Egypt's first lady greets Islamic nation on occasion of holy month of Ramadan
CAIRO – 28 February 2025: Egypt's first lady Intisar El Sisi, sent her greetings to the Islamic nation, Friday, on the occasion of the holy month of Ramadan.
'I ask God to return this holy month to us all with goodness, blessings and prosperity, and for it to be a month of mercy and peace for Egypt and the whole world,' the first lady wrote on her social media accounts.
Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al Sisi also greeted Egyptian people on the occasion of the holy month of Ramadan.
President Sisi addressed Egyptians on his social media accounts saying: 'To the great Egyptian people, in these blessed days, I am pleased to send you my sincere greetings on the occasion of the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan; the month of mercy, forgiveness and blessings. I pray to God Almighty to return this blessed month to us all with goodness, blessings and prosperity, and to achieve peace for our noble people'.
In Egypt, Dar Al-Ifta, the central authority responsible for issuing religious fatwas, announced Tomorrow, Saturday as the first day of the holy month of Ramadan.
Also, according to astronomical calculations, Ramadan is expected to start in Egypt tonight, with the first day of fasting on Saturday, during which Muslims will fast from before dawn until sunset.
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In late May, the Ismailia Appeals Court ruled to evict the archbishop of Saint Catherine's Monastery from 14 land plots in South Sinai, part of a larger dispute with the Egyptian government over 71 plots in total. The government argued that the archbishop, in his capacity as head of the monastery, had seized land without legal basis and carried out construction without official permits. According to the verdict obtained by Mada Masr, the court granted the monastery usufruct rights over the remaining 57 plots, located both inside and outside the monastery walls. The decision triggered a wave of condemnation. The Greek orthodox churches in Athens, Jerusalem and Constantinople denounced the decision as an 'existential threat' and 'yet another historical fall' for orthodoxy and Hellenism. 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Built in the sixth century by order of Byzantine Emperor Justinian, the monastery was named in the 11th century after St. Catherine of Alexandria, a fourth-century convert to Christianity whose relics are said to rest near the monastery's altar. Affiliated with the Greek Orthodox Church, the monastery complex includes several churches, smaller monastic dwellings and a renowned library that houses thousands of rare manuscripts. Today, around 20 monks — most of whom are foreign nationals — live there, according to monastery spokesperson and legal advisor Kompiliris. The Egyptian state recognized the monastery as a historical monument through Decree 85/1993, placing its structures under the supervision of the Antiquities Ministry. In 2002, it was added to UNESCO's World Heritage list. According to three separate sources who spoke to Mada Masr, the current dispute began in 2012 following a visit to the monastery by General Ahmed Ragaey, a former military commander. Though accounts differ on the specifics of his visit, all three sources agreed that tensions broke out between Ragaey and the monks. What is certain is that Ragaey was the first to initiate legal action against the monastery, filing a lawsuit where he accused its foreign monks of unlawfully seizing state land and posing a threat to national security. He claimed the monastery controlled nearly 20 percent of South Sinai's territory and demanded their eviction. Over the years, Ragaey continued to make public accusations, alleging links between the monks and Freemasonry and promoting a conspiracy theory of an 'American-Zionist' plot to prevent Egypt from tapping into Sinai's mineral wealth. Ragaey was not alone in calling for the monastery's removal. Others, including former political and diplomatic figure Mostafa al-Feky, also called for the monastery to be placed under the jurisdiction of the Egyptian church. Ragaey died in 2021, but years prior, the same hostile rhetoric had helped fuel a broader public discourse that was eventually brought into the courts by state institutions. In 2015, the South Sinai Governorate filed a legal complaint against Archbishop Damianos, the head of St. Catherine's Monastery, according to court documents reviewed by Mada Masr. A year later, in 2022, Egypt's antiquities minister and the head of the Environmental Affairs Agency joined the case as co-litigants. They requested the doubling of the usufruct fee from LE5 million to LE10 million and widened the dispute to cover 42 additional plots of land, bringing the total number of contested plots to 71. On May 30, 2022, the South Sinai Elementary Court ruled to evict the archbishop from 29 of the plots, while dismissing the case concerning the rest of the estate. Both parties appealed the ruling — each contesting the portions that went against them — bringing the case before the Ismailia Appeals Court. Three years later, at the end of May this year, the appeals court issued its final ruling: the archbishop is to be evicted from 14 of the contested plots, with the buildings constructed on those lands deemed in-kind compensation to the state for their years of use. The remaining 57 plots would stay under the monastery's control — not as owned property, but under usufruct rights. In its ruling, the court