I was born in The Netherlands and raised by two loving parents. My father was quiet and intellectual, and inspired me to love reading and thinking. My mother was born and raised in Indonesia, then a Dutch colony, and was exuberant and social in nature. I fondly remember the frequent family gatherings in our house, where we would all eat, drink, dance and celebrate well into the night,  in a way that Dutch families definitely didn’t. I was raised with a mixture of western and eastern influences, and I only realized this fully after I started visiting Egypt frequently since 2017.

In my twenties, I studied philosophy, wrote a PhD thesis on the philosophy of science, and decided to leave the academic world after finishing it. I delved into the area of spirituality, and after doing odd jobs for some years I started my own practice as a spiritual/philosophical therapist. I wrote a number of books on spirituality and started to offer workshops and retreats in different countries around the world.

In 2017 I discovered Egypt and fell irrevocably in love with the country, both with the ancient culture, the magnificent temples and tombs, and the people, with their irresistible mixture of passion, wit and hospitality. On top of that, the strong and rough  presence of the desert and the intensity of blue skies and bright sun always bring me back to the essence of life.

For more information on my spiritual work, books and personal background, see www.jeshua.net

O Mother Egypt, O Bahiya
You with the headscarf and the gallabiya
Time is young and so are you,
He’s on his way out while you are coming,
Stepping your way over hardship,
You have passed through so many days and nights.
Your endurance is as it was
And your smile is just the same.
You smile at the morning and it smiles back,
After a night and an evening
The sun comes up and greets you,
Dashing and girlish,
O Bahiya

Ahmad Fuad Nigm