Religion

Main article: Religion in Egypt

Religion plays a central role in most Egyptians' lives, as visitors to the country quickly discover. The rolling calls to prayer that are heard five times a day have the informal effect of regulating the pace of everything from business to entertainment.

Cairo is famous for its numerous mosque minarets and church towers.

Unfortunately, this religious landscape has been marred by a record of religious extremism, most recently witnessed in a 16 December 2006 judgment of the Supreme Administrative Council of Egypt which has insisted on a clear demarcation between recognized religions" —Islam, Christianity and Judaism—and all other religious beliefs—thus effectively delegitimatizing and forbidding practice of all but these aforementioned religions.

This judgment has lead to the requirement for communities to either commit perjury or be subjected to denial of identification cards.Egypt is predominantly Muslim, at approximately 90% of the population, with the majority being adherents of the Sunni branch of Islam

A significant number of Muslim Egyptians also follow native Sufi orders,[59] and a minority of Shi'a. Christians represent about 10% of the population, more than 95% of whom belong to the native Coptic Orthodox Church. Other native Egyptian Christians are adherents of the Coptic Catholic Church, the Coptic Evangelical Church and various Coptic Protestant denominations. Non-native Christian communities are largely found in the urban regions of Alexandria and Cairo, and are members of the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, the Maronite Church, the Armenian Catholic Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, or the Syriac Orthodox Church.

According to the Constitution of Egypt, any new legislation must at least implicitly agree with Islamic laws. The mainstream Hanafi school of Sunni Islam is largely organised by the state, through Wizaret Al-Awkaf (Ministry of Religious Affairs). Al-Awkaf controls all mosques and overviews Muslim clerics. Imams are trained in Imam vocational schools and at Al-Azhar University. The department supports Sunni Islam and has commissions authorised to give Fatwa judgements on Islamic issues.

Egypt hosts two major religious institutions. Al-Azhar University (Arabic: ) is the oldest Islamic institution of higher studies (founded around 970 A.D) and considered by many to be the oldest extant university. The Coptic Orthodox Church headed by the Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of Saint Mark attests to Egypt's a strong Christian heritage.

It has a following of approximately 15 million Christians worldwide; affiliated sister churches are located in Armenia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, India, Lebanon and Syria. Religious freedom in Egypt is hampered to varying degrees by extremist Islamist groups and by discriminatory and restrictive government policies. Being the largest religious minority in Egypt, Coptic Christians are the most negatively affected community. Copts have faced increasing marginalization after the 1952 coup d'état led by Gamal Abdel Nasser. Until recently, Christians were required to obtain presidential approval for even minor repairs in churches.

Although the law was eased in 2005 by handing down the authority of approval to the governors, Copts continue to face many obstacles in building new or repairing existing churches. These obstacles are not found in building mosques.

In addition, Copts complain of being minimally represented in law enforcement, state security and public office, and of being discriminated against in the workforce on the basis of their religion.[62] The Coptic community, as well as several human rights activists and intellectuals (such as Saad Eddin Ibrahim and Tarek Heggy), maintain that the number of Christians occupying government posts is not proportional to the number of Copts in Egypt, who constitute between 10 and 15% of the population in Egypt. Of the 32 cabinet ministers, two are Copts: Finance Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali and Minister of Environment Magued George; and of the 25 local governors, only one is a Copt (in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Qena). However, Copts have demonstrated great success in Egypt's private business sector; Naguib Sawiris, an extremely successful businessman and one of the world's wealthiest 100 people is a Copt.

In 2002, under the Mubarak government, Coptic Christmas (January 7) was recognized as an official holiday. Nevertheless, the Coptic community has occasionally been the target of hate crimes and physical assaults. The most significant was the 2000-2001 El Kosheh attacks , in which 21 Copts and 1 Muslim were killed.

A 2006 attack on three churches in Alexandria left one dead and 17 injured, although the attack was perpetrated by a lone wolf. Egypt was once home to one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. Egyptian Jews, who were mostly Karaites, partook of all aspects of Egypt's social, economic and political life; one of the most ardent Egyptian nationalists, Yaqub Sanu' (Abu Naddara), was a Jew, as were famous musician Dawoud Husni, popular singer Leila Mourad, and prominent filmmaker Togo Mizrahi.

For a while, Jews from across the Ottoman Empire and Europe were attracted to Egypt due to the relative harmony that characterized the local religious landscape in the 19th and early 20th centuries. After the 1956 Suez Crisis, a great number of Jews were expelled by Gamal Abdel Nasser, many of whom holding official Egyptian citizenship. Their Egyptian citizenship was revoked and their property was confiscated. A steady stream of migration of Egyptian Jews followed, reaching a peak after the Six-Day War with Israel in 1967. Today, Jews in Egypt number less than 500.

On December 16, 2006, only after one hearing, the Supreme Administrative Council of Egypt ruled against the Bahá'ís, stating that the government may not recognize the Bahá'í Faith in official identification documents.

There are Egyptians who identify as atheist and agnostic, but their numbers are largely unknown as openly advocating such positions risks legal sanction on the basis of apostasy (if a citizen takes the step of suing the 'apostating' person, though not automatically by the general prosecutor).

In 2000, an openly atheist Egyptian writer, who called for the establishment of a local association for atheists, was tried on charges of insulting Islam in four of his books.

While freedom of religion is guaranteed by the Egyptian constitution, according to Human Rights Watch, "Egyptians are able to convert to Islam generally without difficulty, but Muslims who convert to Christianity face difficulties in getting new identity papers and some have been arrested for allegedly forging such documents. The Coptic community, however, takes pains to prevent conversions from Christianity to Islam due to the ease with which Christians can often become Muslim. Public officials, being conservative themselves, intensify the complexity of the legal procedures required to recognize the religion change as required by law.

Security agencies claim that such conversions from Islam to Christianity (or occasionally vice versa) may stir social unrest, and therefore take steps to prevent it from happening sometimes by detaining the subjects.[70] Recently, a Cairo administrative court denied 45 citizens the right to obtain identity papers documenting their reversion to Christianity after converting to Islam.

Source: Wikipedia