MODERN EGYPT

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The breakthrough in Dr El Daly’s research came from analysis of the work of Abu Bakr Ahmad Ibn Wahshiyah, a ninth century alchemist. Ibn Wahshiyah’s work on ancient writing systems showed that he was able to correctly decipher many hieroglyphic signs. Being an alchemist not a linguist, his primary interest was to identify the phonetic value and meaning of hieroglyphic signs with the aim of accessing the ancient Egyptian scientific knowledge inscribed in hieroglyphs.

“By comparing Ibn Wahshiyah’s conclusions with those in current books on Egyptian Language, I was able to assess his accuracy in understanding hieroglyphic signs,” says Dr El Daly.

“In particular I looked at the Egyptian Grammar of Sir Alan Gardiner which has a sign list at the end, it revealed that Ibn Wahshiyah understood perfectly well the nature of Egyptian hieroglyphs.”

Dr El Daly added: “Western culture misinterprets Islam because we think teaching before the Quran is shunned, which isn’t the case. They valued history and assumed that Egypt was a land of science and wisdom and as such they wanted to learn their language to have access to such vast knowledge.

“Critically they did not, unlike the West, write history to fit with the religious ideas of the time, which makes their accounts more reliable. They were also keen on the universality of human history based on the unity of the origin of human beings and the diversity of their appearance and languages. Furthermore, there are likely to be many hidden manuscripts dotted round the world that could make a significant contribution to our understanding of the ancient world.

Dr Okasha El Daly is based in UCL’s Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, one of the world’s largest collections of artefacts covering thousands of years of ancient Egyptian prehistory and history. On Wednesday 6 October UCL launches the biggest university fundraising campaign, Advancing London’s Global University - the Campaign for UCL, which will seek to raise £300 million over the coming decade, including £25 million to build a purpose built museum, the Panopticon, that will house UCL’s collections of Egyptology, art and rare books in an environment that preserves them for all to see.

The Panopticon, which means ‘all-visible’ in Greek, will be unlike any other museum in the UK because the entire collection will be on display and publicly accessible. Other highlights will include works by Durer, Rembrandt, Turner and Constable; an unrivalled collection of John Flaxman’s drawings and sculpture; the first edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost and the George Orwell archives.


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Adapted from materials provided by University College London.
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 MLA University College London (2004, October 7). Hieroglyphics Cracked 1,000 Years Earlier Than Thought. ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 14, 2009, from



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The influence of the ancient Egyptian civilisation is far-reaching. Rania Khallaf celebrates the New Year with the Pharaohs painted by a Japanese artist

Portraits of Egypt and Kinoshita in his atelier in Hiroshima Right: Moon Bound 200x400 cm, 2007



Al Ahram Weekly
Cairo
Jan. 12, 2008

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                                             Egypt captured by a Japanese brush







Al Ahram Weekly
Cairo
Jan. 12, 2008

The influence of the ancient Egyptian civilisation is far-reaching. Rania Khallaf celebrates the New Year with the Pharaohs painted by a Japanese artist
 
On 1 January, an exhibition of oil paintings by Japanese artist Kazzu Kinoshita opened at the Opera House Art Gallery.

The 10-day exhibition, partly funded by the Japan Foundation and entitled "To Their Posterity: The Messages from Egyptian Pharaohs", takes the motif of antiquities of the ancient Egyptian civilisation as its main theme and includes works produced over the past 15 years.

The paintings are all huge: "The Tower", 183x326 cm, features the Pyramids; "Glow" features the Sphinx with a backdrop of trees: while "The Path" features the Sphinx with the Pyramids in the background.

Kinoshita was born in Hiroshima in 1942. He began showing his work at the age of 20, holding his first solo exhibition in 1971. He began painting Egypt in 1994, when his wife insisted that he accompany her on a tour of Luxor and Aswan. "I was really hesitant, because I seldom travel outside Japan," Kinoshita told Al-Ahram Weekly. "However, I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the Egyptian antiquities and the natural scenery. I did not make many sketches during that visit; but when I went back to Japan I felt that something had ignited in me."

Kinoshita started watching videos on the ancient history of Egypt. That winter he returned to Egypt, and in the summer of 1995 he made a third visit. After that he was a frequent visitor.

