Coptic identity

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Copts (Coptic: ⲚⲓⲢⲉⲙ̀ⲛⲭⲏⲙⲓ ni.Remenkīmi, literally: Egyptians) are the native inhabitants of Egypt, and the direct descendants of the Ancient Egyptians whose ancestors embraced Christianity in the first centuries.[1][2][3] After the Arab conquest of Egypt, Egyptians who converted to Islam ceased to call themselves by the demonym Copt, and the term became the distinctive name of the Christian minority in Egypt. Coptic Christians lost their majority status in Egypt after the 14th century and the spread of Islam in the entirety of North Africa. Today, Copts form a major ethno-religious group whose origins date back to the Ancient Egyptians.[4] Today, the Coptic Christian population in Egypt is the largest Christian community in the Middle East.[5] Christians represent around 15% to 20% of a population of over 80 million Egyptians,[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] though estimates vary (see Religion in Egypt). Around 95% of them belong to the native Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.[15][16][19] The remaining (around 800,000[17]) are divided between the Coptic Catholic and the Coptic Protestant churches. The question of Coptic identity was never raised before the rise of pan-Arabism under Nasser in the early 1950s. Up to that point, both Egyptian Muslims and Egyptian Christians viewed themselves as only Egyptians without any Arab sentiment.[20] The struggle to maintain this Egyptian identity began as Nasser and his regime tried to impose an Arab identity on the country, and attempted to erase all references to Egypt as a separate and unique entity.[21] Today, Copts and many Egyptian Muslims reject Arab nationalism, emphasizing indigenous Egyptian heritage and culture as well as their own unique ethnicity and genetic makeup, which are completely different from those of the Arabs.[21] Persecution has become pivotal to the Copts' sense of identity.[22] Studies have showed the ancient Egyptians to be genetically intermediary between the populations of Southern Europe and Nubia (two frequently-used reference points).[23] A study of the genetics of Copts has confirmed them to be the most ancient population of Egypt, sharing ancestry with North African and Middle Eastern populations, while being different from the current Egyptian population which is closer to the Arabic population of Qatar.[24] Thus, Copts have a genetic composition that resembles the ancestral Egyptian population, without the present strong Arab influence.[24]

Copts as Egyptians

In Greco-Roman Egypt, the term Copt designated the local population of Egypt, as opposed to the elite group of foreign rulers and settlers (Greeks, Romans, etc.) who came to Egypt from other regions and established prominent empires. The word Copt was then adopted in English in the 17th century, from Neo-Latin Coptus, Cophtus, which is derived from Arabic collective qubṭ, qibṭ قبط "the Copts" with nisba adjective qubṭī, qibṭī قبطي, plural aqbāṭ أقباط; Also quftī, qiftī, Arabic /f/ representing historical Coptic /p/. an Arabisation of the Coptic word kubti (Bohairic) and/or kuptaion (Sahidic). The Coptic word is in turn an adaptation of the Greek Αἰγύπτιος "Egyptian". After the Arab conquest of Egypt, the term Copt became restricted to those Egyptians who remained adhering to the Christian religion.[25] In their own Coptic language, which represents the final stage of the Egyptian language, the Copts referred to themselves as rem en kēme (Sahidic) ⲣⲙⲛⲕⲏⲙⲉ, lem en kēmi (Fayyumic), rem en khēmi (Bohairic) ⲣⲉⲙ̀ⲛⲭⲏⲙⲓ, which literally means "people of Egypt" or "Egyptians"; cf. Egyptian rmṯ n kmt, Demotic rmt n kmỉ. Copts take particular pride in their Egyptian identity. Over the centuries, they have always rejected and fought against other identities that foreign rulers attempted to force upon them, stressing their own Egyptian identity.[26] While an integral part of their society, Copts remained culturally and religiously distinct from their surroundings. Their liturgical language is Coptic, which is the last stage of the development of the Egyptian language. Coptic music is a continuation of ancient Egyptian music, and Coptic culture is considered a continuation of that of Ancient Egypt. For instance, Copts still use the same calendar and months that have been used by their Egyptian forefathers for thousands of years.

Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt

File:GreekEgyptianIlluminatedSaqaraShroud.jpg
An Egyptian man with Anubis
File:Fayum-22.jpg
Faiyum mummy portrait of an Egyptian man with sword belt, Altes Museum

Egypt has always been one of the most populous lands of the ancient Mediterranean world, with a population of at least 3 million Egyptians in the first century BC according to the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus.[27] This large population has been undoubtedly always able to absorb and Egyptianize settlers who came to the country starting in the Third Intermediate Period. The power and distinctiveness of Egyptian culture was such that immigrants rapidly became part of Egyptian society and were often distinguishable only by names, if at all.[28] The Ptolemaic kings who ruled Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great were of Greek origin. They respected the Egyptians and their local religion, and erected many temples for Egyptian gods, such as the Temple of Horus in Edfu and the Temple of Hathor at Dendra.[29] The Ptolemies drained the marshes of the Faiyum to create a new province of cultivatable land, where some Greeks as well as some war prisoners from Syria and Palestine were settled.[30] It is impossible to ascertain the exact number of non native Egyptians during the Hellenistic period because no full population census survives today.[31] While 10% may stand as a very approximate figure for the total immigrant population in Ptolemaic Egypt, including both Greeks and non-Greeks, this figure has been challenged as excessive.[32] The Faiyum mummy portraits reflect the complex synthesis of the predominant Egyptian culture and religion, with that of Hellenistic art, and were attached to sarcophagi of firmly Egyptian character.[33] The dental morphology of the Roman-period Faiyum mummies was compared with that of earlier Egyptian populations, and was found to be "much more closely akin" to that of ancient Egyptians than to Greeks or other European populations.[34][35] Despite the presence of these immigrants and a foreign pharaoh, Egypt remained home primarily to Egyptians, by far the largest group within the population.[36] In fact, most of the rural and urban native population that lived in towns, villages and hamlets the length of the Nile Valley continued their lives little changed during the rule of the Ptolemies.[37] Even in Alexandria, the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt and the largest Greek city outside of Greece, the number of native Egyptians far outnumbered that of Greeks.[38] In numbers and in culture, Egypt remained essentially Egyptian, even as foreign communities were incorporated into the life of the country.[39] Over time, the small numbers of foreigners were integrated into the Egyptian population so that, when finally Rome took control of Egypt in 30 BC, the vast majority of Greeks in Egypt were essentially categorized by the Roman conquerors as Egyptians.[40][41] Egyptians continued to speak and write in their native Egyptian language. Egyptian hieroglyphs were used primarily in formal temple environments, while Egyptian demotic continued as the form more widely used by the people.[42] Demotic, the third phase of development of the Egyptian language, was used by the native Egyptians during the Ptolemaic period in public and private law and administration, in private uses, and as a cultural medium for religious writings and narrative literature.[43] Greek was employed for official administrative and legal purposes.[44] Egyptian Greek is the variety of Greek spoken in Egypt from antiquity until the Arab conquest of Egypt in the 7th century. Egyptian Greek adopted many loanwords from the Egyptian language, and there was a great deal of intracommunity bilingualism in Egypt.[45][46] By the Roman period, the use of Demotic slowly gave way to the fourth and last stage of development of the Egyptian language, known as Coptic, although the use of Demotic remained until the middle of the fifth century AD[47] Coptic was simply the Egyptian language written mainly in Greek letters, with seven Demotic letters representing sounds in Egyptian that did not exist in Greek.[48] It is noteworthy however to remember that Coptic is a term used to describe a script, not a language, and that the Egyptians themselves always called their evolving language Egyptian.[49] The Romans classified the entire population of the Egyptian countryside as "Egyptian".[50] By the time of Roman emperor Caracalla in the 2nd century AD, ethnic Egyptians could be distinguished from Greeks in Egypt only by their speech.[51] The creation of Coptic as a coherent writing system to express the Egyptian language undoubtedly served to cement the distinction between the native population in Egypt and the ruling Byzantine Greeks. The earliest of such Coptic manuscripts date back to the third century AD, and became well established in the fourth century AD.[52] The earliest Coptic texts were not only Christian in nature, but there were also many Manichaean and Gnostic manuscripts in circulation during that period.[53] The most prolific writer in Coptic was Shenoute of Atripe who lived in Upper Egypt in the fourth and fifth centuries. In the period after Shenoute, Coptic writing significantly flourished, and the Coptic language became a rich medium for literary composition, moving closer to official status in Egypt, but not yet reaching it.[54]

