Category: Women / Girls

TUNISIA : The Life and Death of North Africa’s First Superstar : Habiba Messika

The career of Tunisian singer Habiba Messika was cut tragically short in 1930. Her murder devastated her fans, but in its aftermath her records spread across the French-occupied Maghreb, fanning the flames of insurgent nationalism.

Never before in Tunisia’, noted the worried French Protectorate’s Director of Public Security, ‘has such a funeral taken place’. The cause of his concern was the funeral of North Africa’s first superstar, held in Tunis on 23 February 1930. By half past twelve, thousands of people had gathered on the Avenue de Londres, the main artery leading to Tunis’ Jewish quarters. They had come to mourn the singer Habiba Messika, who, aged 27, had been brutally murdered two days earlier.

In French-occupied Tunisia, this was an unusually large ‘native’ gathering and it gave the authorities cause to worry. Messika’s death had not only brought Muslims and Jews together, but it had also attracted Destourians, Tunisian nationalists. Members of the Destour – a political party founded ten years earlier with the aim of reclaiming Tunisian sovereignty – had long regarded Messika as a fellow traveller. Her records, especially her interpretations of pan-Arabist songs made for the Baidaphon record label, had recently been found in the possession of Destour supporters.

From the Avenue de Londres, some 5,000 people began a two-and-a-half kilometre procession to the city’s Jewish cemetery. At the funeral, the celebrated theatre director Bechir Methenni delivered an impassioned eulogy. Habiba Messika’s murder, he told the mourners, ‘was stupid and sadistic’. But neither her memory nor her music would be forgotten. He then addressed the deceased:

Alas dear comrade, your voice may no longer be with us but rest assured that its memory remains etched in our minds. When our children listen to your records, it will be with tears in our eyes that we will tell them about your life, about your generous spirit, and that we will instill in them the idea that no one was ever the equal of your genius.

His words were not empty. In the aftermath of Messika’s death, her records circulated rapidly across North Africa. A French intelligence report described Messika’s shellac discs as having the potential to ‘provoke unrest in the Muslim milieu’. Speaking to her fans from beyond the grave, the French authorities thus moved to silence her.

Tunis, 1928.

The brief but extraordinary career of Tunisian Jewish superstar Habiba Messika is little known, even among those familiar with her music. Between 1924 and 1930 Messika released a staggering number of phonograph records – close to 100 – for the Pathé, Gramophone and Baidaphon record labels. She was an accomplished actress, heralded as the ‘Second Sarah Bernhardt’ by her 21st birthday. Her style and looks also earned her a coterie of (male) fans known as the ‘soldiers of the night’, an ‘army’ which included Habib Bourguiba, who would become the first president of independent Tunisia in 1957. That Messika achieved so much, so quickly and did so at such a young age meant that her interwar funeral constituted one of the largest and most significant Tunisian gatherings of the early 20th century.

In the aftermath of her murder, Habiba Messika’s memory was kept alive by the recording industry that she had helped shape. Her records flowed across Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco in huge numbers, outselling anything else released in the Maghreb since the birth of the recording industry at the turn of the 20th century. Messika’s death also inspired recorded outpourings of grief by half a dozen Tunisian and Algerian artists. Those laments, made in Tunis and Algiers and distributed transnationally across the Maghreb and beyond, included songs like ‘Moute Habiba Messika’ (‘The Death of Habiba Messika’), recorded by Tunisian-Jewish vocalist and dancer Flifla Chamia for Gramophone in December 1930. Chamia sang from the perspective of the slain Messika, asking – in rhyme – what strange (ghriba) and unprecedented (ʿajiba) events had befallen her (Habiba). The song is made available here for the first time in nearly a century.

Despite the fragility of the shellac on which Habiba Messika’s history was inscribed – and the years of war, movement and displacement to which its owners were subjected –many of her records survive. Messika’s oeuvre allows us to examine the largely overlooked North African and Middle Eastern soundscape, in which a burgeoning trade in Arabic-language records animated fans, fanned French fears of subversion and were passed from hand to hand for decades. More than a mere echo of the period’s politics, narrating a history of the greater Middle East through its records challenges many of the most basic assumptions about the region’s history – of the ephemeral quality of music, of an unravelling Jewish-Muslim relationship and even of the exclusivity of emerging nationalist movements.

Habiba Messika’s story is that of an Arabic-singing Jewish star, as comfortable in her blended identity as her mixed audiences of Jews and Muslims. Her legacy is that of an interwar Tunisian nationalist who was equally at ease playing the role of Romeo on stage as she was dressing as a flapper off it.

Marguerite Habiba Messika was born in Tunis in 1903. Like many North African musicians of her era, she descended from a musical lineage. And, like many associated with music-making in the countries of the Maghreb in the early 20th century, Messika was Jewish. At the outset of the last century, just as the phonograph began to be widely used in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, a striking number of indigenous Jewish vocalists and instrumentalists, record label concessionaires, record-store owners, proprietors of cabarets and musical impresarios began to play a prominent role in the production of Arab music. Among these music-makers was Messika’s father, an amateur musician, who may have recorded a small number of discs. But it was Leïla Sfez, Messika’s aunt, a staple of the café-concert scene of Tunis and among the country’s first artists to record for French Pathé in 1910, who provided her entry into the music industry.

Pathé’s Tunisian record catalogues in the early 20th century were filled with Jewish artists like Sfez and the label’s local artistic director was an Arabophone Jew. When Messika began recording for Pathé a few years after being discovered in 1918, she would do so under the direction of Tunisian-Jewish virtuoso pianist Messaoud Habib.

Acoustic recording to flat, shellac disc began in Algeria and Tunisia during the earliest years of the 20th century, as it did in many parts of Europe. Pathé, for example, started recording in Algeria as early as 1904. The English Gramophone Company began its operations there and in Tunis in the same year. The French subsidiary of the German Odéon label soon followed. In French Algeria, indigenous Jewish impresario Edmond Nathan Yafil not only served as interlocutor for the labels but directed their efforts on the ground. By hand-picking which musicians were brought to the recording studio in the coming years, Yafil himself would be largely responsible for the construction of a burgeoning North African music scene based around an overwhelmingly Jewish group of music-makers. By the outbreak of the First World War – when recording around the world ground to a halt – a half dozen labels operating in the Maghreb boasted deep catalogues of mostly Jewish artists performing Arab music.

The postwar period was an auspicious time to embark on a career in music in North Africa. After the First World War, public concerts recommenced. The 15-year-old Messika, ‘discovered’ at the war’s end, soon headlined thousand-plus seat venues across Tunis, Algiers and further afield. ‘More than 1,500 people applauded the return of our talented and incomparable Tunisian star, Mademoiselle Habiba Messika,’ the Tunisian newspaper Le Petit Matin

As with the concert circuit, the record industry picked up where it had left off just before the war. Pathé resumed its activities in the Maghreb, as did Gramophone, which began recording again in Tunis in 1921. By 1925, Messika had begun recording with Pathé and appeared, heralded as a ‘superstar’, on the cover of its Tunisian catalogue for that year.

