by Raymond Ibrahim // RaymondIbrahim.com
Last November Raymond Ibrahim was interviewed by Egyptian reporter Sherif Awad. The interview appeared in several Egyptian magazines and websites, as well as American ones, such as the Westchester Guardian. The interview follows:
Awad: Can you tell us about your family and their profession and how and why they decided to migrate to the US? Tell us about your childhood and the intercultural elements that shaped it until you decided to select your profession.
Ibrahim: My father and mother, both Copts, one from Cairo the other Alexandria, left Egypt in the late 1960s for America, where I was born. They left Egypt for a better life. I grew up speaking both Arabic and English and visited Egypt with my parents often when I was young. It was natural, then, for me formally to study the region, its languages (primarily Arabic, which I already spoke), its history and conflicts, in college. Growing up in Egypt in the 1940s-1960s, my parents experienced little by way of direct persecution, but they did experience religious discrimination, and that was one of the reasons they came to America, for better opportunities.
Awad: In regards to your MA thesis and book about the Battle of Yarmuk, can you compare its events to the happenings that led to the ending of Islamic rule in Andalusia? Do you consider researching the Islamic empire in Andalusia? About the Crusades? Continue reading “The Past and the Future” →
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