Egyptian people

Egyptians ( arz, المَصرِيُون, translit=al-Maṣriyyūn, ; arz, المَصرِيِين, translit=al-Maṣriyyīn, ; cop, ⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, remenkhēmi) are an ethnic group native to the Nile Valley in Egypt. Egyptian identity is closely tied to geography. The population is concentrated in the Nile Valley, a small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to the Mediterranean and enclosed by desert both to the east and to the west. This unique geography has been the basis of the development of Egyptian society since antiquity.

The daily language of the Egyptians is a continuum of the local varieties of Arabic; the most famous dialect is known as Egyptian Arabic or ''Masri''. Additionally, a sizable minority of Egyptians living in Upper Egypt speak Sa'idi Arabic, a mix between the Sahidic Coptic dialect and Arabic. Egyptians are predominantly adherents of Sunni Islam with a Shia minority and a significant proportion who follow native Sufi orders.Hoffman, Valerie J. ''Sufism, Mystics, and Saints in Modern Egypt''. University of South Carolina Press, 1995

A considerable percentage of Egyptians are Coptic Christians who belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church, whose liturgical language, Coptic, is the most recent stage of the ancient Egyptian language and is still used in prayers along with Egyptian Arabic.

Terminology

Egyptians have received several names:

* 𓂋𓍿𓀂𓁐𓏥𓈖𓆎𓅓𓏏𓊖 ''rmṯ n Km.t'', the native Egyptian name and description of the Black Soil of the Nile Valley. In antiquity } The name is vocalized as "'" in the late (Bohairic) Coptic stage of the language during the Greco-Roman era. ("'" with the plural definite article, "Black Lands").
* Egyptians, from Greek "", ', from "", "'". Prominent Ancient Greek Geographer, Strabo, provided a folk etymology stating that "'" had evolved as a compound from "'" ', meaning " Below the Aegean". In English, the noun "Egyptians" appears in the 14th century, in Wycliff's Bible, as ''Egipcions''.
* Copts (قبط, '), also a derivative of the Greek word , ''Aiguptios'' ("Egypt, Egyptian"), that appeared under Muslim rule when it overtook Roman rule in Egypt. The term referred to the Egyptian locals, to distinguish them from the Arab rulers. Coptic was the language of the state, Christian church and people but was replaced by Arabic after the Muslim conquest. Islam became the dominant religion centuries after the Muslim conquest in Egypt. This is due to centuries of conversion from Christianity to Islam. The modern term then became exclusively associated with Egyptian Christianity and Coptic Christians who are members of the Coptic Orthodox Church or Coptic Catholic Church. References to native Muslims as Copts are attested until the Mamluk period.C. Petry. "Copts in Late Medieval Egypt." ''Coptic Encyclopaedia''. 2:618 (1991).
* Masryeen ( arz, مَصريين, Maṣriyyīn), the modern Egyptian Arabic name, which comes from the ancient Semitic name for Egypt. The term originally connoted "Civilization" or "Metropolis". Classical Arabic ' (Egyptian Arabic ') is directly cognate with the Biblical Hebrew ''Mitsráyīm'' (מִצְרַיִם / מִצְרָיִם), meaning "the two straits", a reference to the predynastic separation of Upper and Lower Egypt. Also mentioned in several Semitic languages as ''Mesru'', ''Misir'' and ''Masar''. The term "Misr" in Arabic refers to Egypt, but sometimes also to the Cairo area, as a consequence, and because of the habit of identifying people with cities rather than countries (i.e. Tunis (capital of Tunisia), Tunsi). The term Masreyeen originally referred only to the native inhabitants of Cairo or "City of Misr" before its meaning expanded to encompass all Egyptians. Edward William Lane, writing in the 1820s, said that the native Muslim inhabitants of Cairo commonly call themselves ', ' (lit. ''Children of Masr'') and ' (lit. ''The People of Masr''). He also added that the ottoman rulers of the region "stigmatized" the people of Egypt with the name ' or the 'People of the Pharaoh'.

Demographics

There are an estimated 92.1 million Egyptians. Most are native to Egypt, where Egyptians constitute around 99.6% of the population.

Approximately 84–90% of the population of Egypt are Muslim adherents and 10–15% are Christian adherents (10–15% Coptic Christian, 1% other Christian Sects (mainly Greek Orthodox)) according to estimates.Egypt
The CIA World Factbook
2006. Most of Egypt’s people live along the banks of the Nile River, and more than two-fifths of the population lives in urban areas. Along the Nile, the population density is one of the highest in the world, in excess of 5,000 persons per square mile (2,000 per square km) in a number of riverine governorates. The rapidly growing population is young, with roughly one-third of the total under age 15 and about three-fifths under 30. In response to the strain put on Egypt’s economy by the country’s burgeoning population, a national family planning program was initiated in 1964, and by the 1990s it had succeeded in lowering the birth rate. Improvements in health care also brought the infant mortality rate well below the world average by the turn of the 21st century. Life expectancy averages about 72 years for men and 74 years for women. Egyptians also form smaller minorities in neighboring countries, North America, Europe and Australia.

