Great Throughts Treasury

"Although I was raised in Canada and the U.K., my roots are in Egypt through my father, in a family line that stretches back generations and runs along the Nile, from the concrete of Cairo to the coast of Alexandria."

"Egypt, once a melting pot of peoples, classes, cultures and religions, has, after 30 years of Mubarak's rule, become a place of intolerance and distrust of the other."

"Civil society must be strengthened to help raise awareness among people living with HIV, and those at risk, of their rights, and to ensure they have access to legal services and redress through the courts."

"4Shbab has been dubbed Islamic MTV. Its creator, who is an Egyptian TV producer called Ahmed Abu Haiba, wants young people to be inspired by Islam to lead better lives. He reckons the best way to get that message across is to use the enormously popular medium of music videos. 4Shbab was set up as an alternative to existing Arab music channels."

"For the first time in three decades [of] this epidemic, we have a real chance to come to grips with HIV. But in order to do that, we need to tackle an epidemic of really bad law."

"Fulla is the Arab world's answer to Barbie. Now, according to proponents of the clash of civilizations, Barbie and Fulla occupy these completely separate spheres. They have different interests. They have divergent values. And should they ever come in contact... well, I've got to tell you, it's just not going to be pretty."

"If you really want to know yourself, start by writing a book."

"HIV brings out the best and the worst in humanity, and the laws reflect these attitudes."

"I'm Egyptian and Muslim, but I grew up in the West, far from my Arab roots. I began 'Sex and the Citadel' to help outsiders - like myself - to better comprehend this pivotal part of the world, up-close and personal."

"Growing up, I came to love Egypt and respect Islam, but I never thought to go beyond the surface. Back in Canada, many of my father's Egyptian friends questioned his decision not to raise his only child more strictly in the faith. I was not taught salat, the Muslim ritual of prayer, nor did I study Arabic."

"In Egypt, where my research is focused, I have seen plenty of trouble in and out of the citadel. There are legions of young men who can't afford to get married, because marriage has become a very expensive proposition. They are expected to bear the burden of costs in married life, but they can't find jobs."

"Moreover, for women in Egypt and its Arab neighbors, having a husband is key: a woman?s social value is still tied to her status as a wife and mother, no matter how accomplished or professionally successful she might be. In recent years, the phenomenon of ?unusa?spinsterhood?has become the stuff of Facebook groups, blogs, best-selling books, and TV series. As they say in Egypt, The shade of a man is better than the shade of a wall."

"I'm half Egyptian, and I'm Muslim. But I grew up in Canada, far from my Arab roots. Like so many who straddle East and West, I've been drawn, over the years, to try to better understand my origins."

"Laws that treat people living with HIV or those at greatest risk with respect start with the way that we treat them ourselves: as equals. If we are going to stop the spread of HIV in our lifetime, then that is the change we need to spread."

"Now there are laws in many parts of the world which reflect the best of human nature. These laws treat people touched by HIV with compassion and acceptance. These laws respect universal human rights and they are grounded in evidence."

"My mother's family is Christian: her father was a Baptist lay preacher, and her brother, in a leap of Anglican upward mobility, became a vicar in the Church of Wales. But my mother converted to Islam on marrying my father. She was not obliged to; Muslim men are free to marry ahl al-kitab, or people of the Book - among them, Jews and Christians."

"Part of my job at 'The Economist' was writing about HIV, and that included the grim task of reporting on the state of the global epidemic."

"Social change doesn't happen in the Arab region through dramatic confrontation, beating, or indeed, baring of breasts, but rather through negotiation."

"Sexual attitudes and behaviors are intimately bound up in religion, tradition, culture, politics, and economics."

"Some countries have good laws, laws which could stem the tide of HIV. The problem is that these laws are flouted. Because stigma gives unofficial license to treat people living with HIV or those at greatest risk unlike other citizens."

"The patriarchy is alive and well in Egypt and the wider Arab world."

"The achievement of Tahrir Square wasn?t just its grand political movement but the tiny personal battles fought and won against the frictions wearing down Egyptian society: between religions, classes, sexes, and generations."

"The patriarchy is alive and well in Egypt and the wider Arab world. Just because we got rid of the father of the nation in Egypt or Tunisia, Mubarak or Ben Ali, and in a number of other countries, does not mean that the father of the family does not still hold sway."

"Throughout its history, Islam has borrowed and adapted from other civilizations, both ancient and modern."

"We were the outliers: my mother was the only Western woman (khawagayya, in Egyptian Arabic) to have married into the family, and during my childhood, we were the only members living outside of Egypt. So between my father's prestige as the eldest son and my own exotic pedigree, I basked in the spotlight."

"Where you criminalize people living with HIV or those at greatest risk, you fuel the epidemic."

"Where I work, in the Arab region, people are busy taking up Western innovations and changing them into things which are neither conventionally Western, nor are they traditionally Islamic."

"While I?ve often heard Egyptians say their fellow countrymen spend 99.9 percent of their time thinking about sex, in the heady days of early 2011, making love appeared, for once, to be the last thing on people?s minds."