He uses a predominance of red and blue in different degrees. "It might have been because of the hot climate in Upper Egypt, but these were my colours that I was using even before coming to Egypt," he says. "I started working under this title 'To Their Posterity' some 20 years ago. I have always been deliberating the motif of the mystery of chance encounter."

The first exhibition under that title was held in 1999 in Hiroshima, where he exhibited some of the paintings currently on show at the Opera House. "The exhibition was warmly received by Japanese art lovers, who were really astonished by the great history of Egypt, largely because Japan is not a country with such a 'stone culture'."

The real message Kinoshita thinks the Pharaohs have for us is simply to "bring down the imperative past to the future".

"I am very much infatuated with the historical character of Ramses II who ruled ancient Egypt for a long time," he says. "What is more amazing is that after all these years his monuments have survived... His message to us is to take the wisdom from the past and continue to be competent to future challenges."

Yet it is not only the ancient statutes that are prevalent in Kinoshita's paintings. The sun and moon are always there, shining over the scenes. "I was keen to depict the sun and the moon just to give the feeling of continuity or eternity of the ancient Egyptian civilisation," he says. "It is the same sun that rose on the Pharaohs, after all." Although he has an obvious passion for ancient Egyptian history, Kinoshita does not consider himself representative of the Egyptomania movement now sweeping Japan and parts of Europe. "Actually, I am a bit away from such a movement, because I am not only fascinated by ancient Egypt, but also by natural beauty and contemporary Egyptian life. I just want to deliver a message to the viewer that our past, present and future cannot be separated."

Touring the exhibition, which covers two floors, the viewer might think that was all a foreign painter could present. This is not quite accurate. "This exhibition offers me an excellent opportunity to encounter Egyptian artists and art lovers, and to discuss what is behind the paintings. However, my journey to Egypt has not ended yet. There is still a lot here to see and to interact with," Kinoshita says with a smile.

 


© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly.

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8 - 14 January 2009
Issue No. 929
Heritage 









                                            King Tut was the son of Akhenaten






By Zahi Hawwas

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I had an exceptional adventure recently. It was at a site in Middle Egypt known as Al-Ashmunein, known in Greek as Hermopolis after the Greek god Hermes, and known to the ancient Egyptians as Thoth, the god of wisdom. The site contained a temple dedicated to Thoth, and a large statue of the god in the form of a baboon can still be seen today. I hold Al-Ashmunein close to my heart because 40 years ago I started my career as an inspector of antiquities only a few kilometres away, at Tuna Al-Gabal.

I spent two incredible years in Tuna Al-Gabal. I stayed in a beautiful rest house in the desert, and in the evenings I was completely alone with my thoughts and dreams in this large, mysterious house surrounded by desert. Every day I would sit in the garden and look up at the sky. I was not a patient man, but living in this spectacular isolation taught me the virtue of patience, and I started to write. I kept a diary and recorded my memories, and I wrote letters every day to the girlfriend I had left behind in Alexandria.

Near my rest house was another built for our great man Taha Hussein when he was minister of education. Hussein used to come in the winter and every day he would visit the tomb of Isadora, a lady who lived during the Roman Period. Isadora drowned in the Nile and her lover built a beautiful tomb for her. Her lover used to travel about 50 kilometres from Sheikh Abada on the east bank of the Nile to Tuna Al-Gabal on the west bank to light a pottery lamp in her memory. When Taha Hussein was in residence, he would light this lamp every day.

In the last century a limestone block broken in two pieces was found at Al-Ashmunein. One piece of the block has an inscription that reads: "The king's son of his body Tutankhaten". The inscription on the other piece reads: "The daughter of the king, of his body, his great desire of the king of Two Lands, Ankhesenpaaten". Scholars suggest that this inscription is not only one of the few pieces of evidence showing that Tut was from Tel Al-Amarna, but also showing Akhenaten was the father of Tut because Tut was mentioned as the son alongside the well-known daughter of Akhenaten, Ankhesenpaaten. Ankhesenpaaten was the third daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti and the wife of Tut.

When I began to study the family of King Tut and investigate the identity of his biological father and mother, I knew that it was important to find this block. The block is not registered in the registry book for the magazine in Al-Ashmunein. Therefore, I started to ask scholars who had discussed this block in their work about its location -- but no one knew where it was! I called Adel Hassan, the director of Minya, and asked him to search for the block. After a few days he informed me that they had found it. I went to Al-Ashmunein and entered the storeroom, and learnt that they only had the side of the block that mentioned Tut's name but not the piece with the name of his wife, Ankhesenpaaten. We immediately started to search among the numerous stones from the Aten Temple that were reused by Ramses II in a temple at Al-Ashmunein in the hope of finding the other half of the block. And we were happily surprised when we located it. Brando Quilici, who is shooting a documentary about the family of Tut and who accompanied me to the storeroom, was surprised and thrilled that we had rediscovered this important piece of evidence.

