Final Report Summary - CHRISTIANSINEGYPT (Christian Communities in Early Islamic Egypt. The View from Inside)
In 639, less than twenty years after the death of the prophet Muhammad, the raging conquest wave had brought the Arab Muslim armies to the borders of the Byzantine province of Egypt. Two years later Alexandria, bulwark of classical civilisation of Christian and Jewish Hellenistic learning fell and with it a new era began for the ancient country of Egypt.
The project aimed to understand the transformation of Egypt from a Greek and Coptic speaking, Christian society into an Arabic speaking, Muslim one, between the seventh and tenth centuries, by observing the Islamic conquest from inside the Egyptian Christian communities through the documents that they produced.
These texts were intended for daily use, and unlike literary texts, they were not written for an audience, they do not try to convince, and they are not polemical. In fact, they were not even meant to be used for a long period; their preservation is only due to the exceptionally dry climate of Egypt. Their historical value is therefore invaluable.
The project was organised around three topics which are especially useful to understand the processes of the arabisation and islamisation of Egypt: taxation, evolution of monastic life, and linguistic changes. During the project, I published a number of new texts related to these topics as well as historical studies in which the historical significance of these texts was made clear.
The researches allowed me to define in a more precise and up-to-date way the impact of the Arabic conquest of Egypt on the Christian populations refining ideas about economic, cultural and social sudden changes, the co-existence, competition, negotiation and mutual influence between the different communities after the arrival of the Arabs. The findings of this project can play a role in the continuing debates about interreligious relations both in the past and the present in Egypt.
The project aimed to understand the transformation of Egypt from a Greek and Coptic speaking, Christian society into an Arabic speaking, Muslim one, between the seventh and tenth centuries, by observing the Islamic conquest from inside the Egyptian Christian communities through the documents that they produced.
These texts were intended for daily use, and unlike literary texts, they were not written for an audience, they do not try to convince, and they are not polemical. In fact, they were not even meant to be used for a long period; their preservation is only due to the exceptionally dry climate of Egypt. Their historical value is therefore invaluable.
The project was organised around three topics which are especially useful to understand the processes of the arabisation and islamisation of Egypt: taxation, evolution of monastic life, and linguistic changes. During the project, I published a number of new texts related to these topics as well as historical studies in which the historical significance of these texts was made clear.
The researches allowed me to define in a more precise and up-to-date way the impact of the Arabic conquest of Egypt on the Christian populations refining ideas about economic, cultural and social sudden changes, the co-existence, competition, negotiation and mutual influence between the different communities after the arrival of the Arabs. The findings of this project can play a role in the continuing debates about interreligious relations both in the past and the present in Egypt.