Messika made dozens of records for Pathé, including some of the era’s most popular and ribald Egyptian songs, such as Sayyid Darwish’s ‘Harrag Alaya Baba Ma Rouhchi Cinéma’ (‘My father didn’t let me go to the cinema’) and ‘Cham el Cocaine’ (‘Snorting Cocaine’), Tunisian folklore and the lighter pieces of the Andalusian repertoire, a classical genre inspired by Islamic Spain. Her voice – crisp, clear, smooth and sensual – captivated her audiences. She became known as the ‘queen of musical ecstasy’. Habib Bourguiba and other ‘soldiers of the night’ were infatuated with the young Jewish superstar, though they were taken by more than just her voice. The few surviving headshots of Messika show a young Tunisian woman who dazzled in black and white. She was a flapper, the likes of which few in the region had seen before.

Messika was also among the most sought-after theatre actors of her generation in North Africa. Throughout the 1920s, she committed herself to demanding roles. These included Romeo in an Arabic-language staging of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliette in Tunis in 1924. In assuming the male lead, Le Petit Matin proclaimed that Messika was conjuring ‘Sarah Bernhardt in the role of l’Aiglon’ – Edmond Rostand’s six-act play about the child emperor Napoleon II. When Messika later played Napoleon II in Tunis, the comparison to the ‘divine’ and ‘fantastic’ Sarah Bernhardt – the pencil thin, Jewish actress who conquered the fin-de-siècle French stage in traditionally male roles –was cemented. Both the press and her peers began referring to Messika as ‘the second Sarah Bernhardt’.

Between 1925 and 1928, Habiba Messika continued to record for Pathé while also recording for Gramophone. In a world of exclusive contracts, which bound musicians to a single label, Messika was among the first North African artists to record for multiple labels simultaneously. Similarly, when most of her peers were paid only for their initial recording session, Messika demanded – and won – the right to her royalties. In 1928 Baidaphon, established by the Baida family in Beirut and since headquartered in Berlin (a centre of the global recording industry), began operating in full swing in the Maghreb. Theodore Khayat, recently installed in Casablanca as head of North African operations, made contact with Messika. By April 1928, the Tunisian superstar was heading to Berlin to record with the label.

In a letter written to the executives at Baidaphon, Messika regarded her recordings for the label as ‘better than anything I have recorded previously’. She was especially taken by Baidaphon’s foray into electric recording, which, unlike acoustic techniques, allowed for the unparalleled reproduction of her voice and multi-tonal sounds of her instrumentalists. But recording in Berlin had another advantage: she could do so away from the watchful eye of the French authorities. While she continued to make records with suggestive titles, like ‘Ala sirir el nom’ (‘On my bed, spoil me’), she also recorded a number of marches dedicated to King Fuad in Egypt, King Faysal in Iraq and the Bey of Tunis, Muhammad VI, as well as anthems extolling Egypt and Syria.

Soldier of the night: Tunisia

With Baidaphon, Messika seemed to strike a nationalist rallying cry. At the end of one such recording, ‘King Fuad’s March’, Messika and her orchestra could even be heard shouting ‘Long live the King’ and ‘Long live Egypt’ alongside thunderous applause. Hearing of Egyptian sovereigns and sovereignty, Tunisians could imagine their own. This record and others in a similar style would be her most popular in terms of sales. That popularity quickly drew the attention of French officials.

With the success of her Baidaphon releases, Messika helped to expand record sales in the Maghreb. The music industry’s embrace of electronic recording contributed as well. By 1929 record sales for Gramophone alone had multiplied by a factor of four. The company was now selling 200,000 records across North Africa annually. As with Messika’s discs, this included both the seditious and the salacious.

In early February 1930 Baidaphon once again arranged for North African musicians to travel to Berlin to record on their world-class equipment. Messika was not among them. She had been in a car accident that month and her travel plans were therefore delayed*. But her injuries did not keep her from performing for long. On the evening of 19 February and continuing into the early hours of 20 February, Messika was the featured entertainment at an engagement party hosted by the wealthy Livornese-Jewish Lumbroso family.

While Messika was performing at the Lumbroso engagement, a trespasser entered her apartment building, later recognised as Eliaou Mimouni, a 77-year-old Jew from Testour. According to neighbours, Mimouni had been seen with an oil canister in his hand.

Around eight o’clock on the morning of 20 February, Mimouni re-entered Messika’s building. Moments later, her apartment went up in flames. Messika’s anguished screams could be heard by the residents of 22 Rue Durand-Claye (now Rue Borj Bourguiba). When policemen and firefighters arrived on the scene, they found Habiba Messika nearly burned alive. From her hospital bed, the superstar identified Mimouni, one of her fans, as the assailant. He had set fire to her bed, she told police, and held her down so she could not escape. Mimouni had caught fire as well. Police would later recover a charred oil canister from the scene. They also found Mimouni’s fez. As for his motive, no one in Tunis could say.

On 21 February Habiba Messika succumbed to her injuries. At 27 – perhaps the 20th century’s first member of that tragic ‘club’ – the North African superstar was dead. In less than a month, her assassin was too.

Approximately three months later, French officials in Morocco began receiving urgent messages from civil controllers across the country. Messika’s records – purchased widely and listened to in communal settings like cafés – were stirring up nationalist feelings. Intelligence agents found Moroccans singing along to Messika’s music, ‘in-sync with the phonograph’, while accompanying themselves on oud. In response, French authorities imposed draconian policies to slow the import of, and soon ban, Messika’s discs across the Maghreb. But her music would outlast French presence in the region. Today, some of her surviving records – transferred to tape – can still be found in the cassette stalls of Tunisian markets.

However Habiba Messika is remembered – as North Africa’s first superstar, as ‘the second Sarah Bernhardt’, as an Arabic-singing Jew, as a Tunisian nationalist, as an early member of the ‘27 Club’, as a victim of male violence or as an artist whose music pleased, charmed and brought her multi-confessional faithful to the point of ecstasy – her story need be sung once again.

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Chris Silver is Segal Family Assistant Professor in Jewish History and Culture at McGill University. He is currently working on a book on Jews, music and the Maghreb in the 20th century and runs Gharamophone, a website dedicated to preserving North Africa’s Jewish musical past. @chrisilver1

*See Margarida Maria da Mota Ferreira Machado, ‘Habiba Messika: uma biografia (im)possível’, (Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, 2006).

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source/content: historytoday.com (headline edited)

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Habiba Messika on the front cover of L’Éclaireur du dimanche, 3 February 1929. Courtesy Gallica-BnF.