Some people believe that Tut was the son of Amenhotep III because he is mentioned on monuments found at Thebes. Also, the hieroglyph for "king's son" can be translated as "son-in-law" or "grandfather". But it is important to understand that when Tut became king and moved to Thebes, he could not mention the name of Akhenaten. The priests of Amun hated Akhenaten for changing the religion to the worship of only one god, Aten, and for moving the capital from Thebes to Tel Al-Amarna. After the death of Akhenaten the religion returned to the old ways and the priests of Amun regained power. Therefore it is most probable that Tut, on his monuments, wanted to identify himself with his powerful grandfather Amenhotep III. Hence, the hieroglyphs on the monuments found in Thebes that read: " son of the king " can be translated as " grandson of the king ".

The block from Tel Al-Amarna is an accurate piece of evidence that proves Tut lived in Amarna with Akhenaten, and that he married Ankhesenpaaten while living there. On the block, and while he lived in Amarna, his name was Tutankhaten, honouring Aton, but when he became king and moved to Thebes he changed his name to Tutankhamen, honouring Amun. This block can also be seen as evidence that Tut was in fact the son of Akhenaten. I am sure this archaeological evidence will instigate much discussion and debate among Egyptologists.
 


© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly.

 
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 

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                                                Blessed be the people of Egypt



                                      Copt or Muslim? Dina Ezzat declines an answer






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The Coptic moulid of Virgin Mary in Assiut and the Muslim moulid of Al-Sayed Al-Badawi in Tanta: the boundaries are crossed most often when Muslims and Christians attend the same moulids
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It was under exceptionally tight security measures that the Coptic Church Tuesday night celebrated Christmas mass. Security officials admitted that the alert they applied this year was above average. "These are tough times and we want no headaches," said one.

It was for more than one reason that security measures were intensified this year. The most obvious, though not the most pressing, is related to developments in Gaza. Security officials are well aware of fears within some sections of the Coptic community that churches might be subjected to some "unfriendly" demonstrations.

"This is very sad. Some people keep suggesting that we, as Copts, are happy to see the disaster in Gaza just because it targets Hamas, a movement we are supposed to dislike as we are supposed to hate all forms of political Islam," commented Raafat, an Egyptian Copt, as he left the Coptic Cathedral in Abbasiya a few days ago. "Well, yes, we do not like Hamas and we do not like the Muslim Brotherhood or other Islamic groups that tend to perceive Copts as lesser citizens but we do not like to see the Israelis doing this to the Palestinians either," said Raafat.

Developments in Gaza, however serious, remain a very small part of much larger security concerns. It is civilian clashes about which the state is most worried, prompted at times by the mere presence of economically frustrated and religiously agitated Copts and Muslims in the same place.

This worry is perfectly legitimate, argues Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Human Rights. According to Bahgat and other concerned observers, 2008 was an alarming year in terms of sectarian strife. It was marked by dramatic cases of confrontation, most famously at Abu Fana Monastery in May when Coptic monks were directly involved in violent clashes for the first time in 35 years of on-and-off sectarianism. It was also a year in which clashes over the construction of churches, romances across religious divides and the exercise of religious freedom proved a daily headache for state and society alike.

"Throughout the year we had to deal with an alarming increase of tension [between Copts and Muslims]," Bahgat notes, citing three reports issued by the Egyptian Initiative for Human Rights monitoring relations between Copts and Muslims in Egypt. The increase of tension, the reports warned, "was coupled with an increased frequency of anti- Coptic sentiments". Such sentiments "and behaviour", the reports went on, "assumed a wider geographic scope". "Cases of sectarianism used to be more or less confined to certain neighbourhoods and villages in Upper Egypt, Alexandria and parts of Cairo. Today we are talking about a nationwide phenomenon. From Upper Egypt to the Delta and beyond sectarianism is clearly monitored and is not sufficiently or efficiently confronted," says Bahgat.