Emergence of Coptic Identity

File:Philae Temple of Isis coptic cross 1.JPG
Coptic Cross on a column in the Temple of Philae

In the fourth and fifth centuries AD, the foundations were laid for the divergence in doctrine between the native Christian Church of the Egyptians, and that of the empire. The persecution and exile in the fourth century by emperor Constantine the Great of Athanasius, the native Egyptian patriarch of the Church of Alexandria, became the embodiment of the Egyptian character of the Church in Egypt.[55] The persecution of Athanasius helped to create a type for the later patriarchs of Alexandria, who were repeatedly portrayed as defenders of the truth against outsiders and non-Egyptians.[56] The official schism occurred at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. The council, which condemned, deposed, exiled and replaced the native Egyptian Patriarch of Alexandria Dioscorus I, was rejected by the Egyptian delegation to the council, and by extension by the entirety of the native Egyptian population. As a result of the Council of Chalcedon, the Church of Alexandria, which had jurisdiction over the entire country of Egypt, as well as all of continent of Africa, was divided into a church that accepted the decrees of the council, and one that rejected them. The church that accepted the council, became known as the Chalcedonian church, and survives today as the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria. On the other hand, the church that rejected the council of Chalcedon, to whom the vast majority of the native Egyptians adhered, became the predecessor of the Coptic Orthodox Church. The process of identity-building for the native Egyptians emerged into view most clearly in the period after the reign of emperor Justinian I in the sixth century AD.[57] That process became the foundation for the evolution of a distinctive Egyptian character for the Coptic Orthodox Church, with its distancing from the empire's official Chalcedonian Orthodoxy and its distinctive Greek character.[58] In that narrative, the early centuries of the Egyptian Church were retrospectively interpreted as the start of a continuous development of what was to become the Coptic Church.[59] During that period and until the Arab invasion of Egypt in the seventh century, the Byzantine emperors repeatedly deposed and exiled native Egyptian non-Chalcedonian patriarchs of Alexandria, and imposed pro-Chalcedonian ones, most of whom were non-Egyptian. This was never appreciated locally in Egypt, affording proof that the Chalcedonians were mere pawns of the emperor.[60] Over the years, because of what they had construed as persecution of the imperial authorities, the Egyptians hardened their position and rejected all conciliatory efforts that fell short of a full condemnation of the Council of Chalcedon.[61]

Egyptian Liberal Age

Main article: Liberalism in Egypt

Egypt's struggle for independence from both the Ottoman Empire and Britain was marked by secular Egyptian nationalism, also referred to as Pharaonism. When the Egyptian nationalist leader Saad Zaghlul met the Arab delegates at Versailles in 1918, he insisted that their struggles for statehood were not connected, stressing that the problem of Egypt was an Egyptian problem and not an Arab one.[62] Egyptian nationalism rose to prominence in the 1920s and 1930s. It looked to Egypt's pre-Islamic past and argued that Egypt was part of a larger Mediterranean civilization. This ideology stressed the role of the Nile River and the Mediterranean Sea. It became the dominant mode of expression of Egyptian anti-colonial activists of the pre- and inter-war periods. There was no place for an Arab component in the Egyptian personality at that time, and Egyptians had no Arab orientation as they saw themselves as Egyptians regardless of religion.[63] Foreigners visiting Egypt noted that Egyptians did not possess any Arab sentiment in the first half of the 20th century. As one Arab nationalist of the time put it "Egyptians did not accept that Egypt was a part of the Arab lands, and would not acknowledge that the Egyptian people were part of the Arab nation."[64] Many of the champions of Egyptian twentieth century liberalism were Copts, such as Salama Moussa and Makram Ebeid.

