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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]
Sunni Islam [a] (/ ˈ s uː n i /; Arabic: أهل السنة, romanized: Ahl as-Sunnah, lit. 'The People of the Sunnah') is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims, and simultaneously the largest religious denomination in the world. Its name comes from the word Sunnah, referring to the tradition of Muhammad.
The Hanafi school is the largest of the four traditional Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence, followed by approximately 30% of Sunni Muslims worldwide. [8] [9] It is the main school of jurisprudence in the Balkans, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, the Levant, Central Asia and South Asia, in addition to parts of Russia and China.
The Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimun (with Ikhwan الإخوان brethren) or Muslim Brotherhood, is an organisation that was founded by Egyptian scholar Hassan al-Banna, a graduate of Dar al-Ulum. With its various branches, it is the largest Sunni movement in the Arab world, and an affiliate is often the largest opposition party in many Arab nations.
Shia Muslims do not follow the Kutub al-Sittah (six major hadith collections) followed in Sunni Islam, therefore in Shia and Sunni Islam, the sunnah refer to different collections of religious canonical literature. The primary collections of Shia community were written by three authors known as the "Three Muhammads", [117] and they are:
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 ...
Egyptian religion produced the temples and tombs which are ancient Egypt's most enduring monuments, but it also influenced other cultures. In pharaonic times many of its symbols, such as the sphinx and winged solar disk , were adopted by other cultures across the Mediterranean and Near East, as were some of its deities, such as Bes .