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Sectarianism is not just about the kinds of violent clashes that in 2008 left one Copt and a Muslim dead. It is also about explicit and implicit tendencies to religious isolationism, a retrenchment both religions are experiencing and which has steadily redefined the role of both the Church and Al-Azhar. Copts and Muslims both acknowledge the growing role of the church and the mosque in their daily lives. This role, they say, is not just about religious practice but also about the daily conduct of their lives, physical protection included.

In the Upper Egyptian governorate of Minya, in the Delta governorate of Mansoura and in the once cosmopolitan coastal city of Alexandria individuals say that when it comes to clashes with citizens of the "other" faith, it is to clergymen and to the Coptic or Muslim community, not the state, they resort.

Certainly this was the sentiment that seemed to predominate last summer when a group of Muslims living in a near-by village and Coptic monks clashed over the expansion of the Abu Fana monastery.

"When we first came under fire from nearby villagers we called up the police forces. It was hours before they arrived. We were under fire. Our church was being burnt. We had to react," said one of the Abu Fana monks. "It is sad for me to say it but there was only one reason for the delay. The attack on the monastery did not matter much to security officials who are exclusively Muslim. We don't want to further exacerbate sensitivities and we don't want any more problems."

Tellingly, similar complaints were voiced by the residents of Aarab Houre, the small village in the vicinity of the monastery. "They allow them [the monks] to expand and take up ever more land but they come and attack our mosques and round up Muslim young men under all sorts of pretexts," said one villager who declined to identify himself. "They call us terrorists and they let the Copts do whatever they want. Of course, it is because the Copts have the support of the West and because the government does not fear God but fears the US," he added.

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Security officers and officials in Minya declined to comment on the exchange of accusations. Elsewhere, security officers say that they are not bothered much by such accusations of bias.

"Every police officer is now perceived in a negative light. The ones accused of being biased are lucky. At least they are not denounced as violators of human rights as many of us are," commented one state-security officer. The state, he insists, is not taking sides though there might be a few instances of bias here and there "among both Copts and Muslims".

"There are school teachers and university professors who exercise religious bias. Some police officers do too and it is on both sides [Copts and Muslims] but obviously because there are more Muslims than Copts it seems more of an Islamic than a Coptic practice."

The census is a very sensitive issue for both Copts and Muslims, for the Church and Al-Azhar and above all for the state. State figures suggest that of the around 80 million Egyptians there are some six to seven per cent Copts. The Church suggests double this figure while radical Islamic organisations claim Copts account for as little as four per cent of the total.

According to some independent sources, in 1995 Copts formed an estimated 15 per cent of Egypt's population. Their declining proportion of the total is not an exclusively Egyptian phenomenon but that applies to Christian communities across the Arab world. And when all is said and done, Egypt shows the least disturbing signs of mass Christian migration.

Foreign diplomats in Egypt and Egyptian diplomats overseas acknowledge an increasing trend among Copts to leave the country, mostly for Australia and the US.

"I don't believe we have much room left here. It is very sad but this is the way things are," says Nevine, a mother of three and wife of a businessman. In her early 40s, she has many complaints about how she has been treated by society. "I have ceased to be an Egyptian woman. Now I am a Copt. When I go to the doctor I am a Copt; if I have paper- work to get done at some government office I am a Copt and when I get in the women's carriage on the Metro I am a Copt. And as a Copt, more often than not, I am the unwanted other. It was not always that way."

When Nevine takes her children to play on Friday at a Heliopolis club she always feels tense. "My two boys tend to play together. It is my daughter who breaks my heart when she comes with a sad face and says that nobody wants to play with her because her name is Mary."

Nevine is considering emigrating to Australia. Among the reasons, she says, are worries not just over social signs of discrimination but for the future. "I pray that President Hosni Mubarak will have a long life. My fear is that the next president, especially if he has an Islamist -- not Muslim -- background will have less sympathy for Copts." When Nevine was growing up she faced no such problems. She had Muslim and Coptic friends and religion "was never an issue".

"We did not talk about it. It belonged elsewhere," she says.

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Shahine, an Egyptian civil servant in his early 50s, agrees that religion was not something that people talked about when he was young.

"But that was wrong," he says. "Religion is who we really are and there is no way we can deny it."

He does not encourage his children to play with Coptic classmates or neighbours.

