The Population in Egypt

May 22, 2006

It is hard to believe I am back to reading the Al-Ahram Weekly, the Egyptian state-financed English language newspaper that can be frustrating as hell. There was recently an article on population growth in Egypt.. a concern since Egypt's modest economic growth is perpetually diminished by the expanding numbers of people which need a share of the pie. This article caught my eye because of its sketch of the historical changes in population growth:

Our numbers have doubled from 2.5 million in 1800 to 5 million in 1850, then to 10 million in 1900, and again to 20 million in 1947. This means that the Egyptian population has doubled once every fifty years over one and a half centuries (1800-1950). It took a mere 30 years for the number to double the fourth time around: from 20 million in 1950 to 40 million in 1978. The increase resumed again until the population reached nearly sixty million, according to the 1996 census. Finally in January, 2006, Egypt's population had reached nearly 71.348 million inhabitants and is expected to continue rising throughout the 21st century. ["No Strength in Numbers", by Maged Osman, Beyond Quarterly (Spring 2006), distributed in al-Ahram weekly 11-17 May, 2006.]

The writer is using these figures to look forward and sketch some of the problems that Egypt is facing over the course of the next century, but they also serve to highlight the problems in accessing the pre-modern past. It is almost impossible for me to even imagine Egypt with only 2.5 million people.. or even anything below 17 million, which would mean that the population of present-day Cairo is spread through the entire country. But that is exactly what one must do in approaching the vast body of medieval literature from Egypt.

With a few less people the pre-modern reports about lush gardens and estates along the Nile start to sound possible. It also begins to be possible to imagine the great Islamic city of the dead and its monuments.. not crowded with people, but standing empty outside the city. The whole city starts to make more sense. To see the past the whole urban mess of contemporary Cairo must be set aside.. whose problems now are important, of course, but have nothing to do with medieval Cairo.

Similarly, the issues surrounding Islamic fundamentalism can be helpfully viewed with these population figures in mind. The extreme growth of urban centers has created new demands.. and in many cases the most effective response to these demands has been from Islamist groups. But the actual intellectual stance of these groups cannot be read back into earlier times.. they too must be left behind if one is to access the medieval world.

Population often gets ignored as an agent of change in our world.. But it is a factor which is actively remaking the world, through forced change in living patterns, environmental degradation, and simplification of religious and cultural systems.