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Christians versus Muslims in Modern Egypt: The Century-Long Struggle for Coptic Equality

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The unfortunately acrimonious title of Hasan's work should not detract from the genuinely sound and insightful analysis of the national and church politics of Coptic identity in 20th century Egypt. This is a genuinely unique work that should be read by every serious student of the Mid East.

The essential thesis of this rests on the assertion that in Coptic experience, traditional and church hierarchy proved to be dynamic resources for modernizing the community. Such an assertion is highly counter-intuitive, but Hasan demonstrates with seemingly effortless skill just how well this paradigm fits the Coptic experience. For her, Coptic modernity appears as both a competitor with the modernization project of the Egyptian state and an Egyptian manifestation of the turn-of-the-century politicization of ethnic identities.

This book almost entirely focuses on the founding generation of the Sunday School Movement, which took the reigns of public church leadership vis-à-vis the state from the rich, westernized elites whose influence the Free Officer coup destroyed, and how the subsequent generation had to and continues to learn how to negotiate its legacies, rivalries and politics. Here, the perspicacity concerning Church and lay politics becomes demonstrably profound-exhibiting a level of familiarity only made possible by years of experience. Her insights in this regard are perhaps the most valuable.

Moreover, controversial topics are addressed with unflinching transparency. Thus, neither does she neglect to address pressing issues of religious discrimination, disenfranchisement and marginalization facing the Copts in an increasingly Islamicized Egypt, nor intra-ecclesiastical problems such as the sometimes intractable authoritarianism of the church clerisy, nor the often immiserated position of women, etc.

Hasan provides a unique study in this book, one which bases its analysis in solid historical research and first-hand experience with the major players of the contemporary Coptic milieu. She is sympathetic while realistic, clear but nuanced. While acknowledging the challenges facing the Coptic community, she refuses to place it within a "victim mentality," instead characterizing it as an active, deliberate, and evolving body within the realities of modern Egyptian politics and society. Nicely written, exhaustively researched, and fairly presented- all the elements of solid historical writing which is both scholarly and relevant.