ABSTRACT
The point of departure for this article is the sociopolitical scene in Egypt, where Islamic militants commit terrorist acts against different Egyptian groups, most notable of which are Coptic Christians. The struggle with homegrown horrific terrorist attacks against certain groups of Egyptian citizens has led newspaper writers to reflect on the Egyptian national identity. This paper presents an analysis of texts published in daily papers between 2013 and 2017 in which writers reflect on identity. A representative corpus was compiled from opinion columns published in both government-owned and private daily newspapers. The analysis shows that, in the construction of Egyptian national identity, the Islamic religion does not feature as a component of this identity unlike what most research on identity in the Middle East indicates. This is due to the fact that acts of terrorism are committed in the name of this religion, which has triggered a concomitant alarm at and fear of sectarian divide. Hence, defining Egyptian identity in terms of a given religion seems to be viewed as a divisive factor. Egyptian identity is rather indexed with reference to attributes that unite the people, including Egypt’s history and its ancient civilization. It is remarkable, nonetheless, that since in this part of the world religion holds a special place in all people’s lives, when religion is used as a constituent of identity, it is a social trait integral to the Egyptian identity at large and is not associated with a specific denomination – making it a unifying constituent of identity for all people in the country.
