Happy Hijri Year 1448: Al-Aqsa is in a huge danger and Many Muslims are still refugees

Happy and blessed New Hijri Year 1448 to all Muslims in the world, especially to the Muslim refugees.

Today marks Muharram 1, 1448 AH.

Today is the start of the new Islamic Hijri Year 1448.

Once again, I have to remind people that our Islamic calendar began more than fourteen centuries ago when Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his companions, the first Muslims, sought refuge and safety in Yathrib, which later became Medina, the first capital of the Islamic state.

The early Muslims were refugees. In fact, almost all the prophets of the Abrahamic faiths and their earliest followers experienced displacement, exile, or persecution. It seems to be a recurring chapter in the story of faith.

As of 2026, the Muslim world is once again home to some of the largest displaced populations on Earth. Approximately 6 million Palestinian refugees remain registered with UNRWA, while about 4.9 million Syrian refugees continue to live outside their homeland, primarily in neighboring countries and across Europe.

Seen in Downtown Cairo : Before and after the Egyptian Railways Engineering Building

Seen in Downtown Cairo: Before-and-after photos of the Egyptian Railways Engineering Building document the final days of the famous 100-plus-year-old headquarters in Ramses Square — from its preparation for demolition, to the demolition itself, and finally its disappearance to make way for the widening of the October Bridge.

Constructed in 1908, the building was officially listed as architecturally significant under Law 144 of 2006, which protects structures of historical and aesthetic value.

However, in May 2024, the Ministry of Housing issued a decree removing several properties in western Cairo from that protected list, including the Egyptian Railways headquarters at 6 El-Galaa Street.

In 2026, it was fully demolished. I took photos of it in those days, if not months.

Naksa at 59: Haaretz exposed what Egypt’s Akher Saa published from 59 years ago “The 1967 War Crimes That Israelis Do Not Know About”

It is Naksa Day, and we are still living with its consequences.

Even in Egypt, despite the 1973 War and the return of Sinai, we continue to live with — and suffer from — its regional repercussions.

We have also failed to learn, or perhaps have forgotten, many of the lessons that we, as Egyptians and Arabs, should have drawn from that defeat — politically before militarily.

The same underlying causes not only still exist in Cairo, but across capitals throughout the Arab world, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf.

This year, on the 59th anniversary of the Naksa, Haaretz published yet another bombshell for the Israeli public under the headline, "We Were Ordered to Kill": The 1967 Nakba That Israelis Don't Know About.

These testimonies expose a stark, unbridgeable gap between Israel’s carefully curated collective memory and the brutal reality of 1967.

In other words, they tear away the false narrative propagated by Israel’s military propaganda machine—a myth fed for decades to the Western world and the Israeli public to frame theirs as “the most moral army in the Middle East, if not the universe.”

The leftist-liberal Israeli newspaper revealed that newly uncovered documents indicate that 300,000 Arabs were expelled or forcibly displaced from the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights amid systemic violence, looting, and wholesale destruction.

Among the leaked files was a 1967 memorandum from Israel’s legal advisor famous judge Theodor Meron, explicitly warning senior Israeli officials that the forced expulsion of Palestinian civilians constituted "a serious violation of the Geneva Convention."

What the Israeli army perpetrated in the Sinai was mentioned only briefly in the Haaretz piece, primarily because those other captured territories remain under Israeli occupation today, unlike the Sinai, which Egypt successfully regained. (I will review the specific atrocities committed on the Egyptian front in a separate, upcoming post).

To be frank, nothing in Haaretz’s report about Israeli war crimes was new to me as an Egyptian, nor would it be new to most Arabs.

Egyptians and Palestinians have been shouting these truths to a deaf world—especially to the West—for nearly six decades.

Yet, despite a mountain of archival evidence and countless firsthand survivor and victim testimonies, much of the global community only began paying attention when an Israeli newspaper published the soldiers and victimizers’ letters.

A Note on Historical Context and Language

Before we dive into the archives, I must clarify an important linguistic choice in my translations. In translating the summer 1967 press reports detailing the tragic exodus from the West Bank, I have intentionally preserved the original text’s use of the terms "Arab refugees" and "Arab residents" rather than modernizing them to "Palestinians."

While a modern audience automatically views these events through a specific Palestinian national lens, the nationalized Egyptian press of 1967 was operating under a dual legacy. First was the linguistic residue of the British Mandate, which categorized the region strictly into "Arabs and Jews." Second was the ideological peak of Nasserite Pan-Arabism, which framed the defense of Palestine not as an isolated local conflict, but as a collective Arab responsibility.

