by Raymond Ibrahim (Image: Wikimedia Creative Commons}
At a recent conference in Cairo, Egypt’s former minister of culture, Helmy El-Namnam, recalled that some twenty years ago he had called for the establishment of a center for Coptic studies at an Egyptian university. Coptic identity, he emphasized, is a fundamental part of Egypt’s national identity, and its study should not be confined to the Church.
Yet, a recent op-ed asks why the Coptic era remains in the background, and why has the study of Coptic history not received institutional support in Egypt? “When an entire era is largely absent from public awareness,” it notes, “it does not disappear from history. It does, however, fade from contemporary memory.”
Moreover, if Egypt’s Christians “cannot see themselves reflected in an honest account of their country’s history, how can they understand who they are—or feel that they truly belong?”
From here, one understands why Egypt’s most indigenous population—the Copts—are often seen and treated by Muslims as little better than guests who should “know their place” in Egypt.
“It sounds absurd,” said Kamal Mougheeth, an educational expert and researcher in Egypt, “but Muslims more or less know nothing about Christians, even though they make up a large part of the population and are in fact the original Egyptians… Egypt was Christian for six or seven centuries [before the Muslim invasion around 640]. The sad thing is that for many years the history books skipped from Cleopatra [30 BC] to the Muslim conquest of Egypt [640 AD]. The Christian era was gone. Disappeared. An enormous black hole.”