Egyptian-American tycoon Ahmed Bahjat laid to rest in Egypt

Egyptian-American mogul Ahmed Bahjat has been laid to rest in his ancestral home of Egypt following a protracted battle with an unspecified illness.

Bahjat was buried on May 28, the same day his body arrived home from the United States. Funeral prayers were held for the businessman in the Al-Mosheer Tantawy Mosque in the Fifth Settlement District.

Gulf News recently quoted his family as saying that he passed away while on a medical trip in the United States. He died on May 21 at the age of 70.

According to his family, the late tycoon loved his homeland and focused on investments to “serve the nation and its people.”

Bahjat is the founder of Egypt’s Bahgat Group. The conglomerate has interests in media, real estate, electronics and household appliance manufacturing, furniture, and medical equipment. It has a footprint throughout the wider Middle East.

Significant projects

Dreamland: Bahjat is credited with building the first gated residence in Egypt, named Dreamland, in the suburban October 6 City near the Egyptian capital of Cairo. It is a private urban development located 17 kilometers west of the city, covering about 2,000 acres of land, not far from the Pyramids of Giza.

Dream Park: Bahjat built Dream Park, the largest amusement park in the Middle East.

Dream TV: Bahjat is the founder of Dream TV (Channel I &II), Egypt’s first private satellite TV station. He was the first to respond to the Egyptian government’s initiative to open private satellite TV to select producers based in a designated “free zone” in Media Production City, a media and information complex near Cairo.

After moving to the United States to further his studies, Bahjat invented and produced electronic compasses that help specify prayer times for Muslims, guiding them wherever they are to know Qibla (the direction toward Mecca). He also founded companies that manufactured electronic appliances at affordable rates.