Ironically, preserving this older vocabulary completely dismantles modern Zionist propaganda claiming that Egypt "invented" the Palestinian identity in the mid-1960s. The archival record demonstrates a deeply rooted population whose distinct connection to the land was so universally understood that reporters used the local and regional terms interchangeably.

I used both the AUC Rare Books and Collections Online library as well as the Torath Misr Official website, which is still in Beta phase

The Robin Dispatch from River Jordan

Happy Eid — If You Are Not Palestinian or Lebanese

It was supposed to be a happy Eid for the two girls — at last — after two hard years of survival and hunger that made them, like every other child in Gaza, older than their age and afraid of what tomorrow might bring.

It was supposed to be a happy Eid eve. Their mother took them to one of the remaining markets in Gaza to buy Eid outfits, to make them feel happy, to make them feel like children — but they are Palestinian kids living in Gaza, where the odds of happiness, like any other child's, are very few.

They went after the Day of Arafat Iftar to get the clothes, only to find the Israeli army bombing the market. Suddenly, everyone was scattered, everyone was searching for everyone else — and above all, for safety.

The two girls — the eldest stepped into the role of the adult, looking around in shock, while the younger one, in disbelief, shook her head and waved her arms in denial as their mother lay badly injured in the street.

Mo Salah ends Liverpool chapter: All Hail to the Egyptian King

In his final moment, in his final game as a forward for Liverpool at Anfield, Mohamed Salah — commonly known as the Egyptian King — prostrated himself, performing a Sujood to thank Allah, the Almighty, the King of Kings, before thousands inside the stadium and millions watching via television and platforms around the globe.

Sujood is the closest a Muslim can be to his Creator.

Prostrating to thank God at the peak of your success is a sign of extreme humility and gratitude — a declaration that you have not forgotten who helped you get there.

For me and other Egyptians  — we understood exactly what Salah felt in that moment: teary-eyed, with Anfield rocking around him.

It was a truly epic moment, a fitting close to a great chapter in Egyptian, British, and world football by any measure.

Needless to say, there were other unforgettable moments in a match that was, frankly, a welcome escape for me and many others from Trump's ongoing mad show in the Middle East.

Nakba at 78: Watch These Videos

Today marks Nakba Day, and although the Nakba is not just history but an ongoing reality — one that now seems to be expanding far beyond the land of Palestine — it remains important to remember the past and set the record straight.

For 78 years, one narrative was largely embraced and amplified across much of the Western world. That is why it is important — and our duty — to highlight the long-neglected Palestinian narrative.

This year, I urge you to watch these short clips.

1st May Labour Day : The Seven Factory Girls.

It is May Day — Labour Day, aka International Workers Day in Egypt — and I have to say that, despite all the official statements, I am a bit disappointed and angry.

Two weeks ago, Egypt had its own mini–Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and it did not stay in the news cycle for more than 72 hours — or, to be more accurate, the social media news cycle — before it disappeared. And that made me angry.

On 14 April, a tragic incident unfolded in the Ard El-Geneina area of Cairo's working-class Al-Zawiya Al-Hamra neighbourhood, after a massive fire broke out inside a sports trainers and sneakers factory on Mohamed Amin Street.

Preliminary investigations confirmed seven people dead, as civil defence forces continued to comb through the site to identify any additional casualties or injuries resulting from the blaze.

That was the initial official statement. Then, unofficially, the details of the tragedy began to emerge.

Seven young women died, and five others were injured after a fire broke out in an unlicensed shoe manufacturing workshop in a very narrow alley in Cairo's Zawiya Al-Hamra district, authorities said.

The blaze erupted inside a three-storey building of approximately 70 square metres per floor, operating without a license as a leather shoe production facility. The ground floor was used for storage, while the first and second floors served as production areas — a layout that accelerated the fire's spread due to the concentration of flammable materials on site.

The so-called factory after the fire

The victims were girls between 19 and 30 years old, earning roughly 100 Egyptian pounds per day.

An initial inspection found a complete absence of occupational safety measures and no emergency exits, which investigators say trapped the workers as the fire spread rapidly through the smoke-filled space over nearly four hours.

Eyewitnesses reported that the doors were locked and the windows were closed and secured, blocking any means of escape.

Residents called for a full investigation and accountability for all parties responsible, starting with the workshop owner, who denied any wrongdoing. Security forces arrested the workshop's owner following the incident.

The incident — a grim echo of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire — renewed scrutiny of unlicensed industrial operations and the enforcement of safety regulations in residential buildings across Cairo.