In the wake of the Arab Spring, however, this community was caught up in regional violence, and its predicament became a cause for concern around the world. Though the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt is among the oldest Christian communities in the world, it remained relatively unknown outside of Egypt for most of its existence. canticles sung outside worship.1 Singing, whether of taranim or of hymns, is central in the daily routine of the community. The result is a fascinating and essential study for scholars of Byzantine and early Islamic Egypt.Įssay discusses the process of incorporating Coptic liturgical music into the Coptic cultural heritage. From Byzantine to Islamic Egypt traces how the largely agrarian Egyptian society responded to the influx of Arabic and Islam, the means by which the Coptic Church constructed its sectarian identity, the Islamisation of the administrative classes and how these factors converged to create a new medieval society. Seeking to uncover the broader cultural changes of the period by drawing on a wide array of literary and documentary sources, Maged Mikhail stresses the cultural and institutional developments that punctuated the histories of Christians and Muslims in the province under early Islamic rule. The conquest of Egypt by Islamic armies under the command of Amr ibn al-As in the seventh century transformed medieval Egyptian society. While the modern Coptic Orthodox rite retains a number of popular Greek hymns (e.g.
A more fruitful line of investigation explores the Greek liturgies and hymns that were employed by “medieval” Copts,42 but care must be taken.
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