Egyptians also tend to be provincial, meaning their attachment extends not only to Egypt but to the specific provinces, towns and villages from which they hail. Therefore, return migrants, such as temporary workers abroad, come back to their region of origin in Egypt. According to the International Organization for Migration, an estimated 2.7 million Egyptians live abroad and contribute actively to the development of their country through remittances (US$7.8 billion in 2009), circulation of human and social capital, as well as investment. Approximately 70% of Egyptian migrants live in Arab countries (923,600 in Saudi Arabia, 332,600 in Libya, 226,850 in Jordan, 190,550 in Kuwait with the rest elsewhere in the region) and the remaining 30% are living mostly in Europe and North America (318,000 in the United States, 110,000 in Canada and 90,000 in Italy).

A sizable Egyptian diaspora did not begin to form until well into the 1980s, when political and economic conditions began driving Egyptians out of the country in significant numbers. Today, the diaspora numbers nearly 4 million (2006 est).of which c. 4 million in the Egyptian diaspora. Newsreel
Egyptians count
. 2007, ''Ahram Weekly''. 5–11 April Generally, those who emigrate to the United States and western European countries tend to do so permanently, with 93% and 55.5% of Egyptians (respectively) settling in the new country. On the other hand, Egyptians migrating to Arab countries almost always only go there with the intention of returning to Egypt; virtually none settle in the new country on a permanent basis.Talani, Leila S
Out of Egypt.
University of California, Los Angeles. 2005.

Prior to 1974, only few Egyptian professionals had left the country in search for employment. Political, demographic and economic pressures led to the first wave of emigration after 1952. Later more Egyptians left their homeland first after the 1973 boom in oil prices and again in 1979, but it was only in the second half of the 1980s that Egyptian migration became prominent.

Egyptian emigration today is motivated by even higher rates of unemployment, population growth and increasing prices. Political repression and human rights violations by Egypt's ruling régime are other contributing factors (see ). Egyptians have also been impacted by the wars between Egypt and Israel, particularly after the Six-Day War in 1967, when migration rates began to rise. In August 2006, Egyptians made headlines when 11 students from Mansoura University failed to show up at their American host institutions for a cultural exchange program in the hope of finding employment.

Egyptians in neighboring countries face additional challenges. Over the years, abuse, exploitation and/or ill-treatment of Egyptian workers and professionals in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Libya have been reported by the Egyptian Human Rights Organization and different media outlets. Arab nationals have in the past expressed fear over an "'Egyptianization' of the local dialects and culture that were believed to have resulted from the predominance of Egyptians in the field of education"Kapiszewski, Andrzej
United Nations Report on International Migration and Development
May 22, 2006. (see also Egyptian Arabic – Geographics).

The Egyptians for their part object to what they call the "" of their culture due to Saudi Arabian petrodollar-flush investment in the Egyptian entertainment industry. Twice Libya was on the brink of war with Egypt due to mistreatment of Egyptian workers and after the signing of the peace treaty with Israel. When the Gulf War ended, Egyptian workers in Iraq were subjected to harsh measures and expulsion by the Iraqi government and to violent attacks by Iraqis returning from the war to fill the workforce.

History

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt saw a succession of thirty dynasties spanning three millennia. During this period, Egyptian culture underwent significant development in terms of religion, arts, language and customs.

Egypt fell under Hyksos rule in the Middle Bronze Age. The native nobility managed to expel the conquerors by the Late Bronze Age, thereby initiating the New Kingdom. During this period, the Egyptian civilization rose to the status of an empire under Pharaoh Thutmose III of the 18th Dynasty. It remained a super-regional power throughout the Amarna Period as well as during the 19th and 20th dynasties (the Ramesside Period), lasting into the Early Iron Age.

The Bronze Age collapse that had afflicted the Mesopotamian empires reached Egypt with some delay, and it was only in the 11th century BC that the Empire declined, falling into the comparative obscurity of the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt. The 25th Dynasty of Nubian rulers was again briefly replaced by native nobility in the 7th century BC, and in 525 BC, Egypt fell under Persian rule.

Then fell under greeks when Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 BC. The Late Period of ancient Egypt is taken to end with his death in 323 BC. The Ptolemaic dynasty ruled Egypt from 305 BC to 30 BC and introduced Hellenic culture to Egyptians. 4,000 Celtic mercenaries under Ptolemy II had even attempted an ambitious but doomed coup d'état around the year 270 BC.

