DEFINING EVENTS: Gamal Abdel-Nasser and Shukri El-Qwatli signing documents of the merger between Egypt and Syria (right);

leaders of Iraq's July 14 Revolution in 1958 with Qassim standing centre;

and US marines on the streets of Beirut the following day of Iraq's revolution

NEW FRONTIERS: US President Woodrow Wilson (above right) in his January 1918 speech before the US Congress had advocated national self-determination. Arab delegations proceeding to the Paris Peace Conference at the end of WWI, including the son of Sharif Hussein, Prince Faisal (in picture above, flanked by Lawrence of Arabia on his left, and Nuri as-Said on his right) believed Wilson would support their call for independence; they were wrong. Faisal became King of Iraq later, while Nuri as-Said played a pivotal role in Middle East pro-Western politics until he was killed on the streets of Baghdad the day following the July 14 Revolution in 1958 A DREAM IS BORN: Egypt's first secular university was founded in 1908 as the Private Egyptian University, and expanded in 1925 into a full-fledged state university.

Above: a group photo of the Faculty of the 1925 Egyptian University (seated from left: Valadimir Golenischeff, Mansur Fahmi, Vice Rector Ahmed Lutfi al-Sayyid, Louis Clement and Percy White. Standing from left: Ahmed Dayf, Paul Girard, Taha Hussein and Ali al-Inani); two stamps commemorating the silver jubilee of the Egyptian University in 1950, and the golden jubilee of the Private University in 1958; and the Private University's first secretary-general, Qassim Amin (above left), who championed the cause of the university, as well as women's rights, but died in 1908, the same year the university was born

Mustafa Kamil (1874-1908); Boutros Ghali; Hassan El-Banna; Hoda Shaarawi; Mahfouz's trilogy appeared in 1958

ENTER ISRAEL: The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 was another defining moment in the history of the Arabs. Clockwise from above: Sadat and Begin in the White House with Jimmy Carter after signing the Camp David Accords in 1978; Hafez Assad of Syria addressing the Baghdad Arab Summit of 1978 which ended in boycotting Sadat's Egypt; US soldiers occupying Baghdad in 2003; Cairo University students protesting US occupation; and, in military garb, Abdel-Qadir al-Husseini who died defending Jersualem in Qastl Battle in April 1948, a month before the birth of the state of Israel. Centre: A still from Youssef Chahine's Cairo Station, a study of sexually charged insanity, depicting a poverty-stricken cripple's slide into murderous madness. Chahine (in picture with Hind Rustum) played the role of the crippled Qenawi in love with Hanoma, played by Rustum -- dubbed later the Marilyn Monroe of Arab cinema. The 1958 film established Chahine as the Arabs' most innovative auteur

Camille Chamoun; Fouad Chehab; Saeb Salam during the 1958 Lebanese Crisis

parent page (3 - 9 January 2008, issue #878)