emphasized that 'the monastery's continued use of certain plots does not confer ownership,' but rather reflects 'a special and conditional religious status that justifies reclaiming lands not directly used for religious purposes.' The decision partly hinged on the testimony of Archbishop Damianos, who acknowledged that his role in overseeing the land was religious in nature. He described himself as a custodian of monasteries, buildings and ecclesiastical lands, stating that he 'fully understands that owning these lands is not legally permissible.' Beyond the symbolic significance, the eviction ruling presents practical and economic challenges for the monastery. Many of the reclaimed plots include historic gardens, chapels, water sources, olive groves and other agricultural assets vital to the monastery's self-sufficiency and financial sustainability. The Greek Orthodox Church maintains that the monastery holds the land through historic ownership, citing its uninterrupted presence at the site for more than 1,400 years and the deep religious and cultural symbolism associated with it. The church argues that this legacy makes the monastery one of the oldest inhabited Christian institutions in the world. The Orthodox Church in Jerusalem also referenced the monastery's historical protective documents, including a covenant granted by Prophet Mohamed in 623 and reaffirmed by Ottoman Sultan Selim I in the 16th century, as evidence of the monastery's exceptional status. Following the ruling, Kompiliris warned that the real danger is in the court's refusal to recognize the monastery's ownership over the remaining land. Instead, those plots were merely granted under religious usufruct — a designation that offers no lasting legal protection and, according to the church, represents an existential risk. 'Under this ruling, the Egyptian government can terminate the monastery's usufruct rights at any time and the monastery would lose the lands it has cultivated and primarily relied on for its livelihood,' Stephan Dömpke, head of World Heritage Watch, an independent organization dedicated to protecting UNESCO sites, told Mada Masr. From Dömpke's perspective, the ruling reframes the monastery's legal status using the logic of 'terra nullius' — the notion that land was unowned before the establishment of modern state sovereignty. Despite the monastery possessing historical documents of protection, including some dating back to the time of the Prophet Mohamed and the Ottoman Empire, the court treated it as having no acquired rights, leaving it, according to Dömpke, at the mercy of the state, which can revoke its legal standing at any time. The court, however, adopted a different rationale: it considered the monastery an Egyptian antiquity subject to state sovereignty, rather than an independent religious entity. The ruling limited the monastery's function to the performance of religious rites, dismissing the symbolic or economic weight of its broader landholdings. According to the court, the monks' presence in Sinai serves a purely religious purpose — one that does not necessitate land ownership, only usufruct under specific conditions. On this basis, the court drew a line between designated places of worship, which remained under the monastery's control, and the agricultural and residential plots, from which it ordered eviction. 'This is a national issue, not a sectarian one,' Bassem al-Ganouby, a researcher on minority rights, told Mada Masr. He described the ruling as a necessary legal step to address the exceptional status that has surrounded the monastery for decades. The decision to issue a court ruling, rather than sign an agreement between the monastery and the South Sinai Governorate, marks a pivotal shift in the fate of St. Catherine's Monastery — one that has triggered a wave of anger from church institutions and prominent religious figures. In a statement issued May 31, the Panhellenic Association of Theologians said, 'The entire political and church leadership of Greece expressed its dismay and surprise at the hopeless judicial decisions of the Egyptian courts,' which it said contradicted public assurances made by Sisi during his visit to Athens, where he pledged that the monastery's legal and operational status would remain unchanged. Theologians warned that the recent developments risk stripping the monastery of its legal identity and 'converting it into a museum or tourist resort, and perhaps, later, a mosque,' echoing the controversial conversion of Istanbul's Hagia Sophia from a church into a mosque. In a statement released May 30, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople called on Egyptian authorities to honor this legacy, stating: 'The centuries have respected the Monastery of Sinai; let Egypt respect it today as well, as a civilized law-abiding nation that upholds religious freedom and human rights.' In a rare public statement, Archbishop Damianos of St. Catherine's Monastery said, 'I am 91 years old today and I have lived at the monastery since the age of 27 — can you imagine the pain in my heart?' Although St. Catherine's Monastery is preparing to appeal the ruling before the Court of Cassation, according to an informed source who spoke to Mada Masr, the court's decision has created a new legal reality that is perceived as a threat to the monastery's continued existence as a living religious institution, rather than merely a historical site. There is growing concern that the ruling, compounded by administrative pressure and ongoing development projects in the surrounding area, could hollow out the monastery's spiritual essence, reducing it to a heritage site without monastic life — a silent facade instead of a vibrant spiritual space. 