Throughout the Pharaonic epoch (viz., from 2920 BC to 525 BC in conventional Egyptian chronology), divine kingship was the glue which held Egyptian society together. It was especially pronounced in the Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom and continued until the Roman conquest. The societal structure created by this system of government remained virtually unchanged up to modern times.

The role of the king was considerably weakened after the 20th Dynasty. The king in his role as Son of Ra was entrusted to maintain Ma'at, the principle of truth, justice, and order, and to enhance the country's agricultural economy by ensuring regular Nile floods. Ascendancy to the Egyptian throne reflected the myth of Horus who assumed kingship after he buried his murdered father Osiris. The king of Egypt, as a living personification of Horus, could claim the throne after burying his predecessor, who was typically his father. When the role of the king waned, the country became more susceptible to foreign influence and invasion.

The attention paid to the dead, and the veneration with which they were held, were one of the hallmarks of ancient Egyptian society. Egyptians built tombs for their dead that were meant to last for eternity. This was most prominently expressed by the Great Pyramids. The ancient Egyptian word for tomb ' means ' House of Eternity'. The Egyptians also celebrated life, as is shown by tomb reliefs and inscriptions, papyri and other sources depicting Egyptians farming, conducting trade expeditions, hunting, holding festivals, attending parties and receptions with their pet dogs, cats and monkeys, dancing and singing, enjoying food and drink, and playing games. The ancient Egyptians were also known for their engaging sense of humor, much like their modern descendants.

Another important continuity during this period is the Egyptian attitude toward foreigners—those they considered not fortunate enough to be part of the community of ''rmṯ'' or "the people" (i.e., Egyptians.) This attitude was facilitated by the Egyptians' more frequent contact with other peoples during the New Kingdom when Egypt expanded to an empire that also encompassed Nubia through Jebel Barkal and parts of the Levant.

The Egyptian sense of superiority was given religious validation, as foreigners in the land of ''Ta-Meri'' (Egypt) were anathema to the maintenance of Maat—a view most clearly expressed by the admonitions of Ipuwer in reaction to the chaotic events of the Second Intermediate Period. Foreigners in Egyptian texts were described in derogatory terms, e.g., 'wretched Asiatics' (Semites), 'vile Kushites' (Nubians), and 'Ionian dogs' (Greeks). Egyptian beliefs remained unchallenged when Egypt fell to the Hyksos, Assyrians, Libyans, Persians and Greeks—their rulers assumed the role of the Egyptian Pharaoh and were often depicted praying to Egyptian gods.

The ancient Egyptians used a solar calendar that divided the year into 12 months of 30 days each, with five extra days added. The calendar revolved around the annual Nile Inundation (''akh.t''), the first of three seasons into which the year was divided. The other two were Winter and Summer, each lasting for four months. The modern Egyptian ''fellahin'' calculate the agricultural seasons, with the months still bearing their ancient names, in much the same manner.

The importance of the Nile in Egyptian life, ancient and modern, cannot be overemphasized. The rich alluvium carried by the Nile inundation was the basis of Egypt's formation as a society and a state. Regular inundations were a cause for celebration; low waters often meant famine and starvation. The ancient Egyptians personified the river flood as the god Hapy and dedicated a ''Hymn to the Nile'' to celebrate it. ''km.t'', the Black Land, was as Herodotus observed, "the gift of the river."

Graeco-Roman period

When Alexander died, a story began to circulate that Nectanebo II was Alexander's father. This made Alexander in the eyes of the Egyptians a legitimate heir to the native pharaohs. The new Ptolemaic rulers, however, exploited Egypt for their own benefit and a great social divide was created between Egyptians and Greeks. The local priesthood continued to wield power as they had during the Dynastic age. Egyptians continued to practice their religion undisturbed and largely maintained their own separate communities from their foreign conquerors. The language of administration became Greek, but the mass of the Egyptian population was Egyptian-speaking and concentrated in the countryside, while most Greeks lived in Alexandria and only few had any knowledge of Egyptian.

The Ptolemaic rulers all retained their Greek names and titles, but projected a public image of being Egyptian pharaohs. Much of this period's vernacular literature was composed in the demotic phase and script of the Egyptian language. It was focused on earlier stages of Egyptian history when Egyptians were independent and ruled by great native pharaohs such as Ramesses II. Prophetic writings circulated among Egyptians promising expulsion of the Greeks, and frequent revolts by the Egyptians took place throughout the Ptolemaic period. A revival in animal cults, the hallmark of the Predyanstic and Early Dyanstic periods, is said to have come about to fill a spiritual void as Egyptians became increasingly disillusioned and weary due to successive waves of foreign invasions.

