Egypt: Is Sisi Suggesting Eating Tree Leaves to Combat Inflation?

As the whole world braces itself for further economic struggles, with spiking inflation and high unemployment rates, Egypt is starting to feel the crisis, urging its president to address the public with possible solutions.

According to estimates, Egypt is set to experience a 10.7% inflation in 2022 as consumer prices have gone up by 3.26% last April. This is the highest since June 2018.

As a result, Egyptians have been reporting mounting difficulty in managing the growing cost of living for the past few months, including the country's already improvised population, which can barely put bread on the table. 

"Prophet Muhammad was imprisoned and besieged  in Mecca for three years at a time he was contacted by Gabriel, but non of his companions asked him to ask the angels for food or water miracles. They suffered for three years and had to eat tree leaves. We are stronger than this." - el-Sisi

This also spurned the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to address the current economic difficulty in a speech he made inaugurating the “Egypt's Future” project for agriculture. 

In his remarks, el-Sisi called on Egyptians to show patience over the crisis, suggesting they can find inspiration in a story referred to the early Islamic era when Prophet Muhammad and early Muslims had to eat tree leaves to survive under the three-year siege imposed on them in Mecca by their non-believing tribe.

Translation: "Should we start storing tea leaves?"

el-Sisi told Egyptians that early Muslims then "did not complain or suggest that Prophet  Muhammad ask the angels for a divine miracle that could have provided food for them", hinting that Egyptians should also wait and show patience instead of asking for solutions. 

Translation: "I still don't get it. Is he saying he's the prophet and we are the early Muslims? Or we are the non-believers and he stands for the angels? What is this? We've been suffering for nine years, not three, by the way."

Translation: "He says the Muslim Brotherhood mix religion and politics while he keeps lecturing us about Prophets Solomon, Muhammad, his companions, and tree leaves. This couldn't more hypocritical? 

In response, many Egyptians responded to el-Sisi's speech, saying it was "yet another attempt to avoid responsibility" in time of crisis. Some noted that "el-Sisi has already wasted billions in building bridges and new cities, instead of building a sufficient economy".