Aliaa Rafea

Aliaa R. Rafea (Arabic:علياء رضاه رافع) is an Egyptian writer, spiritual activist, and professor of sociology at Faculty of Women for Arts at Ain Shams University. She is the founder and president of the Human Foundation.

Early life and education Aliaa was born to Rafea Muhammad Rafea and Hazami Rifaa and is the great-granddaughter of Rifa'a at-Tahtawi. She graduated in 1970 from Philosophy and Psychology Department at Cairo University. In 1978, she began to study sociology and anthropology at the American University in Cairo (AUC). She received her Master of Arts degree in 1983, and received her Ph.D. from Women's College at Ain Shams University in 1990. She married Adel El Beltagy in 1970, and traveled with her husband to Wales and spent six years where she seized this time to educate herself. She came across the work of the Swiss psychologist C G Jung, among other influential thinkers such as Eric Fromm. This self-education process enabled her later to envision a program of self-realization and relate it to her father's teachings and to the human spiritual heritage, especially the Ancient Egyptian Civilization. She gave birth to Samhaa in 1972. The couple decided to give Rafee a second name for her daughter. They both were attached to the teaching of her father Master Rafea. Mohammed was her second child, born in 1973, and she gave birth to her third child Mostafa in 1986.

Faculty career From 1979 to 1983 Aliaa had a grant as a research assistant and teaching assistant at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the American University in Cairo and then a Postmaster fellow at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the American University in Cairo from 1987 to 1988. She has been a visiting scientist at the International Center for Agriculture Research in the Dry Area (ICARDA) from 1995 to 1997. From 1994 to 1997, she worked as an adjunct lecturer and then as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Women Ain Shams University from 1998 to 2003. She has been a visiting professor at Randolph-Macon Women's College, Lynchburg, Virginia in 2002. She was an adjunct professor at The American University in Cairo from 2003 to 2004. "Nature and Man: Past and Present In Egypt" in Takako Yamada and Takashi Irimoto Continuity, Symbiosis, and the Mind in Traditional Cultures of Modern Society, Hokkaido University Press, 2011. "Peace Between Religiosity and Secularity (Humanness and Divinness), in Sufism, Vol XIV, No 3, pp- 15-39. Published also in the proceedings of Peace Responsibility Symposium, Sponsored by The Egyptian Society for Spiritual and Cultural Research and the International Association of Sufism, 2008, pp. 169- 182 "Globalization and Culture Boundaries: An Anthropological Perspective" Icfai Journal of History and Culture. India. Volume 1, No3, 2007 "Islam, Freedom and Human Rights: Anthropological Reading of History" in Wejhat Nazar (Points of View), Volume 7, issue 81 October 2005 "Universalism in Islam" in R. Hangloo (edit), Approaching Islam, House of Indological Publication, India, 2005, pp. 18–48 "Dialogue of Cultures: A Teaching Experience in USA" in Femmes Mediterranean's Women". Proceedings of the International Conference held on Fes 24-26 of April 2003. Fatima Saidiqi (editor), published in 2004, Morocco. "Perception and Strategies of Households in Bershaya Village, El-Bab District, Syria," Proceedings of the International Dry Lands Development Commission, Sixth International Conference on the Development of Dry Lands, ICARDA, Aleppo, Syria, 2003, pp. 429–434 "Woman and Dimensions of Reproductive Health," Woman and Poverty: The Demographic and Health Behavior, Arab League Publications, vol. 4, 2002, pp. 163–199 "Unraveling Different Meanings of the Veil," Sadiqi, Fatima (ed.), Feminist Movements: Origins and Orientations, Publication of the Faculty of Art and Humanities, Dhar El Meharaz, Fès, Morocco, 2001, pp. 25–52 "Global Transformation and the Changing Roles of Social Sciences," Abdul-Moetti, Abdul-Basit (ed.), Idhafat, no. 3, January 2001, pp. 37–47 "Culture and Development", Ayad, Shoukry (ed.), Egypt: Visions for the Future, Friends of the Book Publisher, Cairo, Egypt, 1999, pp. 27–47 "Peasants' Political Rights," Inseparable Rights: Proceedings of the Human Rights Forum on Economic and Social Rights, Dar Jihad, Cairo, Egypt, 1994 "The Problems of the Youth", A study that was organized and requested from Al-Ahram Newspaper. The Analysis of the study published on the following dates: May 16, 23, 30, 1994 "Productive Labor in the Egyptian Village," The Question of Peasantry, Arab Research Center Publications, Cairo, Egypt, 1992, pp. 272–282 "Authenticity and Modernity Considered by some Egyptian Pioneers," El-Manar, no 59, October 1989, pp. 28–35