Religion in Egypt

Religion in Egypt controls many aspects of social life and is endorsed by law. The 2006 census counting method included religion, so the number of adherents of the different religions are usually rough estimates made by religious and non-governmental agencies.

Egypt is predominantly Muslim, with Muslims accounting for 88% of a population of around 80 million Egyptians, while according to research by Michael Izady 86.8% of Egyptians are Sunni Muslim, 10.2% are Christian, 2.9% are Shia and the remaining 0.1% belong to other faiths. The vast majority of Muslims in Egypt are Sunni. A significant number of Sunni Muslim Egyptians also follow native Sufi orders. There are under fifty thousand Ahmadi Muslims. There is a minority of Mu'tazila numbering a few thousands. Estimated numbers of Egypt's Shia Twelvers and Ismailism range from 800,000 to about two to three million.

According to the Constitution of Egypt, any new legislation must at least implicitly agree with Islamic law. Article 45 of the Constitution extends freedom of religion to the three Abrahamic religions (Islam, Christianity and Judaism), but only those three.

The remainder of Egyptians, numbering between 10% and 20% of the population, mostly belong to the native Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, an Oriental Orthodox Christian Church. The most recent declarations, made by Pope Shenouda III and bishop Morkos of Shubra in 2008, put forward the number of Orthodox Copts in Egypt as being over 12 million. Other estimates made by church officials estimate this number to be 16 million. Protestant churches claim a membership of about 300,000 Egyptians, and the Coptic Catholic Church is estimated to have a similar membership among Egyptians. Based on these estimates, the total number of Christians in Egypt is between 15% and 20% of a total population of 80 million Egyptians. While some government sources have claimed a percentage of around 6 to 10%, a number of published sources such as the Washington Institute, in addition to some of the Coptic sources, uphold that Christians represent more than 10% of the total population and claim that they actually still compose up to 15 or even 20% of the Egyptian population.

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