Information about Religion in Egypt

Religion in Egypt 

Religion in Egypt controls many aspects of social life and is endorsed by law. The state religion of Egypt is Islam. Although estimates vary greatly in the absence of official statistics. Since the 2006 census and thus available statistics are estimates made by religious and non-governmental agencies. The country is majority Sunni Muslim (with estimates ranging from around 80% to 94%), with the next largest religious group being Coptic Christians (with estimates ranging from 6% to 20%). The exact numbers are subject to controversy, with Christians alleging that they have been systemically undercounted in existing censuses.

Religious Beliefs In Egypt

Egypt receives two of the main religious institutions. The Coptic Orthodox Church was founded in Alexandria, which was founded by St. Mark in the middle of the first century. Al-Azhar Mosque was established in 970 A.D by the Fatimids as the first Islamic university in Egypt.

Muslims and Christians In Egypt, share a common history, national identification, ethnicity, society, culture, and language.

Among the common religious sights in Egypt is the mosque next to the church, wherein 2002 under the Mubarak government, (January 7) was considered an official holiday on the occasion of Christmas in Egypt, although Christians represent the minimum in law enforcement, state security, and public functions And from being discriminated against in the workforce based on their religion.

Relations with the Coptic minority

Coptic Christians, who represent the oldest religions in Egypt, have become the largest ethnic and religious minority in Egypt after entering the Islamic conquest of Egypt, and they are now more affected by legislation that may discriminate between them. Copts in Egypt faced increasing marginalization after the 1952 coup led by Gamal Abdel Nasser. Until recently, Christians had to obtain presidential approval even for minor church reforms. Although the law was relaxed in 2005 by handing over the authority to approve rulers, Copts no longer face obstacles in building new churches.

Ancient Egyptian religion
The ancient Egyptian religion, with its complex system of beliefs and rituals, was an integral part of ancient Egyptian society. She prayed about the interaction of the Egyptians with many deities who are believed to exist in and control the world, where rituals such as prayer and offerings were presented to the deities to gain their satisfaction. One of the official religious practices that focused on the pharaohs was the rulers of Egypt, where he believed that he possessed divine power through their position. They acted as intermediaries between their people and the gods, and they were obliged to preserve the gods of ancient Egypt through rituals and performances so that they could preserve their property and status, as the ancient state devoted tremendous resources to religious rituals and building temples for the pharaonic god.

Individuals were permitted to communicate with the deities for their own purposes and to ask for help through prayer or forcing the deities to act by magic. These practices were distinct from rituals and formal institutions but were closely related to them. Famous religious tradition has become more notable throughout Egyptian history as the status of the Pharaoh has declined. The Egyptian belief in the afterlife and the importance of funerary practices is evident in the great efforts made to ensure that their lives remain after death - by providing graves and massive goods and offers to preserve the dead bodies and souls of the deceased and his properties.

The details of religious belief changed with the passage of time, as the roots of religion go back to prehistoric times in Egypt and lasted for more than 3000 years, as the importance of certain deities increased and decreased, and their complex relationships changed at some times, and therefore some deities became prominent to others, including That is the sun god Ra, the creator god Amun, and the mother goddess Isis. For a short period, in the theology promulgated by the pharaoh Akhenaten, who moved his capital to Tel El Amarna in El Minya nowadays, a new single god was promoted, Aten, who replaced the traditional pantheon. The ancient Egyptian religion and legends left behind many writings and monuments other than the great influences on ancient and modern cultures.

The ancient Egyptian people were surrounded by natural phenomena and depending on their very existence conceived around them divine powers inhabiting the cosmic elements, on top of which are the earth, the sky, the ether, and the flood of the Nile as well as the sun and the moon. These forces, which were embodied in human bodies, crystallized many cosmic deities of general importance to everyone, to the degree that these deities are no longer associated in their origins with any region or city in the country because of their presence in each place there was no need for an organized form of a creed or a specific local temple Exactly. According to the poetic imagination of eastern people, these human ideals were brought down to these deities, as they were referred to in the language of human nature itself. We have reached a few of these myths in full form and from relatively late ages, but innumerable references to mythical events in some ancient texts indicate that these myths were already flourishing since the end of the Fifth Dynasty at least.

In the era of the ancient state, the Egyptians used to describe God as stable and confident, as it manifests itself and shines like the sun. And established, as for the external appearance of their souls, it is revealed as the sun in its brightness, and it is also great and kind. And the gods are the ones who make the child and bring him to life and love him with protection, love, and education, standing behind him, keeping him with his life, feeding him and feeding him with virtue, health, and clothing, raising him high, and on the whole, his whole life lies in the hands of God.

According to the ancient Egyptians conviction about Gods, man is the servant of the Lord who is celibate in his worship and love. Although most of the aforementioned traits are attributed to the god (Ptah), this is merely a coincidence, because many of the names of the flags that we know about the ancient state were related to the relics, most of which were found in the area of ​​Memphis. It is natural for the frequency of the appearance of the other deity name to be derived from the names of other deities that we find that the eye of the attributes that we found are related to the names of individuals composed of the name (Ptah) attributed to these deities also or to any other deity, and in fact to the deities in general.

It appears in the ancient Egyptian concept that the destinies of human beings or their destiny are not inevitably impossible to avoid, for a person can change his destiny through his actions if God wants him to do so, and as long as tomorrow is always (falls in the hands of God) the child is born accompanied by divine care, and the parents consolidate their links with the gods so he orders that a child be born to them and since then, a person exercises his actions only through the consent and consent of the gods. Humans suggest actions, but God imposes them, as expressed by one of the Egyptian sages (a person speaks the word, but the matter is to the Lord). The funeral ritual was intended to release the soul from the body so that it could move freely, and join the body again to be able to live forever. However, it was also important to preserve the dead body, as the Egyptians believed that the Pope returned to his body every night to obtain A new life, before leaving in the morning

In early times the deceased pharaoh was believed to ascend to the sky and dwell among the stars. Over the course of the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC), however, he came to be more closely associated with the daily rebirth of the sun god Ra and with the underworld ruler Osiris as those deities grew more important.

In the fully developed afterlife beliefs of the New Kingdom, the soul had to avoid a variety of supernatural dangers in the Duat, before undergoing a final judgment, known as the "Weighing of the Heart", carried out by Osiris and by the Assessors of Maat. In this judgment, the gods compared the actions of the deceased while alive (symbolized by the heart) to Maat, to determine whether he or she had behaved following Maat. If the deceased was judged worthy, his or her ka and ba were united into an Akh. Several beliefs coexisted about Akh's destination. Often the dead were said to dwell in the realm of Osiris, a lush and pleasant land in the underworld. The solar vision of the afterlife, in which the deceased soul traveled with Ra on his daily journey, was still primarily associated with royalty but could extend to other people as well. Throughout the Middle and New Kingdoms, the notion that the Akh could also travel in the world of the living, and to some degree magically affect events there, became increasingly prevalent.