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TUNISIA

ARAB WOMEN: 8 Revolutionary Novels and Stories by Arab Women

These books in translation feature women transforming their lives and societies

Women’s stories feel different to me. People say that if only women ruled the world, there would be no more war (a lovely thought, and one I’ve been returning to lately) because women are socialized to revert first to empathy, to the collective rather than the fiercely individual, to taking care of other people and thinking of their needs, sometimes to a fault. We see that in the lens they bring to their fiction. Women in war hold families together; women in fiction often emphasize the vulnerable, rather than the physically strong. And they act—as the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) called the women in Amira Ghenim’s A Calamity of Noble Houses—as “custodians of memory,” preserving a version of  events that course-corrects accepted patriarchal accounts.

Over four years, I had the privilege of reading and translating Areej Gamal’s Sawiris Prize-winning novel Mariam, It’s Arwa. The book, emphatically and sublimely female, is about a multiplicity of revolutions, the most literal of them appearing in its frame plot, during the Arab Spring in Tahrir Square and Cairo’s streets. The novel spans generations of women: the mother who falls in love across class and religion and risks everything to follow her heart; the daughter who leaves an unhappy home and emigrates to Germany to find herself; the abused grandmother who has internalized the idea that a woman is nothing if she doesn’t bear a son; and the mother who nearly dies in her quest to make that dream a reality. And of course, the two main characters’ love is its own revolution—a remaking of the world as a more inclusive place in spite of itself, even if their world is one small apartment on Champollion Street. It’s my favorite kind of book: a book by a woman about women taking their lives into their own hands. One that centers women at the forefront of revolution/war and social change.

While my definition of “revolutionary” here is broad—encompassing societal revolution and personal rebellions against tradition—I admit that war is at the forefront of my mind. As I’m writing this, the normal city sounds in Amman, Jordan, where I am, are interspersed with emergency sirens, occasionally fighter jets and explosions. The US and Israel are attacking Iran, which is attacking back, and we are war-adjacent. More or less safe—we hope—but affected, as is the entire region. It’s hard not to see echoes of this chaos appearing in some of the novels on this list. But when I look around, I’m grateful to see echoes of the heroines’ tenacity and resilience, as well. These novels have much to teach us about the importance of knowledge-gathering and memory, seeking out joy in the midst of crisis, and rejecting any entity that tries to write our stories for us.

Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi, translated by Sherif Hetata

Nawal El Saadawi (1931-2021), the Egyptian writer, medical doctor, and psychologist, has often been compared to Simone de Beauvoir and Virginia Woolf—an outspoken feminist and activist whose writing had a dramatic impact on generations. Jailed under Sadat for “crimes against the state,” she wrote about authoritarianism, feminism, and capitalism, and Woman at Point Zero—what the British-Palestian writer and lawyer Selma Dabbagh calls a “small volume of fury”—is one of her seminal works. The main character, Firdaus, is in prison awaiting execution after killing a man. As she tells her story, it is difficult not to feel both anger and empathy. There are few points of hope in the book, in which money is the only source of autonomy for a woman and prostitution near-inevitable for one born without, yet it is through landmark novels like this one, with its fierce condemnation of patriarchal society, that change is possible. Pleasant? No. To say that the book needs a content warning would be an understatement. Important? Incredibly.

The Granada Trilogy by Radwa Ashour, translated by Kay Heikkinen

I first read William Granara’s translation of Granada, the trilogy’s first book, as part of a book club, where members were heartbroken that the subsequent parts were untranslated. Now, for the first time, the whole trilogy is available in English. The story begins in 1492, when the Arab kingdom of Granada falls to the Christian Castilians, and the Moorish presence in Spain becomes unstable. The text follows a Muslim family as it tries to make sense of the forced conversions, book burnings, job loss, immigration, rebellion, and Inquisition until, one hundred years later, their descendants are deported en masse. The women in the book stand out, particularly Salima, a great lover of books and a healer, and Maryama, her sister-in-law, who is clever, defiant, and compassionate, a rallying point for the community in chaotic times. Women are at the core of this book, conserving knowledge and holding their families together.

Planet of Clay by Samar Yazbek, translated by Leri Price

Told in lyrical, often cinematic prose from the perspective of a neurodivergent young woman named Rima, Planet of Clay depicts the Syrian Civil War and the aftermath of the chemical attack and siege on Ghouta. Rima, who does not speak, spent much of her childhood in a school library and has a deep love of books and painting. We find her lost in her thoughts when the book opens, trapped in a cellar with only boxes of paper and a pen, recording her story as she runs out of food. The war has stripped her of all the people she loved, and she cannot grasp why. “We are toys made out of clay, small toys, quick to break and crumble,” she writes. Still, this careful storyteller sees beauty at times when others don’t look for it, using her imagination to make sense of and find light in a dark world.

A Calamity of Noble Houses by Amira Ghenim, translated by Miled Faiza and Karen McNeil

Set in 1930s Tunis, A Calamity of Noble Houses was shortlisted for the IPAF in 2021. It begins with Tunisian revolutionary Tahar Haddad, author of Our Women in the Shari’a and Society, and places her in the context of two upper-crust families, the conservative Ennaifers and the more progressive Rassaa family. Here, Haddad, a real historical figure from humble origins who was instrumental in shaping the future of women’s rights in Tunisia, falls in love with the young Zbaida Ali Rassaa, who becomes the wife of Mohsen Ennaifer. When dubious accusations of an affair surface, tragedy strikes. The novel decenters Haddad to tell the story of the two families as narrated by eleven different characters from disparate social classes who, together, paint a rich portrait of a nation in flux, spanning several decades.

Passage to the Plaza by Sahar Khalifeh, translated by Sawad Hussain

In 1987, during the First Intifada, a curfew is imposed in a Nablus neighborhood, and three women are trapped inside the same house. Nuzha, its owner and daughter of a prostitute, is furious at society and the whispers that her mother was a spy for Israel. Sitt Zakia, a middle-aged midwife, uses faith as a barrier against the political violence surrounding her. And Samar, the optimist, is a university graduate studying how the Intifada has affected Palestinian women’s lives. Together, they hatch a plan to thwart Israeli soldiers’ effort to barricade the street. Like Mariam, It’s Arwa, this novel doesn’t gloss over the multiple fronts of the ongoing revolution. When it was published in 1990, the novel was criticized for daring to depict domestic violence on the part of Palestinian freedom fighters. But Khalifeh makes it clear that these women’s oppression is twofold: both Israeli Occupation and the patriarchy itself.

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, translated by Elisabeth Jaquette

A finalist for the National Book Award and longlisted for the International Booker Prize, Minor Detail won the 2023 LiBeraturpreis, but the awards ceremony was indefinitely postponed in solidarity with Israel after the October 7 Hamas attacks—a move that drew criticism from numerous organizations. The novel is a haunting meditation on war and memory that includes two intertwined stories. The first begins in 1949, when an Israeli battalion massacres an encampment of Bedouins in the southern Negev and abducts a Palestinian teenager whom they rape, kill, and bury. The second is the story of a young woman from Ramallah, born twenty-five years to the day after this crime, who sets out to uncover more details about it, encountering obstacle after obstacle as she attempts to access archives that will give her information about her country’s past. This is knowledge-seeking as revolution at its best.

