more."

"Unrest had been in the air for a few years, but no one recognized the signs or the magnitude of what was about to unfold. Then on January 25, 2011, Egyptians took to the streets to express a rage that had been building up within them, maybe for decades. They’d had enough of the corrupt, oppressive, inert, dilapidated swamp they were living in. Next door, Tunisians had just rid their country of their president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. On January 14, Ben Ali had fled to Saudi Arabia. Two weeks of protests had put an end to twenty-two years of despotic rule. Now, Egyptians were going after President Hosni Mubarak and his thirty-year rule. Every day, the protests and the rage grew. But so did the elation, as women with coiffed hair and designer bags or tightly wrapped veils and long manteaus, bearded sheikhs and teens in jeans and football jerseys, peasants in gallabiyas and businessmen in suits, all converged on Tahrir Square. They inhabited different planets, but they met as Egyptians for the first time and found one another on a square with a long history as a symbol of patriotism, dating back to British rule. Surrounded by grand buildings telling Egypt’s story, from the Egyptian Museum to the Arab League headquarters and the headquarters of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party, the somewhat shapeless square had several boulevards converging on it, a rare open space in the heart of Cairo, with a grassy roundabout in the middle, a perfect stage for Egypt’s bon enfant festival against tyranny. Ahmed drank it all up. He wasn’t sleeping. He felt alive, perhaps for the first time in his life. Tahrir means “liberation” in Arabic. Ahmed wanted the square to earn its name. Day after day, millions of Egyptians protested. “The people want the fall of the regime,” they chanted. There were violent clashes with the police. More than eight hundred people died. Mubarak promised some reforms, then promised he wouldn’t run again for president. It was no longer enough to send the protesters home. They were camped on Tahrir Square; the nights were tense. For courage and reinforcement, they painted the walls with verses and sang poetry."

"Today belongs to the people of Egypt, and the American people are moved by these scenes in Cairo and across Egypt because of who we are as a people and the kind of world that we want our children to grow up in. The word Tahrir means liberation. It is a word that speaks to that something in our souls that cries out for freedom. And forevermore it will remind us of the Egyptian people — of what they did, of the things that they stood for, and how they changed their country, and in doing so changed the world."

"There are very few moments in our lives where we have the privilege to witness history taking place. This is one of those moments. This is one of those times. The people of Egypt have spoken, their voices have been heard, and Egypt will never be the same."

"The sooner Mubarak leaves, the better it is for everybody and the quicker we can restore normality and stability in Egypt and establish the cornerstone of democracy in the Middle East."

"We the people have legitimate demands and we would like to tell the government what to do. Our freedom is not up for negotiation. Secondly how can you negotiate with a regime that is killing its people? When the regime tries to counter a peaceful demonstration by using thugs, some of whom are police officers in plain clothes – we've seen their IDs – there are few words that do justice to this villainy and I think it can only hasten that regime's departure."

"On February 9, hundreds of thousands of workers struck around the country. In response to the popular uprisings, the Egyptian military forced Mubarak to resign on February 11. Millions of Egyptians celebrated. But despite the euphoria, little had changed except a few faces at the top of the regime. The basic power structure remained in place. Mubarak, a former military officer, was replaced by a council of military commanders publicly promising to restore civilian rule and allow the establishment of democracy. The armed forces, rather than simply being an organization of professional soldiers, also controlled a large section of the economy. High-ranking officers had their own economic interests to protect from any future elected government and might intervene if they felt those interests were threatened. The government bureaucracy and the high courts were dominated by people appointed by the Mubarak regime. They were unlikely to cooperate willingly with an anti-Mubarak government. And the old structure of economic power remained in place. Essentially the revolution up to that point had succeeded only in removing Mubarak and a few of his cronies, temporarily restraining the violence-prone security forces, and winning a questionable commitment of military leaders to democratization. The new “democratic” future was very uncertain."

"مش هنمشي ، هو يمشي"

"ارحل يا فرعون"

"الشعب يريد إسقاط النظام"

"أمشی بقی یا عم خلی عندک دم"

"الشعب و الجيش هيغيير الرئيس"

"اذهب الى الجحيم"

"أمس تونس و الیوم مصر"

"I hope that in Egypt there can be a transition toward a more democratic system without a break from President Mubarak, who in the West, above all in the United States, is considered the wisest of men and a precise reference point."

"عيش، حرية، عدالة اجتماعية"

"Egypt pulls off a revolution in two weeks. Meanwhile, 20 years in, we’ve gotten nowhere on the whole “Kraft Cheese and Macaroni” thing."

"If the Father begat the Son, he that was begotten had a beginning of existence: and from this it is evident, that there was a time when the Son was not. It therefore necessarily follows, that he had his substance from nothing."

"Arius began to say things like this in his sermons and writings: "If God and Christ were equal then Christ should be called God’s brother, not God’s Son." People puzzled about that. They were hearing now something different from this presbyter than they were hearing from the bishop. And Arius also created the very famous saying, "There was a time when He was not." "There was a time when the Son did not exist." So in his view, Christ became what we could call a third thing. He is neither God nor is He man, but something in between. There is God and there is the Son and there is the rest of creation. So rather than having two things you have a tertium quid, a third thing — neither god nor man."