EgyptCoptic Christians are Egypt’s largest religious
minority. Today, the exact number of Copts is
unknown, with estimates ranging from six to ten
million. Most Copts follow the Coptic Orthodox
faith, although a small number identify with the
Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches. Because
of their visible status, a discussion of sectarianism
and gender in Egypt is ultimately a discussion of
Coptic women. Within this context, it should be
noted that Coptic women have historically lived
“doubly marginal” lives, under the authority of
patriarchal rules, which have often repressed them
as women and, due to sporadic sectarian strife in
Egypt, as members of a minority group.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the debate over the issue
of sectarianism in Egypt resurfaced with great
intensity. At the heart of this discussion is whether
or not Coptic Christians constitute a minority or
even a sect in Egypt. Since the late nineteenth cen-
tury, at the time when the Egyptian nationalist
identity was being formulated, the prevailing argu-
ment was that Copts are Egyptians who, aside from
their religious affiliation, are ethnically identical
to their Muslim counterparts. Then and now, this
viewpoint has generally disregarded the idea that a
Coptic socioreligious experience might be distinct
from a Muslim experience. The inattention to
Egypt’s multi-sectarian social composition, which
once included a visible number of Greeks, Arme-
nians, and Jews, comes at a time when Egyptian
society is increasingly being defined as “Islamic.”
The pervasive focus on constructing a homoge-
neous nationalist identity seems to override the dis-
tinctiveness of the Coptic experience. The role of
women in this discussion has received little schol-
arly attention, most likely because Coptic women
constitute a marginalized group within a minority
community.
There are two predominant factors that shape
the lives of Coptic women today: the laws and rules
governing Muslim Egyptian society at large and
the rules internal to the Coptic community itself,
mostly as dictated by the Coptic Church.
Many of Egypt’s laws draw on the Sharì≠a, or
Islamic law, and according to a 1995 law, the appli-
cation of family law is based on an individual’s reli-
gion. In regard to matters of divorce, then, Coptic
Sectarianism and Confessionalism
women are more restricted in their rights than their
Muslim counterparts since the Coptic Church for-
bids divorce with few exceptions. The 2000 Per-
sonal Status Law made it easier for Muslim women
to obtain divorce without a husband’s consent, but
the application of this law among Christian women
has been practically unachievable. In contrast,
because inheritance laws for all Egyptian citizens
are based on Sharì≠a, both Muslim and Christian
female heirs receive half the amount of a male heir’s
inheritance. Occasionally, on a case by case basis,
the Coptic Church has exerted informal pressure to
win more favorable inheritance rights for Coptic
women, but the enforcement of this matter has been
inconsistent.
In broader society, during the 1980s, using a tone
similar to that used to characterize the position of
Muslim women, fundamentalist groups such as the
Egyptian Islamic Jihad maintained that “the impo-
sition of Muslim law on Copts will be beneficial to
them (e.g., strict regulations in matters of feminine
dress that enhance virtue)” (Sivan 1985, 148).
While this statement represents a viewpoint proba-
bly uncommon among Muslims, since the 1970s
the growing Islamist tide has exacerbated tensions
between Egyptian Muslims and Christians as sec-
tarian violence has erupted sporadically through-
out Egypt. In the context of gender relations, this
tension is particularly evident in the issue of the veil
or ™ijàb. Historically, both Coptic and Muslim
women wore the veil until the turn of the twentieth
century when unveiling came to symbolize a
woman’s advancement. Scholars have noted that in
the past decades, many Muslim women have cho-
sen to reveil; their reasons range from protecting
their modesty to publicly asserting their religious
identity (Macleod 1991, Rugh 1986). This phe-
nomenon, however, has forced the issue of gender,
minority status, and public religious expression to
the fore in the lives of most Coptic women.
Although the Christian religion does not articulate
the need for women to wear a veil, Coptic women
in urban centers have commonly adopted a modest
style of dress. They have been careful to avoid
offending the moral standards upheld by conserva-
tive Islamic teachings and by their own church, so
they wear, in general, longer skirts, they cover their
arms, and in some cases they don headscarves.
However, in a situation where most Muslim women