Blood Feast by Malika Moustadraf, translated by Alice Guthrie

Malika Moustadraf was a force of nature and an icon of feminism who passed away in 2006, at just 37 years old. A “rebel realist,” as she called herself, Moustadraf’s prose is so embodied that it often turns the stomach. It details what translator Alice Guthrie calls “an unflinching look at the worst traumas of the female experience in patriarchal society, shot through with wit, wordplay, and razor-sharp political commentary.” Her stories fearlessly take on abject poverty, religious hypocrisy, pimps and incels, a girl’s horrifying first period, cybersex, and the failure of the Moroccan medical system to help those in need. Moustadraf was maligned in her time due to her literary activism, and her two books had fallen out of print in Arabic at the time of her death; it’s thanks in large part to Guthrie’s tireless advocacy that her writing is now available again in both Arabic and English.

The Story of Zahra by Hanan al-Shaykh, translated by Peter Ford

I bought my Arabic copy of this book for the cover art: a girl in a swing, her eyes closed, a daisy covering her mouth. Then I read about Zahra—“flower” in Arabic—a girl who yearns to be close to her mother, who, in turn, uses Zahra as a shield in her love affair. Originally published in 1980, this classic of the Lebanese Civil War is about a young woman seeking to establish her own identity, one who spends years escaping. First from an authoritarian father and disappointing mother to West Africa—where she has a miserable marriage—then back to war-torn Beirut, where she begins an affair with a sniper. The book tackles childhood trauma, assault, the complex emotional landscape of emigration, and the stigma surrounding female sexuality. Unlike Firdaus in Woman at Point Zero, Zahra experiences and embraces pleasure—a point of hope, if not ultimately of salvation.

source/content: electricliterature.com (headline edited)

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Photo by Marija Zaric on Unsplash

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ARAB WOMEN ….

EGYPT : Amina Orfi becomes youngest women’s squash world No. 1 at age 19

The Egyptian teenager breaks the rankings record, four months after also becoming the youngest female world champion.

Amina Orfi has become the youngest women’s world No. 1 in squash history after her place at the sport’s summit was confirmed in the latest PSA Squash Tour rankings published on Monday (21 September).

At 19 years and two months old, the Egyptian prodigy has broken a 40-year record that was set by New Zealand’s Susan Devoy when she was 20 years and two months in 1984.

Orfi dethroned the previous world No. 1, compatriot Hania El Hammamy, by defeating her in the final of last week’s QTerminals Qatar Classic in Doha.

A dramatic 3-2 finale secured the teenager’s first Platinum title, and her third major victory in the last four competitions.

Orfi has fast become the face of the sport after rising through the ranks in 2026. In May, she became the youngest-ever female world champion, and is the first player to win the senior PSA world title while still the reigning junior champion.

“It feels amazing,” said Orfi after her victory in Doha on Friday (18 September).

“To become world champion and become world No.1 in the same year is a dream that I’ve had since I was very young and I really want to enjoy it.

“I want to just stay at this level now and keep trying to improve every day. I want to stay on top now that I’m the world No. 1 and I want to win a lot more titles too.”

Amina Orfi eyes gold at LA28

With two years to go ahead of squash’s Olympic debut at LA28, and amid a dominant Egyptian depth of talent, Orfi has continued her rapid progression as one of Egypt’s greatest medal hopes.

“I really want to get to world No. 1 and make the Olympics,” she said back in March.

“Having these goals helps direct my mind in a positive way instead of thinking about the pressure.”

With one milestone achieved, Orfi’s next challenge is to stay there.

Her first tournament as world No. 1 will be a homecoming, with the 19-year-old set to return to Egypt for the CIB Egyptian Open 2026 from 6-16 October.

With LA28 firmly on the horizon, squash’s newest superstar has no intention of taking her foot off the accelerator.

source/content: olympics.com (headline edited)

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Picture by PSA Squash Tour

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EGYPT

SOMALIA’s U-17 women make history with record win in first international tournament

Somalia’s football story this week has extended beyond the headlines surrounding World Cup refereeing to a landmark moment for the country’s women’s game.

While attention has focused on Somali referee Omar Artan and reports that he was unable to travel to the United States to officiate at a FIFA tournament — a missed opportunity that would have marked a first World Cup finals involvement for Somalia — the country’s women’s Under-17 team has quietly made history of its own.

Competing at the CECAFA Women’s U-17 Championship in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Somalia fielded its first-ever women’s team in an international football competition.

Although the side exited at the group stage, their final match delivered a series of milestones that marked a significant moment for football development in the country.

Somalia recorded the biggest victory in the nation’s football history with an 8–2 win over Sudan and celebrated the first international hat-trick scored by a Somali player in a debut tournament appearance.

Sundus Mohamed scored twice, including Somalia’s first-ever goal in women’s international tournament football, while Najmo Mohamed claimed a hat-trick. Captain Halimo Isse, Maryan Osoble and Hibo Salad also found the net.

Shortly after the match, Somali Football Federation president Ali Abdi Mohamed called the squad to congratulate the players and coaching staff.

“You did well and I was sure you can,” he told the team, while praising captain Halimo Isse for her leadership throughout the tournament.

Reflecting on the wider significance of the team’s debut, Mohamed described the performance as an encouraging sign for the future of women’s football in Somalia.

“Somalia is a developing nation recovering from decades of civil war and we are very new to the women’s football environment, but we are improving,” he said.

“If our first international appearance was such a positive experience, I am sure we are developing and we will do much better in the months and years to come.”

Mohamed also acknowledged support from international football bodies.

“I would like to thank FIFA and CAF for their constant financial assistance, education and guidance. Without them we could not have achieved such progress,” he said.

He added that the federation plans to continue investing in the women’s game.

“We have spent significant time, money and energy on women’s football and I am fully committed to increasing our investment. Our women and girls are doing an excellent job and I am very proud of them.”

Somalia’s participation in the tournament has extended beyond the playing squad. Two Somali female match officials — referee Fadumo Mohamed Nor and assistant referee Iqara Ali Ahmed — remain in Tanzania after continuing to receive appointments during the competition.

source/content: horseedmedia.net (headline edited)

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SOMALIA

ALGERIA : 2026 Mediterranean Games: Algeria Secures Three More Bronze Medals and Strong Boxing Advances

Algeria boosted its medal tally on Tuesday with three additional bronze medals at the ongoing Mediterranean Games in Taranto, Italy.

In freestyle wrestling, Chaïma Chebila claimed the bronze medal in the Under 53 kg category after a dominant 6-1 victory over Morocco’s Zineb Ech-Chabki.

Earlier on Tuesday, another Algerian wrestler, Ibtissem Doudou, secured the bronze medal in the Under 50 kg category by overcoming Egypt’s Malak Ahmed Hassan Mohamed with a tight 3-2 score.

These two bronze medals raise the Algerian wrestling team’s overall tally to seven medals (one gold, one silver, and five bronzes).

Meanwhile, Nour El Houda Maïdi earned a bronze medal in the “Raffa” (Boules) competition. Maïdi successfully edged past San Marino’s Stella Paoletti with a narrow 7-6 victory.