"I am not telling them that they have to argue with them or not talk with them but I prefer that they do not get too close to them. They can say hello when they see them in the morning but they cannot go play with them in their houses or eat from their food."

Shahine denies that his insistence on such segregation smacks of sectarianism. "No, no. I have nothing against Copts but I just do not want my children to be subjected to matters related to the Coptic creed, things like God had a son and the Virgin Mary is the mother of God. There are influences that we have to avoid right from the beginning."

In his book Copts and Liberalism, dedicated to his daughter Mary "and other migrant birds", and his son Mina "who is dying to fly away", Kamal Ghobrial sheds light on the growing concerns that drive some Copts to consider emigration. The Islamicisation of society, he argues, could lead to demands that Copts may not wish to put up with even if they do not directly counter religious freedoms.

"If the Muslim Brotherhood were to rule would they or wouldn't they force my wife and my daughter to wear the veil," asks Ghobrial.

Milad Hannah, intellectual and university professor, is not perturbed by the stories of Nevine and Shahine.

"They are not representative -- not really," he argues. "As a Copt I have lived all my life well-liked by my Muslim and Coptic co-workers and neighbours. As a Copt I have my status in a society where 30 per cent of the businessmen, the most influential and economically powerful, are Copts, and where 20 per cent of university professors and medical doctors and engineers are Copts."

Hannah is not arguing against Coptic emigration. Nor is he denying that the increasing entrenchment of Islamism, in social discourse and in the state, is to blame. But he also points out that it is easier for Egyptian Copts to emigrate than it is for their Muslim countrymen, "and of course the limits Copts find are placed on professional promotion, especially within certain careers" means leaving for foreign shores more tempting.

"But it is wrong and unfair to suggest that Copts are being forced out of Egypt. Yes, maybe some do not feel comfortable over their current status or fear for their future and that of their children but this is not to say that Copts are fleeing the country."

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For Hannah, the "unfairness" Copts face -- he wishes to avoid the word discrimination -- is neither systematic nor inevitable.

"Christianity has been in Egypt for 19 centuries and Islam has been here for 14 centuries and for the best part of these 15 centuries Egyptian Muslims and Copts co-existed peacefully, much more peacefully than in many other states," Hannah says. And religious-based discrimination, he adds, is something that Muslims face in some countries and Christians face in other countries. "In Egypt it remains in a relatively mild form."

Hannah acknowledges that despite his academic record "as a Copt" he was never promoted to the position of dean.

"But so what. I know that this is related to my religion but I also know that this does not make me a second class citizen." He adds that as a Copt he is "a well-acknowledged university professor who is granted a regular opinion article in no other than the state's most prominent daily, Al-Ahram ".

For Hannah, as for others like him, the overall picture is satisfactory despite some signs of frustration.

One focus of that frustration are the restrictions placed on the building or restoration of churches.

"Why can a Muslim turn any piece of land that he owns into a mosque when I cannot do the same for a church? I am also a citizen, supposedly an equal citizen, but as a priest if I have to fix a bathroom in my church I need to notify the governorate. It used to be even worse. Before we had to get a presidential approval," complains one village priest from the Upper Egyptian governorate of Assiut.

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Regulations imposed on the construction of churches are part of Egypt's Ottoman legacy. They were left unchallenged until 2004 -- practically on the eve of the 2005 presidential elections -- when permit requirements for the reconstruction of churches were removed and governors, rather than the president, were given the authority to authorise reconstruction notifications.

"It is still unfair. As a citizen I have every right to be treated according to the same rules as my fellow citizens. I am not asking for a preferential treatment. I am asking for justice to be done," says Michael Mounir, a leading figure in the group commonly labelled "Expatriate Copts". Mounir, who has been criticised by the state, Islamists, most Muslims and some Copts, says that he is determined to end this injustice.

Mounir makes no apologies for lobbying US Congress to pressure Egypt to introduce legal amendments stipulating that Muslims and Christians be treated identically when it comes to the building of mosques and churches. He takes responsibility for drafting the controversial bill 1303 that "calls on the Egyptian government to respect human rights and freedoms of religion and expression in Egypt". He sees nothing wrong with the text of the draft resolution still pending in Congress that argues that Copts "suffer from many forms of discrimination" including "difficulty in building and repairing churches".

The resolution, he insists, was not devised so as to apply economic pressure on the Egyptian government to adopt legal amendments. "This is not the point. The point is that the government needs to realise that Copts in and out of Egypt are not going to tolerate prolonged injustice and that it needs to end this injustice."