When the Romans annexed Egypt in 30 BC, the social structure created by the Greeks was largely retained, though the power of the Egyptian priesthood diminished. The Roman emperors lived abroad and did not perform the ceremonial functions of Egyptian kingship as the Ptolemies had. The art of mummy portraiture flourished, but Egypt became further stratified with Romans at the apex of the social pyramid, Greeks and Jews occupied the middle stratum, while Egyptians, who constituted the vast majority, were at the bottom. Egyptians paid a poll tax at full rate, Greeks paid at half-rate and Roman citizens were exempt.

The Roman emperor Caracalla advocated the expulsion of all ethnic Egyptians from the city of Alexandria, saying "genuine Egyptians can easily be recognized among the linen-weavers by their speech." This attitude lasted until AD 212 when Roman citizenship was finally granted to all the inhabitants of Egypt, though ethnic divisions remained largely entrenched. The Romans, like the Ptolemies, treated Egypt like their own private property, a land exploited for the benefit of a small foreign elite. The Egyptian peasants, pressed for maximum production to meet Roman quotas, suffered and fled to the desert.

The cult of Isis, like those of Osiris and Serapis, had been popular in Egypt and throughout the Roman Empire at the coming of Christianity, and continued to be the main competitor with Christianity in its early years. The main temple of Isis remained a major center of worship in Egypt until the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I in the 6th century, when it was finally closed down. Egyptians, disaffected and weary after a series of foreign occupations, identified the story of the mother-goddess Isis protecting her child Horus with that of the Virgin Mary and her son Jesus escaping the emperor Herod.

Consequently, many sites believed to have been the resting places of the holy family during their sojourn in Egypt became sacred to the Egyptians. The visit of the holy family later circulated among Egyptian Christians as fulfillment of the Biblical prophecy "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt" (Hosea 11:1). The feast of the coming of the Lord of Egypt on June 1 became an important part of Christian Egyptian tradition. According to tradition, Christianity was brought to Egypt by Saint Mark the Evangelist in the early 40s of the 1st century, under the reign of the Roman emperor Nero. The earliest converts were Jews residing in Alexandria, a city which had by then become a center of culture and learning in the entire Mediterranean ''oikoumene''.

St. Mark is said to have founded the Holy Apostolic See of Alexandria and to have become its first Patriarch. Within 50 years of St. Mark's arrival in Alexandria, a fragment of New Testament writings appeared in Oxyrhynchus (Bahnasa), which suggests that Christianity already began to spread south of Alexandria at an early date. By the mid-third century, a sizable number of Egyptians were persecuted by the Romans on account of having adopted the new Christian faith, beginning with the Edict of Decius. Christianity was tolerated in the Roman Empire until AD 284, when the Emperor Diocletian persecuted and put to death a great number of Christian Egyptians.Jankowski, p. 32

This event became a watershed in the history of Egyptian Christianity, marking the beginning of a distinct Egyptian or Coptic Church. It became known as the 'Era of the Martyrs' and is commemorated in the Coptic calendar in which dating of the years began with the start of Diocletian's reign. When Egyptians were persecuted by Diocletian, many retreated to the desert to seek relief. The practice precipitated the rise of monasticism, for which the Egyptians, namely St. Antony, St. Bakhum, St. Shenouda and St. Amun, are credited as pioneers. By the end of the 4th century, it is estimated that the mass of the Egyptians had either embraced Christianity or were nominally Christian.

The Catachetical School of Alexandria was founded in the 3rd century by Pantaenus, becoming a major school of Christian learning as well as science, mathematics and the humanities. The Psalms and part of the New Testament were translated at the school from Greek to Egyptian, which had already begun to be written in Greek letters with the addition of a number of demotic characters. This stage of the Egyptian language would later come to be known as Coptic along with its alphabet. The third theologian to head the Catachetical School was a native Egyptian by the name of Origen. Origen was an outstanding theologian and one of the most influential Church Fathers. He traveled extensively to lecture in various churches around the world and has many important texts to his credit including the '' Hexapla'', an exegesis of various translations of the Hebrew Bible period, the New Testament had been entirely translated into Coptic. But while Christianity continued to thrive in Egypt, the old pagan beliefs which had survived the test of time were facing mounting pressure. The Byzantine period was particularly brutal in its zeal to erase any traces of ancient Egyptian religion. Under emperor Theodosius I, Christianity had already been proclaimed the religion of the Empire and all pagan cults were forbidden. When Egypt fell under the jurisdiction of Constantinople after the split of the Roman Empire, many ancient Egyptian temples were either destroyed or converted into monasteries.