Boxing: A Trio Advances to the Semi-Finals

In boxing, three Algerian fighters punched their tickets to the semi-finals, officially guaranteeing at least three more bronze medals for the national delegation. The advancing boxers are:

  • Mustapha Abdou (80 kg), who defeated Tunisia’s Youssef Rafrafi via unanimous decision (5-0).
  • Ismaïl Bekhsis (66 kg), who secured a flawless 5-0 victory over his Turkish opponent, Kanli.
  • Amine Zanaz (55 kg), who edged past Morocco’s Ismail Bin Siyar with a 3-2 split decision.

These three boxers join their compatriot, Djoher Bennan (65 kg), who had booked her spot in the women’s semi-finals earlier in the tournament.

Following the fifth day of the 20th Mediterranean Games which are set to run until Thursday, September 3, Algeria’s overall medal count has climbed to ten, comprising one gold, one silver, and eight bronzes.

source/content: news.radioalgerie.dz

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ALGERIA

EGYPT : World-renowned harpist Manal Mohei Eldin pulls at heartstrings for three nights at Ithra

Egyptian harpist Manal Mohei Eldin captivated audiences at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, or Ithra, with three nights of performances blending classical harp techniques with traditional Arabic rhythms and melodies. The final show will be on Friday.

Known as one of the most prominent musicians in the Arab world, she is celebrated for calibrating the harp strings to speak “fluent Arabic” by incorporating traditional Oriental rhythms and melodies with classic techniques.

Arab News spoke exclusively to Mohei Eldin on Thursday night.

“As an Egyptian harpist, it is such an honor to receive this important invitation to showcase my work and my art in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” she said.

“It is not my first time here (at Ithra) — I’ve had the pleasure of working with the great Omar Khairat two years ago, but it is my absolute honor to say that this is my debut as a soloist playing my Arabic, oriental rhythms with my ensemble in the Kingdom.”

Indeed, while she was on stage previously at Ithra in 2024 as a key orchestra member supporting the legendary Egyptian composer and pianist, Khairat, this is her first show as a soloist, with her ensemble.

The Oriental Strokes Ensemble, who joined her on stage, consists of Shady Abdel Salam on violin I, Hossam Ezzat on violin II, Emad Morsy on the viola, Alaa Abdallah on cello. Also, Karim Wassef on bass guitar, Beshoy Rezkalla on accordion, Mahmoud Kamal on nay, Hesham Kamal on percussion, and Doha El-Guerzawi on percussion.

“It pleases me greatly that our first presence in the Kingdom is at Ithra specifically, where we are performing three nights,” Mohei Eldin added.

“The audience at Ithra is very involved and passionate. To be honest, I expected the majority of the seats to be occupied by Egyptians, but to my surprise, most turned out to be Saudis.”

On Thursday night, in between songs, someone from the audience shouted out a request for the musicians to play “Nassam Alayna El Hawa” by Lebanese songstress Nouhad Wadie Haddad, better known by her stage name, Fairouz.

“I don’t know him (the person who shouted out the request), but I played it even though it was not in the original program. It is clear to me that he knew my work and knew I had played that before. It makes me very happy that the Saudi audience loves music and they really know music,” she added.

The program consisted of such crowd favorites as “Zourouni Kol Sana Marra,” composed by Sayed Darwish; “Asmahan Medley,” composed by Farid Al-Atrash, Mohammed El-Qasabgi and Medhat Assem; and “Aziza Dance,” composed by Mohamed Abdul Wahab.

Images of the classic Egyptian stars who inspired the sounds were shown on the large screen as a backdrop.

A professor at the Cairo Conservatoire, Mohei Eldin began her musical journey in her native Egypt and has since performed on some of the world’s greatest stages.

She became a pioneer when she enrolled at 10 years old to pursue learning the harp at the Cairo Conservatoire, where she graduated with honors in 1987.

Upon receiving the coveted German Academic Exchange Service scholarship, she continued her journey with the instrument in Germany with Prof. Buss Lorberth at the Hochschule fur Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt and training with Giselle Herbert at the Hoch Conservatory Musik Hochschule in Wurzburg.

Since then, she became the first Egyptian solo harpist at the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, and she famously performed at the opening of the Egyptian Pavilion at the Louvre Museum in Paris and the Ancient Treasures Exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.   

“The vast majority of Arabs love to sing along to words, and the fact that they came to listen to only musical instruments, and on an instrument (the harp) that isn’t very familiar to many in the region, honestly made me very, very happy,” she concluded.

source/content: arabnews.com (headline edited)

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Known as one of the most prominent musicians in the Arab world, Manal Mohei Eldin is celebrated for calibrating the harp strings to speak “fluent Arabic” by incorporating traditional Oriental rhythms and melodies with classic techniques. (Supplied)

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EGYPT

SUDANESE-AMERICAN / KUWAIT : ASU Prof. Souad T Ali explores feminism, Islam and politics in new book

“Islam” and “feminism” are two words most people in Western society wouldn’t usually associate with one another. But recent developments in the historically conservative Persian Gulf region, and in Kuwait in particular, suggest that may be changing.

In 2005, Kuwait, a country that is more than 90% Muslim, passed laws granting women both the right to vote and the right to run in elections. In her new book, “Perspectives of Five Kuwaiti Women in Leadership Roles: Feminism, Islam and Politics” ASU Professor and Founding Chair of the Council for Arabic and Islamic Studies Souad T. Ali  reveals how these and other advancements have affected them on an individual and societal level.

A native of Sudan who became a naturalized U.S. citizen after the 1989 Sudanese coup d’état replaced her original home country’s newly elected democratic government with a totalitarian regime, Ali was inspired to write “Perspectives” during her 2009–2010 Faculty Fulbright Fellowship at the American University of Kuwait.

“I admire the fact that Kuwaiti women are very outspoken,” Ali said. “They’re very interested in improving their society and they don’t fear speaking out against what they see as oppressive aspects of their society.”

Based on ethnographic research and in-depth interviews with five women, Ali’s new book discusses these women’s work in diverse leadership roles. They include Rola Dashti, a leading Kuwaiti economist, politician and human rights activist who was among the first four women elected to the Kuwaiti parliament; Sheikha Hussah Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah, a patron of Islamic art and museums; Sara Akbar, an oil industry engineer leader and co-founder of Kuwait Energy; Sheikha Dana Nasser Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, founder of the American University of Kuwait and an established businesswoman; and Safa al-Hashem, a powerful Kuwaiti politician and entrepreneur who is currently the only elected female member of the Kuwaiti parliament.

Ali, who serves as head of Middle Eastern and classics studies, and coordinator of Arabic studies, turned down an offer from Princeton in order to build ASU’s Arabic studies program from the ground up. Since joining ASU in 2004, she has established three concentrations, including a certificate in Arabic studies, the Arabic studies minor and most recently the Arabic studies bachelor’s degree concentration.

