This book explores the political relationship between the Muslim majority and Coptic minority in Egypt between 1918 and 1952. Many Egyptians hoped to see the collaboration of the 1919 revolution spur the creation of both a new collective Egyptian identity and a state without religious bias. Traditional ways of governing, however, were not so easily cast aside.
Some Egyptians held tenaciously to the traditional arrangements which had both guaranteed Muslim primacy and served relatively well to protect the Copts and afford them some autonomy. Differences within the Coptic community over the wisdom of trusting the genuineness and durability of Muslim support for equality were accentuated by a protracted struggle between reforming laymen and conservative clergy for control of the community. The unwillingness of all parties to compromise hampered the ability of the community both to determine and to defend its interests.
The Copts met with modest success in their attempt to become full Egyptian citizens. Their influence in the Wafd, the pre-eminent political party, was very strong prior to and in the early years of the constitutional monarchy, and their formal representation was generally adequate and, in some parliaments, better than adequate. However, this very success produced a backlash which caused many Copts to believe, by the 1940s, that the experiment had failed: political activity has become fraught with risk for them. At the close of the monarchy, equality and shared power seemed motions as distant as in the disheartening years before the 1919 revolution.
Author(s): B.L. Carter
Series: Routledge Library Editions: Egypt
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2012
Language: English
Pages: 344
Cover
THE COPTS IN EGYPTIAN POLITICS 1918-1952
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration and Abbreviations
INTRODUCTION
A. The Problem
B. The Setting
1. The Traditional Position of the Copts and Other Non-Muslims
2. Population, Culture and Religious Divisions
a) Coptic Catholics
b) Coptic Protestants
3. The Historical Background
C. Overview of the Period
1. COMMUNAL ORGANISATION
A. The Church
1. The Majlis Milli's Struggle for Power
2. Summary
B. The Coptic Press
1. Misr
2. Al-Watan
3. Al-Manara al-Misriyya
C. Voluntary Associations
2. THE BRITISH, THE COPTS AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT
A. British-Copt Relations before the 1919 Revolution
B. Zaghlul, the Formation of the Wafd and the 1919 Revolution
C. Divide and Rule
D. Anglo-Egyptian Treaty Negotiations
1. Independence and the Reserved Point for the Protection of Minorities
2. The Politics of Treaty Negotiations
E. Summary
3. THE LIMITS OF THE POLITICAL COMMUNITY AND EGYPT'S NATIONAL IDENTITY
A. Religion and the Political System
B. Theories of History and National Unity
1. Egyptianism
2. Mediterraneanism
3. Arabism
4. Marxism
C. An Historiography of Copt-Muslim Relations
4. REPRESENTATIVE INSTITUTIONS
A. The Legal Framework: The Egyptian Constitution
1. Civil Rights
2. Setting a Religion of State
3. The Representation of Minorities in Parliament
B. Coptic Political Representation, 1924-1952
1. The Chamber of Deputies
2. The Senate
3. Local Councils
4. Limitations on Coptic Representation
5. Coptic Expectations and Demands
5. THE COPTS AND PARTY POLITICS
A. The Wafd
B. The Liberal Constitutional Party
C. The Palace
D. The Sadist Party
E. The Wafdist Bloc
F. Summary
6. THE COPTS AND THE STATE
A. The Issue of Inequality
1. Economic Behaviour
2. The Civil Service
a) Coptic Cabinet Ministers
3. Religious Instruction in State Schools
B. The Issue of State Control
1. Personal Status Jurisdiction
2. Government Limitations on the Freedom of Belief
Untitled
C. One Response to Pressure: Conversion
D. Summary
7. ETHNICITY AND RELIGION IN THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER
A. The Religious Idiom and Party Politics
B. Religious Appeals and the Palace
C. Elections
D. Communal Violence and the Role of the Muslim Brethren
E. Another Coptic Response to Pressure
F. Summary
CONCLUSION "Religion is for God alone and the Homeland is for ALL ITS PEOPLE"
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INTERVIEWS
INDEX