One of the defining moments in the history of the Church in Egypt is a controversy that ensued over the nature of Jesus Christ which culminated in the final split of the Coptic Church from both the Byzantine and Roman Catholic Churches. The Council of Chalcedon convened in AD 451, signaling the Byzantine Empire's determination to assert its hegemony over Egypt. When it declared that Jesus Christ was of two natures embodied in Christ's person, the Egyptian reaction was swift, rejecting the decrees of the Council as incompatible with the Miaphysite doctrine of Coptic Orthodoxy. The Copts' upholding of the Miaphysite doctrine against the pro-Chalcedonian Greek Melkites had both theological and national implications. As Coptologist Jill Kamil notes, the position taken by the Egyptians "paved he wayfor the Coptic church to establish itself as a separate entity...No longer even spiritually linked with Constantinople, theologians began to write more in Coptic and less in Greek. Coptic art developed its own national character, and the Copts stood united against the imperial power."

Islamic period from Late antiquity to Middle Ages

Before the Muslim conquest of Egypt, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius was able to reclaim the country after a brief Persian invasion in AD 616, and subsequently appointed Cyrus of Alexandria, a Chalcedonian, as Patriarch. Cyrus was determined to convert the Egyptian Miaphysites by any means. He expelled Coptic monks and bishops from their monasteries and sees. Many died in the chaos, and the resentment of the Egyptians against their Byzantine conquerors reached a peak.

Meanwhile, the new religion of Islam was making headway in Arabia, culminating in the Muslim conquests that took place following Muhammad's death. In AD 639, the Arab general 'Amr ibn al-'As marched into Egypt, facing off with the Byzantines in the Battle of Heliopolis that ended with the Byzantines' defeat. The relationship between the Greek Melkites and the Egyptian Copts had grown so bitter that most Egyptians did not put up heavy resistance against the Arabs.

The new Muslim rulers moved the capital to Fustat and, through the 7th century, retained the existing Byzantine administrative structure with Greek as its language. Native Egyptians filled administrative ranks and continued to worship freely so long as they paid the jizya poll tax, in addition to a land tax that all Egyptians irrespective of religion also had to pay. The authority of the Miaphysite doctrine of the Coptic Church was for the first time nationally recognized.Watterson, p. 268

According to al-Ya'qubi, repeated revolts by Egyptian Christians against the Muslim Arabs took place in the 8th and 9th centuries under the reign of the Umayyads and Abbasids. The greatest was one in which disaffected Muslim Egyptians joined their Christian compatriots around AD 830 in an unsuccessful attempt to repel the Arabs. The Egyptian Muslim historian Ibn Abd al-Hakam spoke harshly of the Abbasids—a reaction that according to Egyptologist Okasha El-Daly can be seen "within the context of the struggle between proud native Egyptians and the central Abbasid caliphate in Iraq."

The form of Islam that eventually took hold in Egypt was Sunni, though very early in this period Egyptians began to blend their new faith with indigenous beliefs and practices that had survived through Coptic Christianity. Just as Egyptians had been pioneers in early monasticism so they were in the development of the mystical form of Islam, Sufism. Various Sufi orders were founded in the 8th century and flourished until the present day. One of the earliest Egyptian Sufis was Dhul-Nun al-Misri (i.e., Dhul-Nun the Egyptian). He was born in Akhmim in AD 796 and achieved political and social leadership over the Egyptian people.

Dhul-Nun was regarded as the Patron Saint of the Physicians and is credited with having introduced the concept of Gnosis into Islam, as well as of being able to decipher a number of hieroglyphic characters due to his knowledge of Coptic. He was keenly interested in ancient Egyptian sciences, and claimed to have received his knowledge of alchemy from Egyptian sources.

In the years to follow the Arab occupation of Egypt, a social hierarchy was created whereby Egyptians who converted to Islam acquired the status of mawali or "clients" to the ruling Arab elite, while those who remained Christian, the Copts, became dhimmis, but the Egyptians who converted to Islam were also called Copts until the Mamluk period. In time the power of the Arabs waned throughout the Islamic Empire so that in the 10th century, the Turkish Ikhshids were able to take control of Egypt and made it an independent political unit from the rest of the empire.

Egyptians continued to live socially and politically separate from their foreign conquerors, but their rulers like the Ptolemies before them were able to stabilize the country and bring renewed economic prosperity. It was under the Shiite Fatimids from the 10th to the 12th centuries that Muslim Egyptian institutions began to take form along with the Egyptian dialect of Arabic, which was to eventually slowly supplant native Egyptian or Coptic as the spoken language.