She also is the author of more than 25 articles and three books, including “Perspectives,” and she has participated in more than 100 scholarly presentations and academic conferences in her fields of Middle Eastern studies and Islamic studies. Her forthcoming book, an edited volume with colleague Emily Silverman will explore subjugated voices in religion.

Ali has been active nationally and internationally representing ASU as president of the American Academy of Religion/Western Region branch; as president of the Sudan Studies Association of North America; as a Fulbright Scholar in Kuwait and the Persian Gulf; and as a State Department’s speaker and specialist in Senegal on issues including Islam and democracy, Sufism and religious freedom.

ASU Now sat down with Ali to talk about her new book and how Islam and feminism aren’t as disparate as you might have thought.  

Question: How does the feminist movement in Kuwait compare to other countries in the Persian Gulf region?

Answer: From my perspective, the issue of women’s rights is just one issue. But there are many brands of feminism, given the fact that women come from different cultures and have different backgrounds and different histories. Kuwaiti women have a marginal freedom within their government, which is a parliament. There isn’t any other parliamentary government anywhere else in the Gulf region. I discuss feminism in Islam in much detail in the last chapter of my book, highlighting the fact that it emphasizes the inclusion of Muslim women in the religious sphere, with no conflict with their call for their political rights or their active participation in public life. There have been several Muslim women elected as prime ministers in their countries, for example.

Q: What are some of the issues you discussed with the women in your book?

A: The book discusses multiple issues addressed by these women in their leadership roles. These include women’s rights, the issue of reform, political change, equality, gender segregation, veiling, etc., and how these women view feminism and their similar or different perspectives therein. This of course includes the issue of interpretation in Islam that affects how people view issues such as veiling and whether or not it is required by the religion, the need to respect difference in interpretation as much as it does not infringe on others’ perspectives and freedom of expression, and most importantly, respecting women’s agency.

Q: What accounts for the lack of understanding of Muslim women’s rights?

A: I would say the majority, or at least 50% of Muslim women, don’t know their rights, if they don’t read the Qur’an directly. Many of them depend on the male interpretation. And the Qur’an, for the past 14 centuries, has been interpreted by men projecting male perspectives to the exclusion of women’s voices. Only recently has it begun to be interpreted by women. I have been teaching a very popular class at ASU since 2007 titled Qur’an Text and Women. Among the texts we read are “ Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text froma Woman’s Perspective,” by Amina Wadud; “Believing Women; in Islam: Un-reading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur’an,” by Asma Barlas; and “Woman’s Identity and the Qur’an : A New Reading”  by Nimat Hafez Barazangi, among others. These women are among the first Muslim American women to interpret the Qur’an. There were some earlier female interpretations of the Qur’an in the region. However, those were seen by many as appeasing to the male interpretation.

Q: Are there aspects of feminism in Islam?

A: Yes, except they didn’t call it feminism at that time. My research on “a focus on the egalitarian message of the Qur’an” can help answer this question. I discuss the issue of feminism in Islam in detail in the last chapter. Further, feminism is not a monolithic concept and can differ based on women’s history, background and culture, as I and several other scholars — including Barbara Christian — argued. Based on historical records, several aspects of Islam, in their correct interpretation, speak to women’s rights, despite other controversial aspects. In her book, “Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate,” Dr. Leila Ahmed, a professor at the Harvard Divinity School, argues that the prophet Muhammad’s wife Aisha contributed 2,210 Hadith narratives. The Hadith is the second source of Islamic law, next to the Qur’an. She maintains that women in seventh century Arabia were sought out by the prophet’s companions and included their testimonies into the Hadith. At the society level, the prophet’s marriage story with his first wife Khadija, who was 15 years his senior and a very wealthy merchant, could be interpreted and seen through the prism of those egalitarian aspects. At first, she employed him because she perceived him to be an honest person, then she proposed to marry him. This was in the seventh century, and at that point, the pre-Islamic society was very misogynistic. They remained married within a monogamous situation for 25 years until her death. She was also the first person to embrace religion of Islam.

Q: Why is this something everyone around the world should care about?

A: The fact that there are so many misconceptions about women and women’s rights in Islam. The book gives readers the opportunity to see facts that have been distorted. For example, Muslims in general, but especially Muslim women, are perceived to be oppressed by their religion, which is a fallacy. They are oppressed by their society, by tradition, by governments and politics. Several of these oppressive measures are in fact criticized in the Qur’an itself, such as female infanticide — used as basis for the so-called “honor-killing” in some countries. Polygamy, that had existed before the advent of religion and had existed in all monotheistic religions, including Islam that inherited it, is very much discouraged in the Qur’an with clear verses within the context of a fair interpretation. Although there are other controversial aspects of Islam that we continue addressing as scholars, Muslim feminists draw attention to the importance of emphasizing those egalitarian aspects of Islam that have largely been neglected by male interpretations that endured for centuries, unfortunately. I cordially invite the audience to read the entire book to help them learn more of these aspects on women in Islam, and Kuwaiti women, the focus of the book.

source/content: news.asu.edu/ASU NEWS (headline edited)

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ASU Professor and Founding Chair of the Council for Arabic and Islamic Studies Souad T. Ali. Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU Now

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AMERICAN / SUDAN / KUWAIT

SHARJAH, U.A.E: Warsaw International Book Fair 2026 opens with Sharjah as its first-ever Arab Guest of Honour

In the presence of Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi, Chairperson of the Sharjah Book Authority (SBA), Sharjah officially opened its participation on Thursday as the first Arab Guest of Honour in the history of the Warsaw International Book Fair.

The emirate has brought to the European city a cultural project it has built over five decades, presenting a contemporary image of Emirati and Arab culture at one of Central Europe’s leading cultural events.

Sheikha Bodour Al Qasimi joined Włodzimierz Czarzasty, Marshal of Sejm of the Republic of Poland; the lower house of the Polish parliament, Marta Cienkowska, Poland’s Minister of Culture and National Heritage; Dorota Malinowska-Grupińska, Chairwoman of the Warsaw City Council, and Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, Marshal of the Polish Senate; at the opening ceremony of the fifth edition of the fair, which runs until 31 May at the National Stadium in Warsaw.

Following the ribbon-cutting, Sheikha Bodour Al Qasimi attended the opening ceremony, where she conveyed the greetings of His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, and his wishes for the fair’s continued success.

She said His Highness has devoted his life to culture because he believes books create the kind of dialogue that allows civilisations to meet with dignity and depth. She recalled the Sharjah Ruler’s words: “Dialogue between civilisations is not an option, but a necessity. And culture is not an inheritance we keep to ourselves, but a noble bridge through which we connect with others.”

Sheikha Bodour added that Sharjah is proud to be the Guest of Honour in a country that understands language as memory, identity and continuity. Describing Warsaw as a city shaped by history and renewed by culture, she said it reminds us that culture does not merely survive history, but has the power to transform it.

She added that Arab and Polish cultures share a deep understanding of literature’s role, noting that poetry in both traditions remains central to how societies understand themselves and express memory, values and belonging across generations.

