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Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Egypt, which has itself been the target of terrorist attacks, has been a key supporter of the U.S. war against terrorists and terrorist organizations such as Osama bin Ladin and al-Qaeda, and has supported the Iraqi Governing Council.

The history of Egypt is the longest continuous history, as a unified state, of any country in the world.

The League of Arab States headquarters is in Cairo. The Secretary General of the League has traditionally been an Egyptian. Former Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa is the present Secretary General of the Arab League.

A mummy is a preserved corpse which due to shielding from decomposition by either natural or artificial means, has retained their physical form. This can be achieved by exposing the body to extreme draught or cold, lack of oxygen or by use of chemicals.

The Shura Council's legislative powers are limited. On most matters of legislation, the People’s Assembly retains the last word in the event of a disagreement between the two houses.

The Culture of Egypt has five thousand years of recorded history. Ancient Egypt was among the earliest civilizations. For millennia, Egypt maintained a strikingly complex and stable culture that had a profound influence on later cultures of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. After the Pharaonic era, Egypt itself came under the influence of Hellenism, for a time Christianity, and later, Arab and Islamic culture. Today, many aspects of Egypt's ancient culture exist in interaction with newer elements, including the influence of modern Western culture, itself with roots in Ancient

Egypt operates under a multi-party semi-presidential system where the executive power is divided between the President and the Prime Minister. Egypt holds regular presidential and parliamentary elections. The last Presidential Election was held in 1999 and is scheduled to be held in October 2005. However, there is expressed concern from international human rights observers concerning freedom of speech and government interference in local elections.

Egypt is the most populous country in the Arab world and the second-most populous on the African Continent. Nearly 100% of the country's 76 million people live in Cairo and Alexandria; elsewhere on the banks of the Nile; in the Nile delta, which fans out north of Cairo; and along the Suez Canal. These regions are among the world's most densely populated, containing an average of over 3,820 persons per square mile (1,540 per sq. km.), as compared to 181 persons per sq. mi. for the country as a whole.

After the 1952 Revolution, the government assumed responsibility for appointing officials to mosques and religious schools. The government mandated reform of Al-Azhar University beginning in 1961. These reforms permitted department heads to be drawn from outside the ranks of the traditionally trained orthodox ulama.

Ancient Egyptian literature dates back to the Old Kingdom, in the third millennium BC. Religious literature is best known for its hymns to various gods and its mortuary texts. The oldest extant Egyptian literature are the Pyramid Texts: the mythology and rituals carved around the tombs of rulers. The later, secular literature of ancient Egypt includes the 'wisdom texts', forms of philosophical instruction. The Instruction of Ptahhotep, for example, is a collation of moral proverbs by an Egyptian administrator. The authors of the literature of the Old and Middle Kingdoms (through to the middle of the second millennium BC) seem to have been drawn from an elite administrative class, and were celebrated and revered into the New Kingdom (to the end of the second millennium). In time the Pyramid Texts became Coffin Texts (perhaps after the end of the Old Kingdom), and finally the mortuary literature produced its masterpiece, the Book of the Dead, during the New Kingdom.

The 20th century has seen Cairo become associated with a roots revival. Musicians from across the Arab world have kept folk traditions alive, while Nubians, Saiyidis and Bedouins have established their own scenes. New varieties of folk and pop have also arisen from the Cairo hit factory

The Egyptian military provides indirect support for the foreign policy of Egypt in the region. Egypt is the strongest military power on the African continent, and the second largest in the Middle East, after Israel.

Modern Egypt is ted by Arabs, who have multiple distinct forms in common and divergent styles across North Africa and the Middle East. Arab musical tradition is usually said to have begun in the 7th century in Syria during the Umayyad dynasty. Early Arab music was derived from Byzantine, Indian and Persian forms, which were themselves very influenced by earlier Greek and Semitic music. In the 10th century, Al-Farabi translated Aristotle's Problems (and Themistius' commentary on them), Euclid's Elements of Music and Ptolemy's Harmonics into Arabic. These works, foundations of Western music, became the basis for Arabic musical theory.

The Muslim Brotherhood's reemergence as a political force coincided with the proliferation of Islamic groups. Some of these groups espoused the violent overthrow of the government while others espoused living a devout life of rigorous observance of religious practices. It is impossible to list all the Islamic groups that emerged in the late 1970s because many of them had diffuse structures and some of the more militant groups were underground. Egypt's defeat and loss of territory in the June 1967 Six-Day War was the main cause for the growth of religiously inspired political activism. Muslims tended to view the humiliating experience as the culmination of 150 years of foreign intrusion and an affront to their vision of a true Islamic community. Islamic tradition rejected the idea of non-Muslims dominating Muslim society. Such a state of affairs discredited Muslim rulers who permitted it to persist. It was, therefore, incumbent on believers to end the domination and restore the true supremacy of Islam. As part of their Sunni creed, the most radical activists adopted jihad and committed themselves to battling unbelievers and impious Muslims. During the 1970s and 1980s, Islamists perpetrated a number of violent acts, including the assassination of Anwar Sadat in October 1981.

Egypt is the most populous Arab country, at about 68,000,000 people. Nearly all the population is concentrated along the River Nile, notably Alexandria and Cairo, and along the Nile Delta and near the Suez Canal. Approximately 90% of the population adheres to Islam and the remainder to Christianity (primarily the Coptic faith).