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Egypt RELIGION
Religion has traditionally been a pervasive social force in
Egypt. For more than 1,000 years, the country has been mostly
Islamic. Still, there is an indigenous Christian minority, the
Copts, which accounted for as much as 8.5 percent of the total
population. Other Christians living in the country included
approximately 750,000 adherents of various Latin and Eastern
Catholic rites, Greek and Armenian Orthodox churches, and
Protestant denominations; many of these Christians emigrated
after the 1956 War. An estimated 1,000 Jews lived in Egypt as of
1990. These Jews were a fragment of a community of 80,000 who
lived in the country before 1948. Egypt's Constitution of 1971
guarantees freedom of religion
(see Islam
, this ch.).
Religious fervor increased among all social classes after
Egypt's defeat in the June 1967 War. Pious individuals commonly
blamed Egypt's lack of faith for the country's setbacks. The
resurgence in public worship and displays of devotion persisted
in the late 1980s. A relaxation of press censorship in 1974
stimulated the growth of religious publications. Religiously
inspired political activism and participation in Sufi orders
intensified among the urban, educated, formerly secular-minded
segments of the populace.
Data as of December 1990
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