Sheikha Bodour said Sharjah’s theme at the fair, “Two Civilisations. One Language of Letters”, celebrates difference and reflects the belief that civilisations do not have to resemble one another to understand one another; they only need to approach each other with patience, curiosity and empathy.

In closing, she said that Sharjah comes to Warsaw not only with its stories but also with an open invitation to read one another, translate one another, and imagine together. She expressed hope that the fair would spark a dialogue that continues long after its conclusion and grows stronger between Warsaw and Sharjah.

Włodzimierz Czarzasty, Marshal of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, said it was a cultural honour to welcome Sharjah as the Guest of Honour of Warsaw International Book Fair 2026, and described the emirate’s participation as a valuable cultural contribution that reflects the growing ties between Poland and the UAE.

He said books remain a powerful tool for fostering understanding and dialogue between cultures, while publishers continue to play a vital role in preserving and sharing knowledge across societies.

In her keynote, Marta Cienkowska, Poland’s Minister of Culture and National Heritage, thanked Sheikha Bodour for her remarks at the opening ceremony and praised Sharjah’s appreciation of Polish culture and history. She said cultural exchange remains a powerful means of fostering dialogue and understanding between peoples, adding that the Warsaw International Book Fair plays a vital role in connecting readers, writers and publishers with Poland’s cultural scene.

Dorota Malinowska-Grupińska, Chairwoman of the Warsaw City Council, said Sharjah’s participation as Guest of Honour highlights the role of books and publishing in fostering cultural dialogue and mutual understanding. As a publisher herself, she said books serve not only as cultural products but also as a means of human connection and exchange, adding that Sharjah’s presence in Warsaw brings a new dimension to dialogue with the Arab world.

For his part, Jacek Oryl, Director of the Warsaw International Book Fair, said Sharjah’s selection as Guest of Honour marks a significant moment in the fair’s history and reflects growing cultural ties between Poland and the UAE. He added that the emirate’s participation offers visitors insight into Arab and Emirati culture through its literature, arts, thought and living heritage.

Sheikha Bodour led an official tour of the Sharjah pavilion alongside Ahmed bin Rakkad Al Ameri, CEO of SBA, joined by distinguished guests including Dr. Tomasz Makowski, Director of the National Library of Poland; and Grzegorz Jankowicz, Director of the Polish Book Institute, alongside publishers and representatives of cultural institutions from Poland and across Europe.

During the tour, visitors were introduced to key initiatives and programmes that reflect Sharjah’s cultural project, including works presented by Emirati publishers, initiatives led by the emirate’s cultural institutions, and heritage and artistic activities featured as part of Sharjah’s participation in the fair.

The fair’s inaugural day featured the IKAR Publishing Season Awards ceremony, organised by the fair. This year’s Ikar Award was presented to Polish author Professor Stefan Chwin in recognition of his literary and humanitarian contributions, and his role in defending human values and cultural memory in contemporary Polish literature.

The IKAR Publishing Season Awards also honoured Piotr Dobrołęcki, who received the Author award for his contributions to Poland’s cultural and literary scene, while Wydawnictwo Czarne received the Publisher award for its role in enriching the country’s publishing industry and bringing influential literary and intellectual works to readers. The Bookstore award went to Księgarnia Artystyczna Firmin w Gdańsku for its efforts to promote reading culture and strengthen the presence of books in community life.

This year’s Warsaw International Book Fair features more than 1,200 cultural and professional events, reinforcing its position as one of Central Europe’s leading cultural platforms. Sharjah’s participation as Guest of Honour presents a model for Arab cultural engagement built on dialogue, openness and the strengthening of connections between peoples through literature, arts, and knowledge.

Over four days, Sharjah is presenting on its 400-square-metre pavilion, an institutional and creative presence reflecting the diversity of the UAE’s cultural landscape, with the participation of 21 cultural, academic and media institutions, 36 Emirati writers, poets, academics and artists, alongside 15 Polish participants, in a programme based on direct dialogue between Arab and Polish cultural experiences and placing books at the heart of exchange between peoples.

Sharjah’s participation includes 35 cultural events, featuring 28 panel discussions, four poetry evenings, and three children’s workshops, held across the fairgrounds, the University of Warsaw, and the Grochoteka Public Library, in addition to 18 musical performances by the Sharjah National Band at the Warsaw National Theatre. These performances introduce fair visitors and audiences across Warsaw to the elements of traditional Emirati arts through a programme that links written knowledge with immersive cultural experience.

Sharjah will also be activating public spaces, libraries and theatres, transforming Warsaw into an open platform introducing audiences to the history and contemporary Emirati and Arab culture.

As a key part of the programme, the project Tasawurat (“Visions”) brings together 10 artists and designers from the UAE and Poland to produce works inspired by Arabic and Polish poetry, exploring themes including humanity, nature, the sea, and existential reflection. It combines elements of Arabic poetic tradition with poster art, a defining feature of Poland’s visual culture.

The emirate’s pavilion comprises a showcase of cultural and academic institutions.

source/content: wam.ae (headline edited)

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SHARJAH, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (U.A.E)

MOROCCAN Writer Zineb Mekouar Wins Belgium’s Prix Horizon for Second Novel

Unlike many literary prizes decided solely by professional juries, the Prix Horizon relies on reader participation.

 Moroccan writer Zineb Mekouar has received the Prix Horizon in Belgium for her novel “Souviens-toi des abeilles”, a work that ties environmental fragility with family memory in the landscapes of southern Morocco.

The award ceremony took place on Saturday in Marche-en-Famenne, in southern Belgium. The prize goes every two years to the most accomplished second novel written in French, with a strong focus on authors who deepen their literary voice beyond a debut work.

Mekouar’s novel, published by Gallimard, is set in the High Atlas mountains and draws a portrait of a rural world shaped by ancestral beekeeping practices. Through the eyes of a child, the story links inheritance, silence within families, and the pressures placed on fragile ecosystems.

Unlike many literary prizes decided solely by professional juries, the Prix Horizon relies on reader participation. Reading groups from Belgium and France’s Grand Est region take part in the final vote after a shortlist drawn up by literary professionals.

The Moroccan author meets readers and fellow finalists during a full day of discussions before the final vote. The format emphasizes direct exchange between authors and the public.

Created twelve years ago by the city of Marche-en-Famenne, the Prix Horizon seeks to draw attention to French-language writers who confirm their place in literature through a second novel. The selection begins with a professional jury that reviews dozens of works before readers decide the final winner.

“Souviens-toi des abeilles” has already gained recognition in France. It received the Henri de Régnier Prize from the Académie française in 2025. It also appeared in the Académie Goncourt summer selections for 2024 and entered the first shortlist for the Prix Jean Giono the same year. The novel also won the Folire Prize in 2025.

This year’s other finalists included Claire Vesin with “Le lotissement”, Marie Mangez with “Les vérités parallèles”, Ketty Rouf with “Mère absolument”, and Benjamin de Laforcade with “Berlin pour elles”.

