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Parliament meets for one nine-month session each year: under special circumstances the President of the Republic can call an additional session. Even though the powers of the Parliament have increased since the 1980 Amendments of the Constitution, the Parliament remains to lack the powers to balance the excessive powers of the President.

The People’s Assembly is the principal legislative body. Out of the assembly’s 454 deputies 444 are directly elected while 10 are appointed by the President. The Constitution reserves fifty percent of the assembly seats for ‘workers and peasants’. The assembly sits for a five-year term but can be dissolved earlier by the President. All seats are voted on in each election. Four Hundred seats are voted on using proportional representation while the remaining forty-four are elected in local majority votes.

A primarily male spiritual manifestation is Sufism, an Islamic mystical tradition. Sufism has existed since the early days of Islam and is found in all Islamic countries. The name derives from the Arabic word suf (wool), referring to the rough garb of the early mystics. Sufism exists in a number of forms, most of which represent an original tarika developed by an inspired founder, or shaykh. These shaykhs gradually gathered about themselves murids, or disciples, whom they initiated into the tarika. Gradually the murids formed orders, also known as turuq, which were loyal to the shaykh or his successors. The devotions of many Sufi orders center on various forms of the dhikr, a ceremony at which music, body movements, and chants induce a state of ecstatic trance in the disciples. Since the early 1970s, there has been a revival of interest in Sufism. Egypt's contemporary Sufis tend to be young, college-educated men in professional careers.

Traditionally, the cabinet comprises, in decreasing rank: - The Prime Minister - Ministers - Ministers of State, described as ‘junior ministers’, are assigned specific responsibilities or agencies. The portfolios of ministers of state are considerably more transient, as positions may be created and dissolved to suit specific short-term government priorities or the specific qualifications of candidates without alterations to the departmental structure, e.g. the Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs. - Ministers without portfolio, ministers who do not head specific departments and occasionally attend cabinet meetings, e.g. Minister without portfolio Omar Suleiman, the current Chief of the Egyptian Intelligence Services. - Chairmen of Departments, who head certain important departments that do not fall under the jurisdiction of any of the ministers and answer directly to the Prime Minister, e.g. The Chairman of the Suez Canal Authority. - Ministers-Delegate, who assist ministers in areas of their duties and rarely attend cabinet meeting

In the third century, during the persecution of Decius, some Christians fled to the desert, and remained there to pray after the persecutions abated. This was the beginning of the monastic movement, which was reorganized by the saints Anthony the Great and Pachomius in the 4th century. By the end of the century, there were hundreds of monasteries, and thousands of cells and caves scattered throughout the Egyptian hills. A number of these monasteries are still flourishing and have new vocations till this day.

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