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Culture, Egypt

Maciej Mońka

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The capital city, Cairo, is Africa's largest city and has been renowned for centuries as a center of learning, culture and commerce. Egypt also hosts two major religious institutions. Al-Azhar University, the oldest Islamic institution for higher studies (founded around 970 CE) with its corresponding mosque Al-Azhar. The head of Al-Azhar is traditionally regarded as the supreme leader of Sunni Muslims all over the world. Egypt also has a strong Christian heritage as evidenced by the existence of the Coptic Orthodox Church headed by the Patriarch of Alexandria, which claims a following of 50 million Christians worldwide. Though considered a low-income country, Egypt has a thriving media and arts industry, with more than 30 satellite channels and more than 100 motion pictures produced a year. To bolster its media industry, especially with the keen competition from the Persian Gulf states and Lebanon, it has built a large media city that it has promoted as the "Hollywood of the East". Some famous Egyptians include: Naguib Mahfouz (Nobel Prize-winning novelist), Omar Sharif (actor), Ahmed Zewail (Nobel Prize-winning chemist), Boutros Boutros-Ghali (former Secretary General of the United Nations), Mohamed ElBaradei (Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency), and Anwar Sadat (former president and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.)