Islam in Egypt
is the dominant religion in Egypt, with approximately 90% of Egyptians identifying as Muslims. The majority of Egyptian Muslims are adherents of Sunni Islam, while a small minority adhere to Shia Islam. Since 1980, Islam has served as Egypt's state religion. Due to the lack of a religious census, owing to the alleged undercounting of non-Muslim minorities in Egyptian censuses, the actual percentage of Muslims is unknown; the percentage of Egyptian Christians, who are the second-largest religious group in the country, is estimated to be 10% of the population.
A study at the University of Kent, citing a 2018 survey by Arab Barometer, stated that around 11% of Egyptians identified themselves as not religious. While in the same 2018 Wave survey, 47.2% of Egyptians said they were religious, 39.8% said they were somewhat religious and 10.4% said they were not religious. In the same Arab Barometer 2018 Wave V survey, it was reported that 90.4% said they were Muslim, 9.6% said they were Christian, and 0.1% said they had no religion.
Prior to the French campaign in Egypt and Syria under Napoleon Bonaparte, almost all of Egypt's educational, legal, public health, and social welfare issues were in the hands of religious functionaries. Under the Ottoman Empire, the public and political roles of the were reinforced, in an effective continuation of the policies of the Mamluk Sultanate. Traditionally, political divisions in the country were based on religious divisions. During the 19th and 20th centuries, successive governments made extensive efforts to limit the role of the in public life, and religious institutions were increasingly brought under closer levels of state control.
After the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, the new government assumed responsibility for appointing officials to mosques and Islamic schools. Likewise, it mandated the reform of Al-Azhar University, beginning in 1961. These policies permitted department heads to be drawn from outside the ranks of the traditionally-trained orthodox.
History
Arab caliphate
In the 7th century, Egypt was invaded andconquered by the Islamic caliphate by the Muslim Arabs. When they defeated the armies of Byzantine Empire in Egypt, the Arabs brought Islam to the country.
In 639 an army of some 4,000 men were sent to Egypt by the second Rashidun caliph, Umar, under the command of Amr ibn al-As. This army was joined by another 5,000 men in 640 and defeated a Byzantine army at the battle of Heliopolis. Amr next proceeded in the direction of Alexandria, which was surrendered to him by a treaty signed on 8 November 641. Alexandria was regained for the Byzantine Empire in 645 but was retaken by Amr in 646. In 654 an invasion fleet sent by Constans II was repulsed. From that time no serious effort was made by the Byzantines to regain possession of the country.
The Arabs founded the capital of Egypt called Fustat, which was later burned down during the Crusades. Cairo was later built in the year 986 to grow to become the largest and richest city in the Arab caliphate, and one of the biggest and richest in the world.
File:ساحة مسجد احمد بن طولون.jpg|thumb|The Ibn Tulun Mosque in Cairo, of Ahmad Ibn Tulun
The Abbasid period was marked by new taxations, and the Copts revolted again in the fourth year of Abbasid rule. At the beginning of the 9th century the practice of ruling Egypt through a governor was resumed under Abdallah ibn Tahir, who decided to reside at Baghdad, sending a deputy to Egypt to govern for him. In 828 another Egyptian revolt broke out, and in 831 the Copts joined with native Muslims against the government. Eventually the power loss of the Abbasids in Baghdad has led for general upon general to take over rule of Egypt, yet being under Abbasid allegiance, the Tulunid dynasty and Ikhshidid dynasty were among the most successful to defy the Abbasid Caliph.
The Fatimids, Ayyubids and Mamluks
Muslim rulers remained in control of Egypt for the next six centuries, with Cairo as the seat of the Fatimid Caliphate. With the end of the Ayyubid dynasty, the Mamluks, a Turco-Circassian military caste, took control about 1250. By the late 13th century, Egypt linked the Red Sea, India, Malaya, and East Indies. The mid-14th-century Black Death killed about 40% of the country's population.In the late 10th century, the Shia Ismaili caliphate of the Fatimids made Egypt their centre and Cairo their capital. Egypt flourished and the Fatimids developed an extensive trade network in both the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. Their trade and diplomatic ties extended all the way to China and its Song dynasty, which eventually determined the economic course of Egypt during the High Middle Ages. Many traces of Fatimid architecture exist in Cairo today, the most defining examples include the Al Azhar University and the Al Hakim mosque. The Fatimid palace in Cairo had two parts. It stood in the Khan el-Khalili area on Bin El-Qasryn street.