Al-Azhar was founded in AD 970 in the new capital Cairo, not very far from its ancient predecessor in Memphis. It became the preeminent Muslim center of learning in Egypt and by the Ayyubid period it had acquired a Sunni orientation. The Fatimids with some exceptions were known for their religious tolerance and their observance of local Muslim, Coptic and indigenous Egyptian festivals and customs. Under the Ayyubids, the country for the most part continued to prosper.

The Mamluks of Egypt (AD 1258–1517) as a whole were, some of the most enlightened rulers of Egypt, not only in the arts and in providing for the welfare of their subjects, but also in many other ways, such as efficient organisation of law and order and postal services, and the building of canals, roads, bridges and aqueducts. Though turbulent, often treacherous and brutal in their feuds, and politically and economically inept, the later Mameluks maintained the splendour and artistic traditions of their predecessors. The reign of Kait Bey (1468-1496) was one of high achievement in architecture, showing great refinement of taste in the building of elegant tombs, mosques and palaces. It was a period in which learning flourished.

By the 15th century most Egyptians had already been converted to Islam, while Coptic Christians were reduced to a minority. The Mamluks were mainly ethnic Circassians and Turks who had been captured as slaves then recruited into the army fighting on behalf of the Islamic empire. Native Egyptians were not allowed to serve in the army until the reign of Mohamed Ali. Historian James Jankwoski writes:

Ottoman period

Egyptians under the Ottoman Turks from the 16th to the 18th centuries lived within a social hierarchy similar to that of the Mamluks, Arabs, Romans, Greeks and Persians before them. Native Egyptians applied the term ''atrak'' (Turks) indiscriminately to the Ottomans and Mamluks, who were at the top of the social pyramid, while Egyptians, most of whom were farmers, were at the bottom. Frequent revolts by the Egyptian peasantry against the Ottoman-Mamluk Beys took place throughout the 18th century, particularly in Upper Egypt where the peasants at one point wrested control of the region and declared a separatist government.

The only segment of Egyptian society which appears to have retained a degree of power during this period were the Muslim ulama'' or religious scholars, who directed the religious and social affairs of the native Egyptian population and interceded on their behalf when dealing with the Turko-Circassian elite. It is also believed that during the late periods of the Ottoman era of Egypt, native Egyptians were allowed and required to join the army for the first time since the Roman period of Egypt, including Coptic Christians who were civil servants at the time of Mohammed Ali Pasha.

Modern history

Modern Egyptian history is generally believed to begin with the French expedition in Egypt led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798. The French defeated a Mamluk era army at the Battle of the Pyramids, and soon they were able to seize control of the country.

The French occupation was short-lived, ending when British troops drove out the French in 1801. Its impact on the social and cultural fabric of Egyptian society, however, was tremendous. The Egyptians were deeply hostile to the French, whom they viewed as yet another foreign occupation to be resisted. At the same time, the French expedition introduced Egyptians to the ideals of the French Revolution which were to have a significant influence on their own self-perception and realization of modern independence.

When Napoleon invited the Egyptian ''ulama'' to head a French-supervised government in Egypt, for some, it awakened a sense of nationalism and a patriotic desire for national independence from the Ottomans. In addition, the French introduced the printing press in Egypt and published its first newspaper. The monumental catalogue of Egypt's ecology, society and economy, ''Description de l'Égypte'', was written by scholars and scientists who accompanied the French army on their expedition.

The withdrawal of French forces from Egypt left a power vacuum that was filled after a period of political turmoil by Mohammed Ali, an Ottoman officer of Albanian ethnicity. He rallied support among the Egyptians until he was elected by the native Muslim ''ulama'' as governor of Egypt. Mohammed Ali is credited for having undertaken a massive campaign of public works, including irrigation projects, agricultural reforms and the cultivation of cash crops (notably cotton, rice and sugar-cane), increased industrialization, and a new educational system—the results of which are felt to this day.Jankowskil, p. 74

In order to consolidate his power in Egypt, Mohammed Ali worked to eliminate the Turko-Circassian domination of administrative and army posts. For the first time since the Roman period, native Egyptians filled the junior ranks of the country's army. The army would later conduct military expeditions in the Levant, Sudan, and against the Wahabis in Arabia. Many Egyptians student missions were sent to Europe in the early 19th century to study at European universities and acquire technical skills such as printing, shipbuilding, and modern military techniques. One of these students, whose name was Rifa'a et-Tahtawi (1801–1873), was the first in a long line of Egyptian intellectuals that started the modern Egyptian Renaissance.

