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December 29

Egyptians

How do Egyptians view Ancient Egyptians? Do they identify as their descendants? Or do they consider them an unrelated nation that once happened to inhabit their territory? --Qnowledge (talk) 20:03, 29 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Coptic identity and Egyptian nationalism would suggest that Christians (or at least non-Muslim gentiles) identify as descendants of the ancient Egyptians, while Muslim Egyptians (the majority of Egyptians) are more likely to gravitate to an Arabic or pan-Arabic identity. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:17, 29 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As Ian.thomson indicated, Muslims who take their religion seriously regard pre-monotheistic civilizations with a certain reserve (see Jahiliya etc.), but that's not the same thing as considering them "an unrelated nation that once happened to inhabit their territory". The biggest Arabic-language newspaper in Egypt would not be named after the Pyramids if that were the case. AnonMoos (talk) 09:24, 30 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A related question is whether Muslim Egytians are in fact descendants of the pre-Muslim Egyptians, or whether they primarily descend from the Muslim invaders who came from elsewhere. Pharaonism#Egyptian identity says “After Egypt was conquered by the Muslim Arabs in 639-642 AD, much of the Christian Coptic population over the subsequent centuries converted to Islam and began to speak Arabic instead of Coptic.” This implies that the current Muslim population is indeed indigenous. A DNA study would answer this more definitively—I wonder if such a study has been done. Loraof (talk) 19:10, 30 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

WHAAOE: see DNA history of Egypt. It's not an easy read though, see also DNA discovery reveals genetic history of ancient Egyptians. Alansplodge (talk) 17:50, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]