Rise of Arab nationalism

Arab nationalism began to gain grounds in Egypt in the 1940s following efforts by Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese intellectuals.[65] Nevertheless, by the end of the 1940s and even after the establishment of the Arab League, historian H. S. Deighton was still writing that "Egyptians are not Arabs, and both they and the Arabs are aware of this fact".[20] It was not until the Nasser era starting in the 1950s – more than a decade later – that Arab nationalism, and by extension Arab socialism, became a state policy imposed on the Egyptians by the new dictatorship. Under Nasser, Egypt united with Syria to form the United Arab Republic in 1958, then became known as the Arab Republic of Egypt in 1961. The Egyptians' attachment to Arabism, however, was particularly questioned after the 1967 Six-Day War. Nasser's successor Sadat, both through public policy and his peace initiative with Israel, revived an uncontested Egyptian orientation, unequivocally asserting that only Egypt and Egyptians were his responsibility. The terms "Arab", "Arabism" and "Arab unity", save for the new official name, became conspicuously absent.[66] (See also Egyptian Liberal age and Egyptian Republic.)

Copts and Arab identity

File:Coptic cross.svg
Coptic Orthodox Cross with traditional Coptic script reading: 'Jesus Christ, the Son of God'

While some non-Coptic authors claim that Copts in Egypt have an Arab identity while Copts in the West tend to identify as "non-Arab",[67][68] other non-Coptic scholars disagree, stating that "Copts are not Arabs" and that they predate the Arabs' arrival to Egypt [69][70] They viewed Arabs as invaders and foreigners, and glorified the struggles of their ancestors against the Arab invaders between the 7th and the 9th centuries AD. Indubitably, the struggle against these foreign ideologies centered around the Coptic language:

The Coptic language provides a Copt with an identity that spells out an impressive commentary upon the character of such person. It exemplifies in him an unyielding spirit that was tried and came out victorious. A spirit that had to endure endless attempts by those that ruled Egypt for the past 2300 years to replace such language with that of their own. If such was achieved then they can subject the Copts to cultural and religious slavery that would forever made them subservient to such foreign rulers. It was attempted first by the Greeks, through their Hellenizing approach. Then it was continued along the same principles by the successive Arab and Muslim dynasties that ruled Egypt since the 7th century AD. The significance of such character can also inspire the Coptic youth to fight off the many harmful pressures, whether in spirit or in body, that are facing them in this turbulent Society of ours.[71]

In addition, some Copts resisted Arab nationalism by stressing their pre-Arab identity. They saw themselves as the direct descendants of the ancient Egyptians, and their language as a bridge linking the Copts to their Ancient Egyptian roots and their civilization that span over 6,000 years.[71] The strongest statement regarding Coptic identity came in 2008 from a prominent Coptic bishop, namely Bishop Thomas of Cusae and Meir, who gave the following speech at the Hudson Institute:

What makes a person change the identity of his own nation and shift the focus of his identity from Egypt to become "the Arabs", even though ethnically he/she is the same person? The Copts have been always focused on Egypt; it's our identity, it's our nation, it's our land, it's our language, it's our culture. But when some of the Egyptians converted to Islam, their focus changed away from looking to their own [language and culture]. They started to look to the Arabians, and Arabia became their main focus. So the focus here has changed and they would no longer be called "Copts". If you come to a Coptic person and tell him that he's an Arab, that's offensive. We are not Arabs, we are Egyptians. I am very happy to be an Egyptian and I would not accept being "Arab" because ethnically I am not. I speak Arabic. Politically now, I am part of a country that was Arabized and politically I belong to an Arabic country but that doesn't make a person Arab. If a person believes he is an Arab, his main focus is the pan-Arab area, and he no longer belongs to the Egyptian nation. You are either in or out; either you belong or you don't. And this is a big dilemma that is happening for the Copts who kept their Christianity, or rather their identity as Egyptians with their own culture, and who are trying to keep the language, the music, and the calendar of the Copts. That means that the culture of Ancient Egypt is still carried on. A process of Arabization has been ongoing in this country for many centuries, since the 7th century. At the same time Islamization as well is a dilemma that started and is still carrying a lot of the problems. [...] So when we hear the word "Copt", that doesn't only mean "Christian", it means "Egyptian".

What makes an Egyptian become a Copt, and an Egyptian not become a Copt? Simply, this is the shift that has happened in Egypt since the Arab invasion of Egypt. Today when you look at a Copt, you don't see only a Christian, but you see an Egyptian who is trying to keep his identity versus another imported identity that is working on him. And that means if these two processes are still actively working till now, it has never stopped because Egypt has not yet in its own mind become completely Islamized or Arabized. That means the process [of Arabization] is still ongoing... You can't study the Coptic language, the native language of the land, in any public school in Egypt. That's not allowed, although we can teach in our public schools any other language. You have a lot of schools that teach English, French, German, Spanish and Greek, but never Coptic. Why? Because that clashes with the process of Arabization. And this is a very dangerous attitude. The cultural heritage of Egypt has been taken away. [Thus], the Copts suddenly felt that they have a responsibility to carry on their own culture and continue it and to fight for it. Yes, we are still fighting very much for our strong heritage of Egypt because we love our heritage and we want to keep it. And that means that if you try to teach your language in a public school, that would not be the right way to do it, so that means that the Church will carry the responsibility to take in this heritage and work with it, keeping it in a very good nursery till the time would come when openness and good thinking would occur, when this country will come back to its own roots and lift it up. But, until then we have to keep it in a nursery, in a church. We don't want to keep it in, we don't want to isolate it, but we cannot throw it away so nobody will take care of it. That's why we keep it. This is not withdrawal. We could say that this is keeping the heritage in a nursery till the time comes when it will be open and serve the entire Egyptian community. So the word "Copt" here is not only religious, but it has cultural import.[72]

Bishop Thomas' words gained widespread approval within the Coptic community. One other Coptic bishop, namely Bishop Picenti of Helwan and Massarah commented on the issue saying:

If one reconsiders Bishop Thomas' words, they can discover that he was not wrong. He said that Copts of Egypt are not of Arab origin but rather of Pharaonic origin, and this is correct because it is the truth and history. We are Coptic Egyptians. We are Pharaonic Copts. Coptic meaning ancient Egyptian who then converted to Christianity. Copt, is essentially another term for Coptic Christians.[73]

Other prominent Coptic figures who supported Bishop Thomas' statement included the Coptic writer Magdy Khalil who wrote in el-Dostoor newspaper:

We [the Copts] are Egyptians, and we are not Arabs, with all due respect to the Arabs. We may live in some sort of cultural Arabism and we may speak Arabic, but we are not Arabs. This is a historical fact, whether some people like it or not. Copts both within Egypt and in the diaspora are insulted and accused because they insist on holding strongly to and taking pride in their national Egyptian identity, rather than having another identity that crosses the borders [of Egypt]. The Copts focus their identity on Egypt's geographical borders, which are deeply rooted in history. [74]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Ibrahim, Youssef M. (April 18, 1998). "U.S. Bill Has Egypt's Copts Squirming". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-10-08.
  2. ↑ Jones, Jonathan (11 May 2011). "Who are the Coptic Christians?". The Guardian.
  3. ↑ "The Copts of Egypt: Guardians of an Ancient Faith - Travel2Egypt". 19 June 2024.
  4. ↑ "Copt | Definition, Religion, History, & Facts | Britannica".
  5. ↑ Cole, Ethan (July 8, 2008). "Egypt's Christian-Muslim Gap Growing Bigger". The Christian Post. Retrieved 2008-10-02.
  6. ↑ The 2009 American Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
  7. ↑ http://www.asharqalawsat.com/leader.asp?section=3&article=157751&issueno=8872 "Institut National Etudes Démographiques" - Research in population and demography of France estimates the coptic population to be
  8. ↑ "Egypt from "The World Factbook"". American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). September 4, 2008.
  9. ↑ ""The Copts and Their Political Implications in Egypt"". Washington Institute for Near East Policy. October 25, 2005.
  10. ↑ IPS News (retrieved 09-27-2008)
  11. ↑ [1]. The Washington Post. "Estimates of the size of Egypt's Christian population vary from the low government figures of 6 to 7 million to the 12 million reported by some Christian leaders. The actual numbers may be in the 9 to 9.5 million range, out of an Egyptian population of more than 60 million." Retrieved 10-10-2008
  12. ↑ Ibrahim, Youssef M. "Muslims' Fury Falls on Egypt's Christians". The New York Times, March 15, 1993. Retrieved 10-10-2008.
  13. ↑ Chan, Kenneth. Thousands Protest Egypt's Neglect of Coptic Persecution". The Christian Post. December 7, 2004. Accessed 28 September 2008.
  14. ↑ NLG Solutions <Online>. Egypt. Accessed 28 September 2008.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "Egypt from "U.S. Department of State/Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs"". United States Department of State. September 30, 2008.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 "Egypt from "Foreign and Commonwealth Office"". Foreign and Commonwealth Office -UK Ministry of Foreign Affairs. August 15, 2008.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "Egypt Religions & Peoples from "LOOKLEX Encyclopedia"". LookLex Ltd. September 30, 2008.
  18. ↑ "Egypt from "msn encarta"". Encarta. September 30, 2008. Archived from the original on 2009-10-31.
  19. ↑ Who are the Christians in the Middle East?. Betty Jane Bailey. June 18, 2009. ISBN 978-0-8028-1020-5.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Deighton, H. S. "The Arab Middle East and the Modern World", International Affairs, vol. xxii, no. 4 (October 1946), p. 519.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 http://nationalcopticassembly.com/showart.php?main_id=1724
  22. ↑ Deighton, H. S. "The Arab Middle East and the Modern World", International Affairs, vol. xxii, no. 4 (October 1946)
  23. ↑ Klales, A. R. (2014). "Computed Tomography Analysis and Reconstruction of Ancient Egyptians Originating from the Akhmim Region of Egypt: A Biocultural Perspective". MA Thesis. University of Manitoba. [2] Archived 2017-03-11 at the Wayback Machine
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Dobon, Begoña; Hassan, Hisham Y.; Laayouni, Hafid; Luisi, Pierre; Ricaño-Ponce, Isis; Zhernakova, Alexandra; Wijmenga, Cisca; Tahir, Hanan; Comas, David; Netea, Mihai G.; Bertranpetit, Jaume (2015). "The genetics of East African populations: A Nilo-Saharan component in the African genetic landscape". Scientific Reports. 5: 9996. Bibcode:2015NatSR...5.9996D. doi:10.1038/srep09996. PMC 4446898. PMID 26017457.
  25. ↑ "The people of Egypt before the Arab conquest in the 7th century identified themselves and their language in Greek as Aigyptios (Arabic qibt, Westernized as Copt); when Egyptian Muslims later ceased to call themselves Aigyptioi, the term became the distinctive name of the Christian minority." Coptic Orthodox Church. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2007
  26. ↑ Werthmuller, Kurt J. Coptic Identity and Ayyubid Politics in Egypt 1218–1250. American University in Cairo Press. 2009
