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Islam is the dominant religion in Egypt, with approximately 90% of Egyptians identifying as Muslims. [1] The majority of Egyptian Muslims are adherents of Sunni Islam, [2] while a small minority adhere to Shia Islam. [3] Since 1980, Islam has served as Egypt's state religion. [4]
Islam has been the state religion in Egypt since the amendment of the second article of the Egyptian constitution in the year 1980, before which Egypt was recognized as a secular country. The vast majority of Egyptian Muslims are Sunni, with a small Mu'tazila, Shia Twelvers and the Shia Ismaili communities making up the remainder. [66]
Ancient Egyptian religion consisted of a vast and varying set of beliefs and practices, linked by their common focus on the interaction between the world of humans and the world of the divine. The characteristics of the gods who populated the divine realm were inextricably linked to the Egyptians' understanding of the properties of the world in ...
The Islamization of Egypt occurred after the seventh-century Muslim conquest, in which the Islamic Rashidun Caliphate seized control of Egypt from the Christian dominated Byzantine Empire. Egypt and other conquered territories in the Middle East gradually underwent a large-scale conversion from Christianity to Islam , motivated in part by a ...
Egyptian monasteries translated many Greek and Syriac words, which are now only extant in Coptic. Under Islam, Egypt continued to be a great source of literary endeavor, now in the Arabic language. In 970, al-Azhar University was founded in Cairo, which to this day remains the most important center of Sunni Islamic learning.
The dominant religious rituals and beliefs of ancient Egypt merged and developed over time. As an example, during the New Kingdom, the gods Ra and Amun were syncretized into a single god, Amun-Ra. [5] Such syncretism should be distinguished from mere groupings, also referred to as "families" such as Amun, Mut, and Khonsu.
The study also found that Egyptian Muslims and Sudanese Copts are genetically most similar to Middle Eastern groups rather than the other African populations, and they estimated the Admixture date for Egyptians with Eurasians to have occurred around the 14th century, however the authors noted that "most, if not all, of the populations in this ...
Islam is the most widely followed religion in the Middle East. About 20% of the world's Muslims live in the Middle East, and about 85 percent of people in the Middle East are Muslim. [8] Islam is a monotheistic religion, teaching belief in one God and is based on the Quran. [8]