Mounir says that he has spoken with the Egyptian government and the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) "at the highest level" over his work to induce "overdue" legislative amendments in relation to the construction and repair of churches yet the promises he has been receiving for over four years now have yet to be honoured. "We are still waiting on a draft law for the unified construction code for mosques and churches to be presented to parliament."

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A member of the NDP, speaking on condition of anonymity, argues that the time is not ripe for such legislation. "There are too many Islamist currents in parliament and in society. If we present it now it will backfire and could aggravate anti-Coptic sentiment."

Of the 452 members of the Egyptian parliament 80 directly subscribe to Muslim Brotherhood. But according to one Leftist Muslim MP, "radical Islamist sentiment goes way beyond the members of the Muslim Brotherhood into the heart of the NDP."

"Every time we discuss women's rights there is outrage from the NDP and the Muslim Brotherhood alike over the adoption of any laws that might be remotely interpreted, by the most radical of Muslim scholars, as somehow incompatible with Islamic Sharia," he says.

He cites the debate in parliament over criminalising female genital mutilation as a prime example of the "radical spirit within parliament".

"And when [Minister of Culture] Farouk Hosni made some passing remarks on the wide-scale taking of the veil by Egyptian women he was denounced by many Muslim members, including some senior ministers. We are not just talking about the Muslim Brotherhood."

Hamdi Hassan, a Muslim Brotherhood MP, has no qualms about applying different rules to the construction of churches and mosques. "There are more Muslims than Copts," he argues, "and clearly there are enough churches and not enough mosques. We see Muslims praying on the pavements next to the mosques but we see empty chairs in churches."

Any problems related to Coptic-Muslim relations cannot, Hassan argues, be solved by measures that will worsen the situation. "The issue is not one of building churches. It is one of a sense of victimisation that we all share, Muslims and Copts alike, due to the state's monopoly of power and resources."

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According to Hassan, Copts must continue to accept what they have long accommodated: they are a numerical minority who are not eligible to stand for the presidency. "We are not interfering with freedom of worship or civil rights but there cannot be equal numbers of churches and mosques or a Coptic president in a country where over 94 per cent of the population is Muslim."

But for many Copts their grievances are not just about the number of churches or access to the presidency. They also include the right of Copts who converted to Islam to revert to their original religious status if they so wish.

"I admit that I converted to get a divorce but I now want to go back to my family and be accepted again in my own society," said one Coptic man speaking on condition of anonymity. He adds that he does not want his children to have to convert to Islam in order to follow their father's religion, as Egyptian law requires. The only way out for him is to reclaim his Christian religion officially.

According to Sharia Muslims are not allowed to convert. State officials and Muslim scholars complain that Islamic laws cannot be bent to fit the wishes of some "to use Islam" as an exit from Coptic restrictions on personal status matters. "Let the Coptic Church solve this problem," said one justice official who asked for his name to be withheld.

The Coptic Church, however, cannot do much to help those Muslims, however few, who wish to convert to Christianity. "I decided to be Christian. I know it is shocking but I did want to be Christian. Not to marry a Christian but just to be a Christian," said one middle-aged woman who asked for her identity to be withheld. Abandoned by her family, she has taken refuge at the house of a Christian family but has a serious legal problem -- on paper she remains, and will always be, a Muslim.

"Now why can Copts, Christians in general, convert to Islam when Muslims cannot convert to Christianity? What does that say about the way the state perceives Christianity? I will tell you. It says that for the state Christianity is simply not a religion," comments one priest.

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The right of Muslims to promote Islam within the Coptic community is legally accepted even if it has not, especially in recent years, been encouraged by the state. But the right of Christians to promote their religion among Muslims is strictly prohibited.

Other grievances include political representation, access to senior jobs, especially in areas of state security and intelligence, the representation of Christians and Christianity in school curricula and state-run media and even religious holidays.

In 2004 Coptic Christmas was upgraded from a Coptic to a national holiday. Around the same time Christmas mass began to be broadcast on state-run TV, though not on the main channel that televises Friday prayers every week. Coptic Christmas remains the only feast on the Coptic calendar to be a national holiday.

Arabic textbooks present a Muslim, not a Muslim-Coptic society. "Take, for example, the Quranic texts used in Arabic language teaching books. Some of the verses included in the curricula are quite anti-Christian," comments Gamal Asaad, an advocate of Christian-Muslim unity in the face of government coercion.

