WATANI International
23 January 2011
When it comes to honouring political and royal leaders, scientists, intellectuals and other heroes who have performed exceptionally well in the service of humanity and world peace both at home and abroad, the highest recognition Egypt can bestow is the Grand Order of the Nile.
The order was instituted in 1915 by Sultan Hussein Kamel to be awarded by Egypt to persons who did services for the nation. On 18 June 1953, it was reconstituted under the Republic, to be awarded for exceptionally valuable public service.
The medal was awarded to Naguib Mahfouz after he gained the 1988 Nobel Prize for literature; to Ahmed Zuwail in 1999 after he was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry; and in 2005 to Mohamed al-Baradei, who won the Nobel Peace Prize. It was recently awarded to the prominent Egyptian surgeon Magdi Yacoub, the so-called ‘king of hearts’, one of the greatest contemporary figures in medicine and a pioneer in organ transplantation. Yacoub, who has received many international honours, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1992.
Pure gold
The Grand Order of the Nile medal is a pendant of enamelled pure gold ornamented with rubies, turquoises and pharaonic symbols representing the welfare, growth, happiness and prosperity brought by the Nile on its long journey from Lake Tana in Ethiopia to the Mediterranean Sea.
The Egyptian president can grant the order to himself, as President Gamal Abdel-Nasser did in 1956 on the fourth anniversary of the 1952 Revolution. At the same time he awarded it to the eight other members of the Revolutionary Command Council: Abdel-Latif al-Boghdadi, Anwar al-Sadat, Gamal Salem, Hassan Ibrahim, Zakariya Mohieddin, Kamal Eddin Hussien, Abdel-Hakim Amer and Hussein al-Shafei.
Nasser also gave the medal to the then Trade and Industry Minister Hassan Marei in 1955; to the head of Arabic Language Committee and enlightenment figure, Ahmed Lutfi al-Sayed, in 1959; to Aziz al-Masri, an army leader before the 1952 coup; and in 1965 to Taha Hussein.
Other Egyptian figures to be awarded the Grand Order of the Nile were the former Sheikh of al-Azhar, Gad al-Haq Ali Gad al-Haq; Pope Shenouda III; the former foreign minister and current secretary-general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa; Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former United Nations secretary-general; Sufi Abu-Taleb, former president of the People’s Assembly; the popular singer Umm Kalthoum; to Mohamed Abdel-Wahab and Farid al-Atrash, both of them musicians and singers; and to Abdel-Aziz Higazi, the former Prime Minister.
Honours
The most famous non-Egyptian figures to receive the Grand Order of the Nile were Nelson Mandela; Emperor Akihito of Japan; Queen Elizabeth II; President Suharto of Indonesia; Makarios III, president of Cyprus; Lebanese president Émile Lahoud; the president of Kazakhstan, Noor Sultan Nizar Bayev; Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani of Qatar and King Abdel-Aziz al-Saud of Saudi Arabia.
Other Egyptian decorations, in order of rank, include the Order of the Republic, the Order of Merit (the Nile Sash), the Medal of the Republic of the First Order and the Medal of the Republic of the Second Order.