  27. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 29
  28. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 112
  29. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 16
  30. ↑ King, Arienne (2018-07-25). "The Economy of Ptolemaic Egypt". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2020-06-24.
  31. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 30
  32. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 30
  33. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 114
  34. ↑ Dentition helps archaeologists to assess biological and ethnic population traits and relationships
  35. ↑ Irish JD (2006). "Who were the ancient Egyptians? Dental affinities among Neolithic through postdynastic peoples.". Am J Phys Anthropol 129 (4): 529-43
  36. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 30
  37. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 30
  38. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 78
  39. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 33
  40. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 33
  41. ↑ Walker, Susan, op cit., p. 24
  42. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 33-34
  43. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 69
  44. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 33
  45. ↑ Lennart Sundelin; Petra Sijpesteijn (2004). Papyrology and the History of Early Islamic Egypt. Brill. p. 165.
  46. ↑ Lennart Sundelin; Petra Sijpesteijn (2020). Varieties of Post-classical and Byzantine Greek. De Gruyter. p. 447.
  47. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 69
  48. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 163
  49. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 166-168
  50. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 114
  51. ↑ qtd. in Alan K. Bowman, Egypt after the Pharaohs, 332 BC – AD 642, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996, p. 126: "genuine Egyptians can easily be recognized among the linen-weavers by their speech."
  52. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 217
  53. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 217
  54. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 220
  55. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 180
  56. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 180
  57. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 179
  58. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 179
  59. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 179
  60. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 235
  61. ↑ Bagnall, pp. 236
  62. ↑ Makropoulou, Ifigenia. Pan – Arabism: What Destroyed the Ideology of Arab Nationalism? Hellenic Center for European Studies. January 15, 2007. Archived October 2, 2018, at the Wayback Machine
  63. ↑ Jankowski, James. "Egypt and Early Arab Nationalism" in Rashid Khalidi, ed. The Origins of Arab Nationalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990, pp. 244–45
  64. ↑ Syrian Arab nationalist Sati' al-Husri qtd in Dawisha, Adeed. Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century. Princeton University Press. 2003, p. 99
  65. ↑ Jankowski, "Egypt and Early Arab Nationalism," p. 246
  66. ↑ Dawisha, pp. 264–65, 267
  67. ↑ Abraham, Nabeel; Shryock, Andrew (2000). Arab Detroit: from margin to mainstream (Illustrated ed.). Wayne State University Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-8143-2812-5.
  68. ↑ Randall P. Henderson (April 2005). "The Egyptian Coptic Christians: the conflict between identity and equality". Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations. 16 (2): 155–166. doi:10.1080/09596410500059664. S2CID 143826025.
  69. ↑ Prof. Constantine Gutzman, Chair of the Department of History at Western Connecticut State University: "Copts are not Arabs. Rather, they are the people who lived in Egypt before the Arabs arrived. The pharaohs were Copts, as were St. Athanasius and St. Anthony."
  70. ↑ Washington Post: Copts are not Arabs. January 4, 1994
  71. ↑ 71.0 71.1 Takla, Hany. The Value of Coptic, The Ecclesiastical and Coptic Principles. Saint Shenouda the Archimandrite Society for Coptic Studies. 02/10/1996
  72. ↑ Bishop Thomas of Cusae and Meir. Egypt's Coptic Christians: The Experience of the Middle East's largest Christian community during a time of rising Islamization. July 18, 2008
  73. ↑ Ranya Badawi. An interview with Bishop Pecenti of Helwan and Massarah. El-Masry El-Yom Newspaper. November 11, 2009
  74. ↑ Khalil, Magdy. Copts are truly facing a problem of Islamization, and what Bishop Thomas said was said before by many Egyptian intellectuals. In el-Dostoor newspaper. 08/17/2008 Archived 2009-02-20 at the Wayback Machine
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