Christians versus Muslims in Modern Egypt: The Century-Long Struggle for Coptic Equality

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The Copts of Egypt are the largest Christian minority in the Middle East. In recent years they have often figured in the news as victims of bloody attacks by Islamic militants.
Christians versus Muslims in Modern Egypt is the first study of Christian identity politics in contemporary Egypt. S.S. Hasan begins by looking at how the Coptic generation of the 1940s and 1950s remembered, recovered, and imagined the ancient history of Christianity in Egypt in order to weld the Copts into a unified nation, resistant to the growing encroachments of Islam. She argues that this interpretation of history, in which Egyptian martyrs figure prominently, made possible the rebirth of the Coptic church and community-in much the same way as the preservation of Hebrew and the historical memory of Jewish tribulations served the purpose of national reconstruction of the state of Israel.
The bulk of the book focuses on the period beginning with the consecration of Pope Shenuda in 1971. Drawing on extensive interviews with church leaders, clergy, and others Hasan finds that during this period the responsibilities of the church for the welfare of the Coptic community grew immeasurably. Church leaders arrogated to themselves the exclusive right to the political representation of their community and reconceived their role from the narrow care of souls to the promotion of economic and cultural efflorescence of the entire Coptic community. The leaders of this revival, she shows, have nurtured a potent and distinctive religious culture with a sense of communal pride and identity in an environment in which they were increasingly exposed to discrimination and outright hostility.

Christians versus Muslims in Modern Egypt: The Century-Long Struggle for Coptic Equality Review

The unfortunately acrimonious title of Hasan's work should not detract from the genuinely sound and insightful analysis of the national and church politics of Coptic identity in 20th century Egypt. This is a genuinely unique work that should be read by every serious student of the Mid East.The essential thesis of this rests on the assertion that in Coptic experience, traditional and church hierarchy proved to be dynamic resources for modernizing the community. Such an assertion is highly counter-intuitive, but Hasan demonstrates with seemingly effortless skill just how well this paradigm fits the Coptic experience. For her, Coptic modernity appears as both a competitor with the modernization project of the Egyptian state and an Egyptian manifestation of the turn-of-the-century politicization of ethnic identities.This book almost entirely focuses on the founding generation of the Sunday School Movement, which took the reigns of public church leadership vis- -vis the state from the rich, westernized elites whose influence the Free Officer coup destroyed, and how the subsequent generation had to and continues to learn how to negotiate its legacies, rivalries and politics. Here, the perspicacity concerning Church and lay politics becomes demonstrably profound-exhibiting a level of familiarity only made possible by years of experience. Her insights in this regard are perhaps the most valuable.Moreover, controversial topics are addressed with unflinching transparency. Thus, neither does she neglect to address pressing issues of religious discrimination, disenfranchisement and marginalization facing the Copts in an increasingly Islamicized Egypt, nor intra-ecclesiastical problems such as the sometimes intractable authoritarianism of the church clerisy, nor the often immiserated position of women, etc. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Report abuse | PermalinkComment Comment

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