Mohamed Riad: a contemporary Egyptian geographer, recipient of the State Appreciation Prize. He is considered one of the most prominent professors of political geography, and has great scientific, intellectual and academic contributions through his research, lectures, articles and books.
Muhammad Riyad Ahmad Riyad was born in Cairo in 1927, obtained a BA in geography in 1949, and continued his studies until he completed a diploma in Sudanese studies from Fouad I University (currently Cairo University) in 1951, and then obtained a doctorate in anthropology from Vienna University in 1956 After that, he returned to Egypt to work as a geography teacher at the Faculty of Arts at Ain Shams University.
The academic activity of Dr. Muhammad Riyad has been active. He toured several Egyptian and Arab universities, including: Beirut Arab University and Qatar University. He also participated in many international conferences in geography and anthropology in Austria, France, Britain, America and Canada.
In addition to his interest in geography and its overlap with economics and politics, its relationship to history and its reflection on the form of urbanization and the characteristics of the population; Riad paid special attention to Egyptian issues, spending a lot of effort and time to research and confirm the features of national identity, and analyze developmental and geopolitical problems related to the Egyptian reality.
Perhaps one of the most important writings of Dr. Muhammad Riyad is his book co-authored by his wife, Dr. Kawthar Abdel-Rasoul, and they called it: “A Journey in the Time of Nubia”, and it is one of the most important books dealing with the Egyptian Nuba. The area before the displacement of the Nubians from it. Riyad has many other books, including: “General Origins in Political Geography and Geopolitics”, “Africa: A Study of the Continent’s Constituents”, “Egypt: The Fabric of People, Place and Time”, “Man: A Study in Gender and Civilization”, and “Transport Geography”. Economic geography and bioproduction geography.
In addition to this, about 250 research papers in Arabic and English on economic, social, developmental and political topics concerned with Egyptian, African and Middle Eastern affairs, as well as dozens of articles published in Al-Ahram and Al-Masry Al-Youm newspapers, Al-Hilal and International Politics magazines. His articles dealt with many pressing contemporary issues; Where he adopts realistic and radical solutions, similar to his call to develop the Suez Canal area into an industrial and commercial region that contributes effectively to the Egyptian economy. Dr. Muhammad Riyad won the State Appreciation Award for Social Sciences in 2017.