Traits of positive and negative discrimination of the copts in medieval Egypt as described by the “History of the patriarchs of Alexandria”

Abstract

In the course of the Middle Ages, the Copts experienced a variety of drastic changes in the attitude of Muslim rulers towards them, from confidence to disgrace. The latter included not only the increasingly rigorous tax policies, but also social and domestic constraints. The question of the balance between positive and negative discrimination as an instrument of regulating intrastate social cooperation can be crucial for understanding the specific of these relationships during the described period. So, the main goal of this work is to is to trace historical precedents which can be considered either negative or positive discrimination, and their suppositional influence on the Copts' turning into a minority. An essential source for this is the History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic church of Alexandria, the most famous chronicle of the Coptic Church and also the root of Coptic historiography itself, which also gives the view of how the Coptic Church itself assessed its role in Egyptian society and in public policy.