New PDF release: Christians versus Muslims in Modern Egypt: The Century-Long

The Copts of Egypt are the biggest Christian minority within the heart East. lately they've got frequently figured within the information as sufferers of bloody assaults by way of Islamic militants.
Christians as opposed to Muslims in smooth Egypt is the 1st examine of Christian id politics in modern Egypt. S.S. Hasan starts off by way of taking a look at how the Coptic iteration of the Nineteen Forties and Nineteen Fifties remembered, recovered, and imagined the traditional historical past of Christianity in Egypt with the intention to weld the Copts right into a unified state, proof against the becoming encroachments of Islam. She argues that this interpretation of historical past, during which Egyptian martyrs determine prominently, made attainable the rebirth of the Coptic church and community-in a lot an analogous method because the upkeep of Hebrew and the historic reminiscence of Jewish tribulations served the aim of nationwide reconstruction of the nation of Israel.
The bulk of the publication makes a speciality of the interval starting with the consecration of Pope Shenuda in 1971. Drawing on wide interviews with church leaders, clergy, and others Hasan unearths that in this era the obligations of the church for the welfare of the Coptic neighborhood grew immeasurably. Church leaders arrogated to themselves the particular correct to the political illustration in their group and reconceived their position from the slim care of souls to the merchandising of financial and cultural efflorescence of the whole Coptic neighborhood. The leaders of this revival, she indicates, have nurtured a powerful and exact spiritual tradition with a feeling of communal delight and identification in an atmosphere within which they have been more and more uncovered to discrimination and outright hostility.