“There are a lot of Egyptians who live below the poverty line and are preoccupied with meeting basic needs. Therefore, we have to create tangible benefits from nature conservation. Only through economic incentives will we convince people to protect habitats, wildlife, geological formations, cultural heritage sites, etc. We need local communities to cooperate with us, not against us!” PeopleCommunityPovertyEconomicProtectMeetingsConvinceConservation Author:Mindy Baha El Din
“I didn't quite know whether I was writing for the non-Muslim or the Muslim, and at the end of the day I'm writing, I hope, for people who are interested, whatever their faith. Even if they don't have any faith. As a barrister I had certain advantages - I could think like a lawyer and I knew how all the laws were fitted together and all the rest of it. One of the things I realized pretty early on while I was writing book about Shari'a was that that was as much a hinderance as it was a help because the Shari'a isn't just a system of rules.” PeopleThinkingWritingBookHelpingTogetherLawyerI Realized Author:Sadakat Kadri
“If we can successfully lift the stranglehold of bureaucracy and old ways of thinking, we can see some real innovation in biodiversity conservation in Egypt as has occurred elsewhere in the world. It's the government's call. If they continue to put people in high-level positions that have no knowledge, experience or even interest in environment, Egypt will not advance. The country has very good national experts so why not use them?” PeopleThinkingWorldRealCountryInterestEnvironmentInnovationVery GoodElsewhereConservationBureaucracyBiodiversity Author:Mindy Baha El Din
“Nature conservation is not a luxury, it is a necessity! It not wise or sensible to continue to destroy your environment if you want to have a sound, stable, healthy and prosperous Egypt whether now or in the future.” EnvironmentWiseHealthySensibleConservationProsperousOur Environment Author:Mindy Baha El Din
“There's crucial distinction that has to be drawn between the Shari'a, which is this hugely expansive vision of cosmic order that I've been describing, and principles of Islamic law, known in Arabic as "Fiqh" - a word that means understanding. If you're a devout Muslim, you don't argue against the Shari'a; the Shari'a is the path that God has laid down. But what you can do, and what people are doing all the time, is arguing over the correct interpretation of the Shari'a, arguing over the Fiqh. That's something that has been going on throughout Islamic history.” PeopleMeanUnderstandingVisionPathArguingIslamicCosmic Author:Sadakat Kadri
“The first rules about Islamic law weren't even written down for a century and a half after the Prophet's death, and it was another five centuries, half a millennium, before they assumed anything like a definitive form. So there have always been huge arguments over what Islamic law actually requires. There are four main schools of law in Sunni thought and there's a separate school of law in Shia thought, so these arguments do take place.” SchoolArgumentIslamic Author:Sadakat Kadri
“With better education and affluence there have been more Egyptians interested in nature. There are now more Egyptian divers, desert safari enthusiasts and ecotourists - I know Egyptian who have traveled to Antarctica, Tanzania, South Africa and climbed the Himalayas. Now Egyptians are talking of wanting to explore and see more of their own country. I believe they too will fall in love with Egypt and will want to protect it. The revolution is a process, it will take time, but at least there is hope now!” BelieveCountryFallI BelieveRevolutionProtectFalling In LoveTake TimeSouth AfricaEgyptianThere Is HopeAntarctica Author:Mindy Baha El Din
“The politicized version of Shia Islam that we see in the Islamic Republic post-1979 clearly is very conservative, but, there are other things one could say about Ayatollah Khomeini's concept of a Shia state because that in itself is a blasphemy as far as most Shia clerics are concerned. There's a theory that he developed in the early 1960s in the town of Najaf talking about - well not liberalism, necessarily, but flexibility though.” ConcernedIslamConservativeIslamicLiberalismFlexibility1960sBlasphemy Author:Sadakat Kadri
“Fifteen years before I became a screen actor, I was in the theatre. A lot of my work was comedy, which I loved doing. It's harder.” YearsActorsComedyHarderTheatreScreensFifteenFifteen Years Author:Ben Kingsley
“One of things that surprised me when I was in Iran was to find out that the country finances seven times as many sex change operations as the entire European Union. And the reason for that is because Ayatollah Khomeini himself, in the early 1960s, in the same time that he was developing this other idea of an Islamic state, also hit upon the idea that if a person is born into the wrong sex, it was entirely proper for them to change sex.” CountryReasonSevenFinanceIslamic1960sEuropean Union Author:Sadakat Kadri