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Egypt: Religions & Peoples
INTRODUCTION
1. Political situation
2. Economy
3. Health & Education
4. Religions & Peoples
5. History
| RELIGIONS |
Islam
|
64,600,000 |
90% |
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Sunni
|
64,600,000 |
90% |
Christianity
|
7,300,000 |
10% |
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Coptic
|
6,500,000 |
9% |
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Greek Orth.
|
350,000 |
0.5% |
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Armenian Orth.
|
7,000 |
<0.1% |
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Syrian Orth.
|
1,000 |
<0.1% |
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Protestants
|
200,000 |
0.3% |
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Roman Cath.
|
7,000 |
<0.1% |
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Armenian Cath.
|
1,200 |
<0.1% |
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Coptic Cath.
|
210,000 |
0.3% |
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Chaldean
|
500 |
<0.1% |
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Maronite
|
5,000 |
<0.1% |
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Melkite Greek
|
7,000 |
<0.1% |
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Syrian Cath.
|
2,000 |
<0.1% |
Baha'i
|
6,000 |
<0.1% |
Judaism
|
800 |
<0.1% |
| ETHNIC GROUPS |
Egyptians/Arabs
|
71,000,000 |
99% |
Berbers
|
300,000 |
0.4% |
Nubians
|
300,000 |
0.4% |
Europeans
|
200,000 |
0.3% |
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RELIGIONS
Egypt is predominantly Muslim, covering about 90% of the population, while Christians represent about 10% (official figures put it as low as 3%) of the population.
Of the Ancient Egyptian religion no adherents still exist. Practically all Muslims are Sunni. The Christians are mainly Copts, divided into two groups, the one having close organizational ties to the Roman Catholic Church. There are other small Christian groups, standard Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, and Armenian Orthodox, in Alexandria and Cairo, whose adherents are mainly descendants of Italian, Greek, and Armenian immigrants. There are also some few, small Jewish communities.
PEOPLES
Except from small pure Berber populations in the west and Nubians in the south, the population of Egypt is a mixture of principally Egyptians and Arabs, but also with some Nubian and Berber blood.
As Egypt has always been an international country, mixture of races has been going on continually for at least 6,000 years. Hence, it is hard to point to any form of original Egyptian race or races. But we can clearly assume that the amount of Arab blood is quite little compared to the Egyptian, although Arabs had a strong impact on the Egyptians, bringing about a change in their language and cultural identification. Today's Egyptians consider themselves as Arabs, as well as direct descendants of the Ancient Egyptians. Both ideas are correct.
Egyptians become gradually darker in skin color the further south one goes in the country, shaped by contact with negroid peoples from the Sudanese area.
People belonging to the Coptic church are also slightly different from the rest of the Egyptians in racial terms. The Copts are normally considered as the group that is least mixed with invading peoples, at least since the Muslim era started in 7th century.
Jews have mainly avoided intermarriage with other groups in recent centuries, but they speak the same Egyptian Arabic language as everyone else.
The Berbers living in the west (Siwa oasis, the oases west of the Nile and along the coast west of Alexandria), primarily speak Arabic, but Berber language is still strong in Siwa.
Most Nubians in the south have now been Arabized in language and culture, and consider themselves mainly as Arabs, even if they racially are not. A large minority of them still, however, do speak the Nubian language.
© Copyright 1996-2008 LookLex Ltd. All rights reserved
By: Tore Kjeilen
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