Editing Egypt (section)

==Religion==
[[File:Cairo mosques.jpg|thumb|left|400px|A Mosque in Cairo]]
Egypt is a predominantly Muslim country with Islam as its accepted regional religion. Between 80% and 94% of the local populace are identified as Muslim. Almost the entire population of Muslims are Sunni. A significant number of Muslim Egyptians also follow native Sufi orders, and there is a minority of Shi'a.

There is a large minority of Christians in Egypt, who make up the remainder of the population (between 6% and 20%). Over 90% of Egyptian Christians belong to the native Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. Other native Egyptian Christians are adherents of the Coptic Catholic Church, the Evangelical Church of Egypt and various other Protestant denominations. Non-native Christian communities are largely found in the urban regions of Cairo and Alexandria.

There is also a small, but nonetheless historically significant, non-immigrant Bahá'í population of around 2000, and an even smaller community of Jews of about 200, then a tiny number of Egyptians who identify as atheist and agnostic. The non-Sunni, non-Coptic communities range in size from several hundreds to a few thousand. Millions of Egyptians follow the Christian faith as members of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.

According to the original constitution of Egypt, any new legislation must at least implicitly agree with Islamic law; however, the constitution bans political parties with a religious agenda. Egypt hosts two major religious institutions. Al-Azhar University, founded in 970 A.D by the Fatimids as the first Islamic University in Egypt and the main Egyptian Church the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria established in the middle of the 1st century by Saint Mark.

Religion plays a central role in most Egyptians' lives, The Adhan (Islamic call to prayer) that is heard five times a day has the informal effect of regulating the pace of everything from business to media and entertainment. Cairo is famous for its numerous mosque minarets and is justifiably dubbed "the city of 1,000 minarets", with a significant number of church towers. This religious landscape has been marred by a history of religious extremism, recently witnessing a 2006 judgement of Egypt's Supreme Administrative Court, which made a clear legal distinction between "recognized religions" (i.e., Islam, Christianity, and Judaism) and all other religious beliefs. This ruling effectively delegitimizes and forbids practice of all but the three Abrahamic religions.

This judgment had made it necessary for non-Abrahamic religious communities to either commit perjury or be denied Egyptian identification cards (see Egyptian identification card controversy), until a 2008 Cairo court case ruled that unrecognized religious minorities may obtain birth certificates and identification documents, so long as they omit their religion on court documents.

In 2002, under the Mubarak Government, Coptic Christmas (January the 7th) was recognized as an official holiday, though Copts report being minimally represented in law enforcement, state security and public office, and of being discriminated against in the workforce on the basis of their religion. The Coptic community, as well as several human rights activists and intellectuals, maintain that the number of Christians occupying Government posts is not proportional to the number of Copts in Egypt.