ABSTRACT
In the present time, Modern Standard Arabic is considered to be the national language of Arabs, regardless of their religious beliefs or their local dialects. Languages like Arabic and Hebrew are considered ‘sacred’ languages because they are uniquely linked to religious rituals and religious texts. Scholars have agreed that religion may serve as a linguistic variable in a speech community in the form of the linguistic choices that the speaker makes. This feature is further emphasized through the diaglossic nature of the Arabic Language. This chapter discusses how the Egyptian novelist Shady Lewis’s two novels Turuq Al Rab (Ways of the Lord, 2018) and Tarikh Mugaz Lilkhaliqah wa Sharq Al Qahira (A Brief History of Creation and East Cairo, 2021) present us with examples of discourses that systematically delineate the complex relationships between national and religious identities in Egypt and how the Christian minority is represented in public discourse. The linguistic features and discourses in the analysed texts have been linked to their historical context with a discourse analytical focus on the asymmetrical power relationships among social actors. Individual and collective identities constructed in the texts will be analysed through the lenses of language and religion.