Born in Casablanca in 1991 and based in Paris since 2009, Mekouar first drew attention with her debut novel “La poule et son cumin”, published in 2022. The book reached the final stage of the Goncourt prize for first novel.

source/content: moroccoworldnews.com (headline edited)

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FRENCH / MOROCCAN

EGYPT : Ten Egyptian Monuments the World Still Won’t Give Back

With the news of the Netherlands returning a 3,500-year-old Egyptian sculpture this week, here is a list of ten important Egyptian artefacts that are still held abroad.

Earlier last week, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof announced his government would be returning a sculpture from the reign of King Thutmose III to Egypt, where it had been illegally taken during the 2011 Revolution and sold abroad. The announcement was made in the wake of the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum and was met with praise and applause by many Egyptian observers. In recent years, there have been increasing calls by Egyptians (and by many people of formerly colonized countries) to bring home their country’s lost artefacts. However, the story of how artefacts came to leave a country is often complicated. Oftentimes they were looted, but sometimes they were given as gifts (or otherwise lawfully taken). In any case, in an effort to commemorate the Grand Egyptian Museum becoming the largest museum in the world dedicated to one civilization, here is a list of some of the Egyptian artefacts you still won’t find there.

1) The Oldest Bible in the World (British Library, London)

The Codex Sinaiticus, also known as the Sinai Bible, is the oldest complete copy of the New Testament ever found. Dating to around 350 CE during the time of Roman Egypt, it is also the youngest artefact on this list. (The timeline of the Grand Egyptian Museum, which chronicles ancient Egyptian history from prehistoric times to the Greco-Roman period, ends at 400 CE.)

The story of how this Bible left Egypt is complicated. Although the Bible was found in Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai in 1844 by a German theologian, it was given to Tsar Alexander II of Russia, and then sold to the British Museum in London in 1933 by the Soviet government. Today, most of the manuscript remains in British Library (where very few scholars have been allowed to see it in full), though smaller fragments are still scattered across Germany, Russia, and St. Catherine’s Monastery.

2) Luxor Obelisk (Paris)

If you’ve ever been to the Luxor Temple on the east bank of the Nile River, you will have noticed that in the entranceway there stands only one obelisk, the other clearly missing. Carved during the reign of Ramses II of Egypt’s New Kingdom, the missing granite obelisk now sits in the center of Place de la Concorde in Paris. It was gifted to the French Empire by Muhammad Ali Pasha in 1829 as a gesture of friendship, and it remains the oldest monument in all of France.

3) The Oldest Woven Dress in the World (Petrie Museum, London)

The Tarkhan dress, a linen garment that was once likely once worn by an Egyptian worker, is a 5000 year old piece of clothing—the oldest woven garment ever found. The dress was found south of Cairo in 1913 by Flinders Petrie, a British archaeologist, who at first believed it to be little more than a rag. He decided to take the rag with him to London anyway, and it wasn’t until the clothing was carbon-dated in 2015 that the true age—and significance—of the dress was understood.

The roughly size 2 dress remains in remarkably good condition (for its age), featuring a V-neck cut and long sleeves, and armpit stains left by its original wearer. 

4) The Oldest Complete Map of the Ancient Sky (Louvre Museum, Paris)

The Dendera Zodiac is a celestial map from the time of Ptolemaic Egypt, depicting the twelve zodiac signs (a Greek invention) with Egyptian imagery and style. It was likely created during the reign of Cleopatra, around 50 BCE, and was etched into the walls of the Dendera Temple of Hathor north of Luxor. Besides its beauty, its significance lies in the fact that it is the oldest (and possibly only) known complete map of the ancient sky.

The French removed it from Egypt in 1821 (with some versions of the story claiming they used dynamite to do so), and today it can be found in the Louvre Museum in Paris. 

5) The Rosetta Stone (British Museum, London)

Many people believe that the Rosetta Stone was taken by the British from Egypt, but in reality, it was taken by the British from the French, who took it from Egypt. Discovered by French soldiers in the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in 1799, this stone is perhaps the most important archaeological discovery of all time (and it remains the most visited artefact in the British Museum). Its decryption paved the way to understanding ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics (and with it most of ancient Egyptian history), which until then had been illegible to all who tried to read it.

When Egypt formally asked for the Stone’s repatriation in 2003, the British Museum refused to return it, and instead gave Egypt a replica of the Stone. That replica now sits inside the National Museum in Rashid. 

6) The Bust of Nefertiti (Neues Museum, Berlin)

This iconic sculpture is one of the most well-known artefacts from ancient Egypt, and it depicts an equally legendary figure: Queen Nefertiti, wife of Akhenaten, stepmother of Tutankhamun. 3,400 years ago, Akhenaten’s sculptor captured Nefertiti’s beautifully slender neck, raised chin, and level gaze, and when it was discovered in 1912 the painted sculpture was still in remarkably good condition.

At the time of its finding, excavations in Egypt were conducted under a system whereby all items discovered were split between Egypt and the foreign country sponsoring the excavation, but there was a caveat: only ‘non-unique’ items could leave the country. The controversy that surrounds this bust is that the German team that discovered it hid its true value, and thus the bust was allowed to leave Egypt and be transported to Berlin, where it remains today. 

7) Colossal Figure of Ramses II (British Museum, London)

Also known as the Younger Memnon, this colossal torso and head once sat atop a statue of Ramses II located at his mortuary temple in Luxor. In 1798, Napoleon’s men tried extracting the statue but failed, and a couple of decades later the British succeeded in removing the upper portion of the statue (which had, long before, been damaged and detached from the rest of the body during an earthquake). Weighing nearly 20 tonnes, the statue is the largest Egyptian sculpture in the British Museum.

8) Bust of Ankh-haf (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

This lesser known artefact is striking for its high level of realism. Its namesake, Ankh-haf, was a government official of the Old Kingdom who oversaw the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Sphinx.

The bust was discovered in 1925 during an expedition by Harvard University, and in 1927 it was gifted by the Egyptian government to an American archaeologist. Perhaps fittingly given the sculpture’s realism, it now rests in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

9 & 10) Cleopatra’s Needles (London & New York)

Despite their name, the pair of obelisks called Cleopatra’s Needles bear no relation to Queen Cleopatra herself. Instead, they were constructed during the reign of King Thutmose III of the New Kingdom, more than a thousand years before Cleopatra’s reign. During the Roman era they were moved from their original location in Heliopolis to Alexandria, where they stood for nearly two thousand years.

By the 1800s, one of the two needles had fallen. It was this needle that Muhammed Ali Pasha, in 1819, decided to gift to Britain (as he had gifted the Luxor Obelisk to France). However, the 21-meter tall obelisk was so massive that it was not actually transported to London until the reign of Ismail Pasha in 1877. It was also Ismail Pasha who, in the same year, gifted the remaining needle to the United States.

source/content: cairoscene.com (headline edited)

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Originally published on November 9th, 2025.

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EGYPT