Mohammed El Shafie, Visually Impaired Fresh Graduate of AUC, Joins Harvard Law School

CAIRO – 9 October 2017: Entering his first year at Harvard Law School despite his visual impairment, Mohammed El Shafie uses his determination and perseverance to look to the future with fervor, hoping to overcome all the challenges he faces, while hoping to change the world with education.

El Shafie received the HSBC Bank Egypt Public School Scholarship and became a philosophy graduate from the American University in Cairo (AUC).

At first, he started applications to law school in the university, but he abandoned that idea for philosophy; observing the great value of studying the theories that form the fundamentals of political thought.

After he had finished his studies in philosophy, he was accepted into Harvard Law School; aiming to fuse theory and practicality of philosophy through the study of the written law to combine law and philosophy theoretically and practically.

His dream was “to avert the danger of terrorism by establishing a genuine philosophical foundation for a true understanding between East and West,” as he hopes to bring the Islamic and western worlds closer to one another; he noted during President Francis J. Ricciardone’s inauguration.

Shafie founded a reading society in which participants from AUC and other American universities meet to discuss the classics of Western and Judeo-Islamic political philosophy.

Besides his scholarly work, he participated in extracurricular activities such as writing for the AUC Times, helping as a radio program manager, and regularly participating in the Philosophy Club.

He also helped increase the number of Braille translations for visually impaired people as he volunteered with Bookshare, which works on scanning and proofreading books for Braille translation.

Shafie also worked with the Egyptian Parents Association for the Visually Impaired. He taught Braille reading and writing, Braille music, adaptive technology, Microsoft Word, and English in different programs.

AUC bade farewell to seven outstanding graduates who have had to overcome challenges due to various physical, psychological or learning disabilities, among them visually impaired Hadeer El Ashhab, Ahmed El Nadi, El Shafie, Sara Tarek Hussein and Eslam Ahmed.