How Did “Rain Wherever You Want” Become “Never Possible”?!
(Translated)
Al-Rayah Newspaper - Issue 602 - 03/06/2026
By: Ustadh Mahmoud El-Leithy*

Egyptian President Sisi said, “We don't have enough water or land for that... Don’t imagine that Egypt can achieve self-sufficiency in agricultural production; it's absolutely impossible” (Cairo24). This statement by Sisi effectively ended nearly a decade of rosy promises and massive propaganda projects, officially ushering in an era of engineered frustration and deficit management. The regime's attempt to portray the current crisis as a geo-biological inevitability imposed by water scarcity and the narrowness of the Nile Valley, coupled with a population explosion, is a flawed and biased interpretation that seeks to evade political and economic accountability. Egypt's water and geographic reality, and its descent below the critical water poverty line, was not a sudden surprise to the authorities. Instead, it is a well-known scientific and historical fact, documented in the Ministry of Irrigation's literature since the 1980s. The real question this strategic retreat raises is not about the limits of nature, but instead about the adequacy of the planning will and the degree of independence of the political decision-making that managed these resources, or rather, squandered them.

The multifaceted manifestations of failure become apparent when a direct and objective comparison is made between this disheartening discourse and the structural decisions made by the same regime over the past years. In 2015, 64 billion Egyptian pounds of people's savings—more than 8 billion US dollars at the time—were collected and poured entirely into a dry excavation and the expansion of a parallel branch of the Suez Canal to boost morale and buy temporary political legitimacy, instead of directing those enormous sums toward building independent productive assets. Had this money been allocated to the water sector, it would have been sufficient to build approximately eighty giant seawater desalination plants along Egypt's coasts, producing 3 billion cubic meters of fresh drinking water annually, enough to completely relieve the burden on the Nile River and redirect its entire share to agriculture. This sum was also sufficient to modernize flood irrigation systems and convert the entire old agricultural land in the Delta and Valley to smart drip irrigation, saving approximately 15 billion cubic meters of water wasted annually through evaporation and seepage. This water saving alone would have been enough to reverse the deficit equation, allowing for the cultivation of millions of additional acres with strategic crops such as wheat and corn, and significantly improving food security indicators instead of lamenting the scarcity of essential resources.

This failure extends beyond local planning to become intertwined with disastrous geopolitical concessions orchestrated by Sisi, most notably the signing of the Declaration of Principles Agreement on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in Khartoum in March 2015. This agreement granted Ethiopia international and legal legitimacy it had lacked for decades, opening doors to financing, dam construction, and the imposition of a fait accompli policy of unilateral filling. This effectively turned Egypt’s sole lifeline into a tap controlled by foreign powers. Natural challenges have thus been transformed into tools of deliberate siege, as the agricultural and political bureaucracy refuses to engage in the battle for technological liberation by localizing research on short-duration, drought-resistant seeds and seedlings, and shackles traditional farmers with austerity measures. Meanwhile, the occupying Jewish entity in Palestine ranks 24th globally on the food security index and is nearly 100% self-sufficient in vegetables, poultry, and dairy products, despite sharing the same desert landscape and severe water scarcity as Egypt. This is due to its early strategic reliance on recycling 90% of wastewater and employing precision irrigation.

The comparison between the limitations of the modern nation-state, confined within the narrow borders of Sykes-Picot and the open geography of Islam, explains the structural dimension of the contemporary crisis. When Khaleefah (Caliph) Harun al-Rashid addressed the clouds, saying, (أمطري حيث شئتِ فخراجكِ آتيني) “Rain wherever you will, for your kharaj (land tax) will come to me,” it was not mere rhetorical flourish, but instead an expression of a vast independent territory that transcended regional customs and political boundaries. This huge territory controlled rivers from their sources to their mouths, and its fertile lands—those of Sudan, Iraq, and Egypt—were integrated with financial surpluses and abundant rainfall. The dismantling of this geography and the confinement of Egypt within a narrow strip surrounded by deserts has rendered self-sufficiency impossible from a purely nationalistic perspective. Current regimes exploit this nationalistic confinement to instill a psychology of fear and dependency, convincing people that submitting to the conditions of international financial institutions and selling off assets and ports to secure dollars is the only inevitable path to survival and securing basic necessities. In the face of this impasse, the alternative civilizational project offered by Hizb ut Tahrir, which seeks to establish a Khilafah Rashidah (Rightly Guided Caliphate) on the Method of Prophethood, emerges as a preliminary model striving to break this vicious cycle of dependency. The Hizb’s draft constitution prohibits the neglect of land for any reason beyond three years, and implements strict Shariah rulings that reclaim land from monopolists, and grant it to those who cultivate it, while integrating human and financial resources and wealth into a unified Islamic geopolitical space that ends the curse of colonialist borders. Furthermore, the Hizb's industrial vision does not stop at technological stagnation but is based on imposing a policy of independent heavy industry, and manufacturing machinery and engines locally, to serve all industrial sectors, including agriculture and irrigation, and linking experimental education curricula to biotechnology research in seeds and desalination. These independent solutions are impossible to implement under the current regime, but they become inevitable alternatives for an ideological state that refuses subservience to the disbelieving colonialist.

The deeper message underlying Sisi’s recent speech goes beyond simply listing figures. It is a veiled threat of punishment to a people who once dared to think of reclaiming their power through their revolution on January 25th, an attempt to break their will by making them believe they lack the means for an independent life, and that their aspirations must not extend beyond a meager existence steeped in debt and compromise. The natural and simple solution to food security lay in the vast expanse of historical integration, where resources flowed freely, yielding their bounty wherever they pleased. However, in this current era of decline, instead of overcoming obstacles through scientific innovation and courageous, independent will, the regime chose to exploit geographical determinism to justify failure, entrench dependency, and impose an “I will show you only what I see” mentality on an Ummah meant to forget its capacity for meeting challenges and forging its own future.

O People of Egypt Al-Kinanah (The Quiver of Arrows), O Descendants of Conquerors and Eminent Ulema! This dark reality that is being imposed upon you is not an inevitable fate, but instead the result of shackling you with imaginary borders and subservient policies that have deprived you of independent control over your land and waters. Escape from this dark tunnel will not be by surrendering to speeches of helplessness, but instead by consciously and courageously rallying around the Ummah’s strategic and ideological project adopted by Hizb ut Tahrir to establish the Khilafah Rashidah on the Method of the Prophethood, the state that integrates energies, dismantles nationalistic borders, and restores to the Ummah its prestige and its food security and political independence.

This great project is the only lifeline for the youth and the aspirations of the rising new generation. It will rescue them from the whirlpools of frustration and loss, instilling in them a profound sense of belonging to the noble creed of Islam, and fill them with pride in belonging to an Ummah that seeks its glory only through Allah (swt) and His Messenger (saw). So, rise up to support your Deen and reclaim your usurped authority, so that the sun of revival may shine once more upon your pure land, and the Ummah may return to being a leader, not a follower, and a guide, not an imitator.

* Member of the Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah Egypt