ABSTRACT
According to a popular saying in Egypt, God divided astuteness into ten parts; nine were given to the Egyptian Christians and one to the rest of humankind. During the Ottoman period, it was maintained that a Coptic Christian without slyness was like a tree without fruit. The Muslims who were against familiarity between the faithful of the two religions and benevolent treatment of Christians by Islamic rulers underlined the dangers inherent in such attitudes. At the dawn of the eighth century, motivated by the desire to avoid close mixing between Muslims and Christians and probably concerned by formation of Muslim sects composed by new converts who tolerated the cult of images, Caliph Yazid ordered their destruction in churches and in Christian houses. There were always radical Muslims, especially among religious leaders, who incited their coreligionists to punish Christians who transgressed the restrictions imposed upon them. Bloody tumults against Christ’s faithful, however, did not occur often in the House of Islam.
