著者

辻 明日香

出版者

日本中東学会

雑誌

日本中東学会年報 = Annals of Japan Association for Middle East Studies (ISSN:09137858)

巻号頁・発行日

no.31, pp.29-57, 2015

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After the Islamic conquest, the landscape of Egypt underwent great changes. Arabization gradually advanced, and the Coptic language died out. However, the Islamization of Egypt, which was slower than that of other Middle Eastern areas, was never completed. This paper explores the little known history of the Coptic community in this period through an analysis of the names of the bishops and their sees of the Nile Delta; it seeks to determine which sees were occupied and which became extinct. Of the twenty-four bishoprics listed in the synod of 1086, ten were extinct and four were on the verge of extinction by the end of the twelfth century. In the thirteenth to the fourteenth century, a different situation emerged: Bishoprics were restored or newly created, mostly in the Gharbiya Province, the richest part of the Delta. The Coptic Church was still functioning in the Delta, as is also attested by the itinerary of Yuhanna al-Rabban, a Coptic saint who wandered in the Gharbiya from the late thirteenth to the early fourteenth centuries.