Nationalism

The period between 1860–1940 was characterized by an Egyptian ''nahda'', renaissance or rebirth. It is best known for the renewed interest in Egyptian antiquity and the cultural achievements that were inspired by it. Along with this interest came an indigenous, Egypt-centered orientation, particularly among the Egyptian intelligentsia that would affect Egypt's autonomous development as a sovereign and independent nation-state.Vatikiotis, p. 115–16

The first Egyptian renaissance intellectual was Rifa'a el-Tahtawi, who was born in the village of Tahta in upper Egypt. In 1831, Tahtawi undertook a career in journalism, education and translation. Three of his published volumes were works of political and moral philosophy. In them he introduces his students to Enlightenment ideas such as secular authority and political rights and liberty; his ideas regarding how a modern civilized society ought to be and what constituted by extension a civilized or "good Egyptian"; and his ideas on public interest and public good.

Tahtawi was instrumental in sparking indigenous interest in Egypt's ancient heritage. He composed a number of poems in praise of Egypt and wrote two other general histories of the country. He also co-founded with his contemporary Ali Mubarak, the architect of the modern Egyptian school system, a native Egyptology school that looked for inspiration to medieval Egyptian scholars like Suyuti and Maqrizi, who studied ancient Egyptian history, language and antiquities. Tahtawi encouraged his compatriots to invite Europeans to come and teach the modern sciences in Egypt, drawing on the example of Pharaoh Psamtek I who had enlisted the Greeks' help in organizing the Egyptian army.

Among Mohammed Ali's successors, the most influential was Isma'il Pasha who became khedive in 1863. Ismail's reign witnessed the growth of the army, major education reforms, the founding of the Egyptian Museum and the Royal Opera House, the rise of an independent political press, a flourishing of the arts, and the inauguration of the Suez Canal. In 1866, the Assembly of Delegates was founded to serve as an advisory body for the government. Its members were elected from across Egypt, including villages, which meant that native Egyptians came to exert increasing political and economic influence over their country. Several generations of Egyptians exposed to the ideas of constitutionalism made up the emerging intellectual and political milieu that slowly filled the ranks of the government, the army and institutions which had long been dominated by an aristocracy of Turks, Greeks, Circassians and Armenians.

Ismail's massive modernization campaign, however, left Egypt indebted to European powers, leading to increased European meddling in local affairs. This led to the formation of secret groups made up of Egyptian notables, ministers, journalists and army officers organized across the country to oppose the increasing European influence.

When the British deposed Ismail and installed his son Tawfik, the now Egyptian-dominated army reacted violently, staging a revolt led by Minister of War Ahmed Orabi, who was a rural Egyptian born in a village in Zagazig, self-styled el-Masri ('the Egyptian'), against the Khedive, the Turko-Circassian elite, and the European stronghold. The revolt was a military failure and British forces occupied Egypt in 1882. Technically, Egypt was still part of the Ottoman Empire with the Mohammed Ali family ruling the country, though now with British supervision and according to British directives. The Egyptian army was disbanded and a smaller army commanded by British officers was installed in its place.

Liberal age

Egyptian self-government, education, and the continued plight of Egypt's peasant majority deteriorated most significantly under British occupation. Slowly, an organized national movement for independence began to form. In its beginnings, it took the form of an Azhar-led religious reform movement that was more concerned with the social conditions of Egyptian society. It gathered momentum between 1882 and 1906, ultimately leading to a resentment against European occupation.

Sheikh Muhammad Abduh, the son of a Delta farmer who was briefly exiled for his participation in the Orabi revolt and a future Azhar Mufti, was its most notable advocate. Abduh called for a reform of Egyptian Muslim society and formulated the modernist interpretations of Islam that took hold among younger generations of Egyptians. Among these were Mustafa Kamil and Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed, the architects of modern Egyptian nationalism. Mustafa Kamil had been a student activist in the 1890s involved in the creation of a secret nationalist society that called for British evacuation from Egypt. He was famous for coining the popular expression, "If I had not been an Egyptian, I would have wished to become one."

Egyptian nationalist sentiment reached a high point after the 1906 Dinshaway Incident, when following an altercation between a group of British soldiers and Egyptian farmers, four of the farmers were hanged while others were condemned to public flogging. Dinshaway, a watershed in the history of Egyptian anti-colonial resistance, galvanized Egyptian opposition against the British, culminating in the founding of the first two political parties in Egypt: the secular, liberal ''Umma'' (the Nation, 1907) headed by Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed, and the more radical, pro-Islamic ''Watani'' Party (National Party, 1908) headed by Mustafa Kamil. Lutfi was born to a family of farmers in a village in the Delta province of Daqahliya in 1872. He was educated at al-Azhar where he attended lectures by Mohammed Abduh. Abduh came to have a profound influence on Lutfi's reformist thinking in later years. In 1907, he founded the Umma Party newspaper, el-Garida, whose statement of purpose read: "El-Garida is a purely Egyptian party which aims to defend Egyptian interests of all kinds."