Unlike some other Christian figures, including Father Thomas who recently gave a controversial lecture in the US calling for the elimination of all Quranic texts from Arabic language curricula, Asaad is not opposed to the use of Quran to teach Arabic linguistics. "It just has to be done in a way that is sensitive to the Christian student so that he [or she] does not feel the subject of discrimination."

Such adjustments, argues Mounir, are unlikely to occur without better representation of Copts in parliament. "If legislative elections are conducted on the basis of the slate system then enough Copts would find their way to parliament and be in a position to bring about this and other required changes," argues Mounir.

Some have suggested a "quota" be allocated to Coptic parliamentarians, though others argue this could serve to underline sectarian divisions within society.

"We should not be acting in a way that will ultimately lead to widening divisions," warns Asaad.

Haitham Abu Zeid, executive director of the still to be authorised Al-Wasat Party, believes it is "unimportant to talk about state or other forms of legislative elections when we all, Muslims and Copts alike, know that elections are rigged by the government."

"Whoever thinks that the government will have a hard time finding a few Copts to follow its agenda is mistaken. There are a host of citizens from all backgrounds and beliefs that have sold out."

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Abu Zeid, a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood, does not buy into the theory that fear of the "possible rule of the Brotherhood" is driving Copts to emigrate or being used as "a pretext" by the Coptic Church to announce its support for the succession of Gamal Mubarak.

The Muslim Brotherhood, he says, "will not ascend to power for the simple reason they do not have the kind of support they claim to have."

And, "if they do, their discrimination will not be restricted to Copts."

For Abu Zeid, as for Asaad, the issue is one of eliminating injustice in general and of securing democracy.

Zeinab Radwan, deputy speaker of Egyptian parliament, argues that legislation and representation alone, even if state-imposed, are no panacea for religious tolerance. "Relations within society are about people and laws. You need to get citizens to fully subscribe to the concept of tolerance, in practice as in theory, for any laws to be effective."

The trouble, says Bahieddin Hassan, director of the Cairo Centre for Human Rights, is that the "exercise of discrimination from Muslims to Copts or the other way round -- although it is more from Muslims towards Copts -- has become so deeply rooted that it takes courage even to admit to its extent, let alone begin working to change it".

Ramez, an Alexandrian taxi driver, complains that the cross he hangs on his rear view mirror "has put him in many difficulties". Traffic police, he says, stop him "for no reason".

"The officer will give me a ticket for breaking the speed limit -- when I wasn't -- and look at the cross in my car in a way that is obviously hostile."

Ramez is convinced that nobody in the Alexandria Traffic department issues directives to "harass Copts" and that not every Muslim traffic officer does it. "But if somebody feels like doing it he can," says Ramez.

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Josephine -- not her real name -- complains about continuous and unjustified security harassment and threats. She attributes this gender harassment to no other reason than her Coptic faith.

Hassan, a bearded Muslim taxi driver in Alexandria, voices similar complaints about alleged harassment, this time over "Islamism". Samira -- not her real name -- an unveiled Muslim teacher, working in a high school in Tanta, Lower Egypt, complains that she has been subjected to pressure from the school administration to take the veil or be investigated over "inappropriate behaviour" with her male students.

Hassan agrees that tolerance has been steadily eroded until it is now a rare commodity. But the process, he argues, is not just related to the Islamicisation of society kick-started after "Gulf Islamic values" began to be imported to Egypt when Egyptians who had worked in Gulf countries starting in the mid-1970s began to return home. Like Assad, Abu Zeid and others, Hassan believes the state itself is promoting intolerance in an attempt to stymie social solidarity in the face of injustice.

"The state knows very well what it has to do to combat sectarianism," says Hassan. In 1972 a state-appointed committee was entrusted with examining a case of sectarian strife prompted essentially by a mixed marriage and produced "a set of recommendations that could have contained the problem right at the beginning".

"But nothing was done then and not enough is being done now."

Moukhles Qotb, secretary-general of the state- affiliated Egyptian Council for Human Rights, argues that the regime is less culpable and is trying, albeit in limited ways, to tackle the problem.

"We have seen some adjustments in school curricula and in the discourse of the [state-run] media. But this is not an easy task. It is a problem that developed over the years and will take time to resolve."