Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Monday awarded President Donald Trump the “Order of the Nile,” the highest honor of the modern Egyptian state.
Sisi’s office said the award was in recognition of Trump’s “significant contributions to promoting peace, resolving conflicts, and most recently, his pivotal role in ending the war in Gaza.”
“I’m deeply honored to receive from you Egypt’s highest state honor, the Order of the Nile. The Nile is so beautiful, so magnificent,” Trump responded, speaking from the peace summit hosted by Egypt in the city of Sharm el-Sheikh.
The Nile is indeed quite a sight, and so is the award named after it. The Egyptian presidential office describes it as follows:
The Order of the Nile is a pure gold collar consisting of three square gold unites on which there are Pharaonic symbols. The first unit resembles the idea of protecting the state against the evils, the second one resembles prosperity and happiness brought by the Nile and the third one refers to wealth and endurance. Units are connected to one another by a circular gold flower decorated with turquoise and ruby.
Hanging from the collar is a hexagonal pendant decorated with flowers of the Pharaonic style, and turquoise and ruby gems. In the middle of the pendant, there is a protruding symbol representing the Nile that brings together the North (represented by the Papyrus) and the South (represented by the Lotus).
The Order of the Nile, sometimes known in Egypt as the Collar of the Nile, was established in 1915 by Hussein Kamel, the first Sultan of Egypt in almost four hundred years. Egypt was a protectorate of the British Empire at the time, having been conquered and ruled by the Ottoman Empire for centuries beforehand, with a brief interlude of occupation by Imperial France.
Sultan Kamel had a brief but industrious reign, surviving two assassination attempts but then dying of enigmatic causes only three years after his appointment as Egypt’s national leader. He established several awards to recognize excellent service to the Egyptian state, which became an independent monarchy in 1922 and a republic in 1953.
The Order of the Nile was initially conceived as a way to reward British subjects and Egyptian citizens who made exceptional contributions to Egypt, but its charter – revised when Egypt became a republic in 1953 – states that it can be granted to people from any country. Most of the recipients have been heads of state, but some were lower-ranked officials, private citizens, entertainers, and athletes.
FILE/Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (R) bestow King Salman of Saudi Arabia (L) with the Order of the Nile medal, Egypt’s highest state honor, during their meeting in the Egyptian Presidential Palace, Cairo, Egypt, 08 April 2016. (Egyptian Presidency/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Notable previous recipients of the award include King Hussein of Jordan, Emperor Akihito of Japan, King Saud bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia, President Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the previous American president to receive the honor, Jimmy Carter.
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who negotiated the landmark Camp David Accords with Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1979, was also awarded the Order of the Nile for his efforts, while Begin was not. To date, the award has never been given to an Israeli citizen.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Monday that his country would present President Trump with its own highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Honor.
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