Egypt
is the cradle of human civilization: a fact hardly contested
among authoritative historians. But Egypt also enjoys a focal
geopolitical position, connecting Africa, Asia, and Europe through
the Mediterranean Sea. On its land, migrations of people, traditions,
philosophies and religious beliefs succeeded each other for
thousands of years. Evidence of this succession is still visible
in the accumulation of monuments and sites attesting to a uniquely
comprehensive cultural heritage. Indeed, one of the phenomena
which shaped Egypt's distinctive identity, and explains its
pervasive influence on the then known world, was a dynamism
that accommodated and re-formulated these successive cultures
into one homogenous and harmonious Egyptian canvas. Egypt is
one civilization woven of many strands, threaded by successive
and intertwining eras; the Pharaonic, the Graeco-Roman, the
Coptic Christian, and the Islamic eras.
Because
the Egyptian people are the essential product of the "harmony
in diversity", "otherness" has become an integral
component of their awareness, a basic constituent of their national
and cultural identity. This characteristic has yielded one important
result: Egypt was, and still is, the land of refuge in the widest
sense of the word, a place of tolerance and dialogue for peoples,
races, cultures and religions.
On this land of Egypt, the first voice proclaiming the Oneness
of God rang out in the 14th century BC through Akhenaton's monotheistic
creed. Moses and Jesus lived in this same land. Later, Islam
entered without conflict.
Before long, the world will be celebrating the birth of Christ,
together with the birth of the twenty-first century, the third
millennium AD. While sharing with the rest of mankind the celebration
of this momentous milestone in the world's history, Egypt will
have its splendid occasion to celebrate the dawning of the seventh
millennium of the country's recorded history.
Some
people in the outside world may not be aware of the special
significance all Egyptians attribute to the fact that the Holy
Family, when Christ was an infant, found haven in Egypt for
nearly four years after their flight out of fear from the persecution
of King Herod. Egypt's re-paving of the route the Holy Family
followed it part of a comprehensive policy to revive, and give
prominence to, all the religious landmarks which constitute
the spiritual heritage of the one Egyptian civilization. With
an eye on history, and Egypt's role in it, a nation-wide project
is under way, under the leadership of President Mubarak, to
restore and preserve this heritage. The aim is to generate a
renaissance, in a temporal context, connecting the past with
the present, providing, thereby, an impetus for the future.
To highlight but a few noteworthy examples of the many initiatives
in this regard, I would refer only to the restoration work carried
out on the Sphinx and now completed after ten years; the salvaging
of Egyptian monuments of Graeco-Roman period off the shores
of Alexandria; repairing the Hanging Church in Old Cairo, one
of the oldest landmarks in Christendom in the orient, and the
work of conservation carried out on the one-thousand year-old
Al-Azhar Mosque as well as on all the other awe-inspiring edifices
of Islamic Cairo in the heart of the capital.
His
Holiness Pope Shenouda III, guardian and defender of the national
traditions of the Coptic Church, personally approved the text
of the present book, mapping the route the Holy Family followed
on its flight into Egypt, from Al-Farma in the north east of
Sinai to Al-Muharraq Monastery in the southern Nile Valley.
When the groundwork of this vast project is completed by the
beginning of the third millennium, many of the believers in
the One God, we all worship, and lovers of our civilization,
will come to us. But the supreme objective of the present book,
and of the project when completed, is enshrined in the two-fold
message addressed to all Egyptians and the world at large simultaneously:
that our country was, and will remain, a safe haven of co-existence
and peace; and that the unity of the Egyptian people, both Moslems
and Copts, is the backbone of the entity of the Nation-State
of Egypt.
Dr.
Mamdouh El-Beltagui
Minister
of Tourism
www.touregypt.net