'Being at the mercy of the Egyptian government is what terrifies the monastery and the whole Orthodox Church,' Dömpke told Mada Masr, 'especially when considering the tourism developments unfolding around them without their consent.' In 2021, the Egyptian government launched the 'Great Transfiguration' project, aimed at transforming the city of St. Catherine into an international center for Abrahamite religions. Since then, large-scale construction has taken place in the city and around the monastery as part of what the government has described as a 'developmental and touristic' initiative. These interventions stirred criticism from researchers and activists concerned with the local heritage of the area. Ben Hoffler, the co-founder of the Sinai Trail, is one of them. He described the government project as 'a physical and cultural takeover of St. Catherine, one that will forever change the position of its native communities in their homeland.' 'The new tourism developments in St. Catherine have had a disastrous impact on a landscape of profound significance for humanity. A catastrophic outcome is most likely for the Bedouin community, who risk being dispossessed of their land and rights and absorbed into a new urban tourism realm in which they do not belong,' he said. He cited examples such as Sharm el-Sheikh, 'where it's now rare to see a Bedouin, except in the suburb of Rowaissat, beyond the large wall built around the city, or in the nearby Wadi Mandar, where many communities have been relocated,' as well as the Bedouin of the Laheiwat tribe in valleys outside Taba. The 2002 designation of the St. Catherine area as a UNESCO World Heritage Site offered no real protection, according to international activists and observers, as it has failed to halt the project's expansion or ensure meaningful oversight. Dömpke explained to Mada Masr that UNESCO attempted to send two official missions to assess the situation in St. Catherine: a consultative mission in 2021 and an urgent monitoring mission in 2023. However, the Egyptian government declined to facilitate either visit. Instead, in summer 2023, the government arranged a trip for the UNESCO Cairo Office, including its Director Nuria Sanz, but this delegation did not include UNESCO assessment experts or representatives from ICOMOS, the advisory body on cultural heritage. 'UNESCO's Cairo Office published a report on their visit on its website that contains striking statements disconnected from the reality on the ground and at odds with concerns raised by UNESCO's higher authorities,' Dömpke said. 'Most notably, the report claims that '… the landscaping intervention has been extremely careful with the natural and spiritual environment of the site.' This trip appears to have been organized by the Egyptian government as a positive PR exercise, aimed at suggesting it is fulfilling all UNESCO's requirements — a smokescreen to mask its failure to meet the genuine obligations demanded by UNESCO's headquarters.' Dömpke said that in other reports, UNESCO noted that the Egypt government failed to submit information on the new developments — such as detailed plans or background studies — before proceeding, in violation of paragraph 172 of UNESCO's Operational Guidelines, which govern the implementation of the World Heritage Convention. In 2023, UNESCO advised Egypt to halt construction until an independent assessment of the project's impact on heritage was carried out. Egypt did not comply. After decades of stability, St. Catherine's Monastery — one of the oldest continually inhabited monasteries in the world, where life has unfolded in peace for centuries, untouched by time — is now subject to increasing government control. While the state promotes its 'Great Transfiguration' project as a spiritual and touristic development project, the monastery fears that this may be its final transfiguration. *** Land confiscated by court from the monastery Klisto Garden, located on the Sefsafa mountainside and in the monastery's valley, with an area of 1,688.78 m² Agricultural land at the monastery's entrance, with an area of 35,936.81 m² Agricultural land on the slope of Deir Mountain near Saint Catherine, with an area of 3,310.9 m² Saint Apestemi Garden, in the Upper Magafa area, with an area of 5,722.43 m² Esbaeya Garden, in the Esbaeya area below Hamada Mountain, with an area of 8,463.31 m² Saint Zouny Garden, located on Sefsafa Mountain, includes a chapel, rest house, and stone buildings dating back to the 6th–7th centuries, protected as antiquities; the site includes 6,697.5 m² of agricultural land and 36 buildings Saint Panteleimon Church (the Red Church) and its garden, located on Mount Sinai, dating back to the 6th–7th centuries and protected as antiquities; the site includes 2,600 m² of agricultural land and 36 buildings Erbein Garden, in Erbein Valley, with an area of 18,169.37 m² Agricultural land and buildings in Atlah Valley, with 17,138 m² of agricultural land and 100 buildings 'Ramhan's Room,' in Ramhan Valley, with an area of 14,025 m² Tofaha Garden, located in the Tofaha torrent area, includes an ancient carob tree, two almond trees dating back to the 4th century, and Byzantine remains; the site is protected as an antiquity and covers an area of 2,130 m² Torkeya Garden, in the Qora Mountain area, with an area of 5,000 m² Abou Gifa Garden, in the Abou Gifa area, with an area of 1,989 m²