Both the People and National parties came to dominate Egyptian politics until World War I, but the new leaders of the national movement for independence following four arduous years of war (in which Great Britain declared Egypt a British protectorate) were closer to the secular, liberal principles of Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed and the People's Party. Prominent among these was Saad Zaghloul who led the new movement through the Wafd Party. Saad Zaghloul was born in a small Egyptian village, he held several ministerial positions before he was elected to the Legislative Assembly and organized a mass movement demanding an end to the British Protectorate. He garnered such massive popularity among the Egyptian people that he came to be known as 'Father of the Egyptians'. When on March 8, 1919 the British arrested Zaghloul and his associates and exiled them to Malta, the Egyptian people staged their first modern revolution. Demonstrations and strikes across Egypt became such a daily occurrence that normal life was brought to a halt.

The Wafd Party drafted a new Constitution in 1923 based on a parliamentary representative system. Saad Zaghloul became the first popularly elected Prime Minister of Egypt in 1924. Egyptian independence at this stage was provisional, as British forces continued to be physically present on Egyptian soil. In 1936, the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty was concluded. New forces that came to prominence were the Muslim Brotherhood and the radical Young Egypt Party. In 1920, Banque Misr (Bank of Egypt) was founded by Talaat Pasha Harb as "an Egyptian bank for Egyptians only", which restricted shareholding to native Egyptians and helped finance various new Egyptian-owned businesses.

Under the parliamentary monarchy, Egypt reached the peak of its modern intellectual Renaissance that was started by Rifa'a el-Tahtawi nearly a century earlier. Among those who set the intellectual tone of a newly independent Egypt, in addition to Muhammad Abduh and Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed, were Qasim Amin, Muhammad Husayn Haykal, Taha Hussein, Abbas el-'Akkad, Tawfiq el-Hakeem, and Salama Moussa. They delineated a liberal outlook for their country expressed as a commitment to individual freedom, secularism, an evolutionary view of the world and faith in science to bring progress to human society.

When Egyptian novelist and Nobel Prize laureate Naguib Mahfouz died in 2006, many Egyptians felt that perhaps the last of the Greats of Egypt's golden age had died. In his dialogues with close associate and journalist Mohamed Salmawy, published as ''Mon Égypte'', Mahfouz had this to say:

Republic

Increased involvement by King Farouk in parliamentary affairs, government corruption, and the widening gap between the country's rich and poor led to the eventual toppling of the monarchy and the dissolution of the parliament through a ''coup d'état'' by a group of army officers in 1952. The Egyptian Republic was declared on June 18, 1953 with General Muhammad Naguib as the first President of the Republic. After Naguib was forced to resign in 1954 and later put under house arrest by Gamal Abdel Nasser, the real architect of the 1952 movement, mass protests by Egyptians erupted against the forced resignation of what became a popular symbol of the new regime.

Nasser assumed power as President and began a nationalization process that initially had profound effects on the socioeconomic strata of Egyptian society. According to one historian, "Egypt had, for the first time since 343 BC, been ruled not by a Macedonian Greek, nor a Roman, nor an Arab, nor a Turk, but by an Egyptian."

Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal leading to the 1956 Suez Crisis. Egypt became increasingly involved in regional affairs until three years after the 1967 Six-Day War, in which Egypt lost the Sinai to Israel, Nasser died and was succeeded by Anwar Sadat. Sadat revived an ''Egypt Above All'' orientation, switched Egypt's Cold War allegiance from the Soviet Union to the United States, expelling Soviet advisors in 1972, and launched the Infitah economic reform policy. Like his predecessor, he also clamped down on religious and leftist opposition alike.

Egyptians fought one last time in the 1973 October War in an attempt to liberate Egyptian territories captured by Israel six years earlier. The October War presented Sadat with a political victory that later allowed him to regain the Sinai. In 1977, Sadat made a historic visit to Israel leading to the signing of the 1978 peace treaty, which was supported by the vast majority of Egyptians, in exchange for the complete Israeli withdrawal from Sinai. Sadat was assassinated in Cairo by members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad in 1981, and was succeeded by Hosni Mubarak.

Hosni Mubarak was the president from 14 October 1981 to 11 February 2011, when he resigned under pressure of popular protest. Although power was ostensibly organized under a multi-party semi-presidential system, in practice it rested almost solely with the president. In late February 2005, for the first time since the 1952 coup d'état, the Egyptian people had an apparent chance to elect a leader from a list of various candidates, most prominently Ayman Nour. Most Egyptians were skeptical about the process of democratization and feared that power might ultimately be transferred to the president's first son, Gamal Mubarak.

After the resignation of Hosni Mubarak presidential powers were transferred to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, who relinquished power on 30 June 2012 when Islamist candidate Mohamed Morsi

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