In the early 20th century, Egyptian Islam was a complex and diverse religion. Although Muslims agreed on the faith's basic tenets, the country's various social groups and classes applied Islam differently in their daily lives. The literate theologians of Al-Azhar University generally rejected the version of Islam practiced by illiterate religious preachers and peasants in the countryside. Most upper- and upper-middle-class Muslims believed either that religious expression was a private matter for each individual or that Islam should play a more dominant role in public life. Islamic religious revival movements, whose appeal cut across class lines, were present in most cities and in many villages.
Islam and state
, who assumed power in Egypt in the early 1800s, nationalized all land, including hundreds of thousands of hectares of land belonging to Al Azhar Mosque, putting the funding of that institution under state control. This put an end to the political independence of the Ulama. Awqaf, traditionally independent endowments for mosques and Islamic schools, became a ministry of the government. In 1961, Gamal Abdel Nasser made Al Azhar part of the Ministry of Awqaf or Religious Endowments. He also made the appointment of the grand sheikh the prerogative of the Egyptian president, just as the appointment of any other state official. In time, the school became responsible for assigning imams to all major mosques, and all these imams were required to be graduates of the school.Ulama
Orthodox ulama or "the religious establishment" found themselves in a difficult position during the wave of Islamic activism that swept through Egypt in the 1970s and 1980s. Most Ulama, including those of Al-Azhar University, are employees of the Egyptian state who "recognize the regime's primacy, support its stability, and legitimize its policies". Radical Islamists viewed them as puppets of the status quo. To maintain their influence in the country, the ulama espoused more conservative stances. After 1974, for example, many al-Azhar ulama, who had acquiesced to family planning initiatives in the 1960s, openly criticized government efforts at population control. The ulama also supported moves to reform the country's legal code to conform to Islamic teaching. They remained, nonetheless, comparatively moderate; they were largely loyal to the government and condemned the violence of radical Islamist groups. Outside of the state-mosques are more than 40,000 independent mosques throughout Egypt.Beliefs
Contemporary belief
Egyptian Muslims believe that Islam defines one's relationship to God, to other Muslims, and to non-Muslims. Some devout Muslims believe that there can be no dichotomy between the sacred and the secular. Many Muslims say that Egypt's governments have been secularist and even anti-religious since the early 1920s. Politically organized Muslims who seek to purge the country of its secular policies are referred to as "Islamists".Egypt's largely uneducated urban and rural lower classes are intensely devoted to Islam, but they usually lack a thorough knowledge of the religion. Even village religious leaders usually have only a rudimentary knowledge of Islam. The typical village imam or prayer leader has at most a few years of schooling; his scholarly work was limited to reading prayers and sermons prepared by others and to learning passages from the Qur'an. Popular religion includes a variety of unorthodox practices, such as the veneration of saints, recourse to charms and amulets, and belief in the influence of evil spirits.
Popular Islam is based mostly on oral tradition. Imams with virtually no formal education commonly memorize the entire Qur'an and recite appropriate verses on religious occasions. They also tell religious stories at village festivals and commemorations marking an individual's rites of passage. Predestination plays an important role in popular Islam. This concept includes the belief that everything that happens in life is the will of God and the belief that trying to avoid misfortune is useless and invites worse affliction. Revelations from God in the Qur'an form the basis of Monotheism merged with a belief in angels, jinn and afarit.
Popular Islam ranges from informal prayer sessions or Qur'an study to organized cults or orders. Because of the pervasive sexual segregation of Egypt's Islamic society, men and women often practice their religion in different ways. A specifically female religious custom is the Zār, a ceremony for helping women placate spirits who are believed to have possessed them. Women specially trained by their mothers or other women in zar lore organize the ceremonies. A zar organizer holds weekly meetings and employs music and dance to induce ecstatic trances in possessed women. Wealthy women sometimes pay to have private zars conducted in their homes; these zars are more elaborate than public ones, last for several days, and sometimes involve efforts to exorcise spirits. However, while once common, the zar is rarely practiced today and is under fire because it is perceived as a religious heresy.
There are more than 45 million citizens 35 years old or younger. The Influence of digital/youth culture is found in preachers such as the very popular Amr Khaled who "maintains a disciplined focus on the lives, issues and problems of the upper middle classes"; espouses "living a comfortable life"; talks to youth about "getting closer to God" without changing one's lifestyle; promotes hijab while "joking about dating and flirting". The young "sheikhs" deliver their sermons over the Internet, on private satellite channels and in sports clubs, away from the control of Al-Azhar and the state.