| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 143,000 [1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Languages | |
| Arabic (Egyptian Arabic), and Italian [3] | |
| Religion | |
| Majority of Sunni Islam and some Coptic Christianity or Irreligion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Italian Egyptians, Egyptian diaspora, Egyptians |
There is a significant community of Egyptians in Italy.
As early as the 2nd century BC, there is strong evidence for an Egyptian presence in Italy, in various professions including bankers, surgeons, actors, musicians, fortune tellers, soldiers, slaves, and the like. [4] In early modern times, after Napoleon's 1798-1801 Egypt Campaign, the degree of contact between Egypt and Europe began to increase again. In 1813, Egyptian leader Muhammad Ali sent an Egyptian mission to Italy to study printing arts. [5]
However, the United Kingdom and France, rather than Italy, have been the preferred destinations for Egyptian expatriate academics and professionals; Italy, and especially Milan, tended to attract Egyptian businessmen and unskilled workers instead in the latter half of the 20th century. [6] Even the exile to Italy of King Farouk of Egypt following the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 did not have much effect on Egyptian migration to Italy. [7]
Many Egyptians are employed in food-related industries, and in Milan have come to dominate traditionally Italian trades such as pizza and other baked products. [7] Other Egyptian businesses in Milan include coffee shops, restaurants, and halal butchers. [8]
Egyptians in Italy are generally Muslim. Egyptian migrants increasingly prefer their children to maintain religious endogamy, especially in the case of their daughters. [2] It was estimated in 2011 that there were also 20,000 to 25,000 Coptic Christians in Italy, heavily concentrated in the Milan metropolitan area. [9]
Demographic features of the population of Italy include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects.
North Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of the Western Sahara in the west, to Egypt and Sudan's Red Sea coast in the east.
The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs, politics, and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. In a modern geopolitical sense, these terms refer to countries in which Islam is widespread, although there are no agreed criteria for inclusion. The term Muslim-majority countries is an alternative often used for the latter sense.
Copts are a Christian ethnoreligious group indigenous to North Africa who have primarily inhabited the area of modern Egypt and Sudan since antiquity. Most ethnic Copts are Coptic Oriental Orthodox Christians. They are the largest Christian denomination in Egypt and the Middle East, as well as in Sudan and Libya. Copts in Egypt account for roughly 5–15 percent of the Egyptian population; Copts in Sudan account for 1 percent of the Sudanese population, while Copts in Libya similarly account for 1 percent of the Libyan population.
The Maghreb, also known as the Arab Maghreb and Northwest Africa, is the western part of the Arab world. The region comprises western and central North Africa, including Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. The Maghreb also includes the disputed territory of Western Sahara. As of 2018, the region had a population of over 100 million people.
The population of the region of Palestine, which approximately corresponds to modern Israel and the Palestinian territories, has varied in both size and ethnic composition throughout the history of Palestine.
Islam is a minority religion in Italy. Muslim presence in Italy dates back to the 9th century, when Sicily came under control of the Aghlabid Dynasty. There was a large Muslim presence in Italy from 827 until the 12th century. The Norman conquest of Sicily led to a gradual decline of Islam, due to the conversions and emigration of Muslims toward Northern Africa. A small Muslim community however survived at least until 1300.
The phenomenon of large-scale migration of Christians is the main reason why Christians' share of the population has been declining in many countries. Many Muslim countries have witnessed disproportionately high emigration rates among their Christian minorities for several generations. Today, most Middle Eastern people in the United States are Christians, and the majority of Arabs living outside the Arab World are Arab Christians.
The history of the Jews in Turkey covers the 2400 years that Jews have lived in what is now Turkey.
Armenians in Egypt are a community with a long history. They are a minority with their own language, churches, and social institutions. The number of Armenians in Egypt has decreased due to migrations to other countries and integration into the rest of Egyptian society, including extensive intermarriage with Muslims and Christians. Today they number about 6000, much smaller than a few generations ago. They are concentrated in Cairo and Alexandria, the two largest cities. Economically the Egyptian Armenians have tended to be self-employed businessmen or craftsmen and to have more years of education than the Egyptian average.
The early Muslim conquests or early Islamic conquests, also known as the Arab conquests, were initiated in the 7th century by Muhammad, the founder of Islam. He established a new unified polity in Arabia that expanded rapidly under the Rashidun Caliphate and the Umayyad Caliphate, culminating in Muslim rule being established on three continents over the next century. According to Scottish historian James Buchan: "In speed and extent, the first Arab conquests were matched only by those of Alexander the Great, and they were more lasting."
Islam is the second-largest religion in Europe after Christianity. Although the majority of Muslim communities in Western Europe formed recently, there are centuries-old Muslim communities in the Balkans, Caucasus, Crimea, and Volga region. The term "Muslim Europe" is used to refer to the Muslim-majority countries in the Balkans and parts of countries in Eastern Europe with sizable Muslim minorities that constitute large populations of indigenous European Muslims, although the majority are secular.
Islam in Africa is the continent's second most widely professed faith behind Christianity. Africa was the first continent into which Islam spread from Southwest Asia, during the early 7th century CE. Almost one-third of the world's Muslim population resides in Africa. Muslims crossed current Djibouti and Somalia to seek refuge in present-day Eritrea and Ethiopia during the Hijrah ("Migration") to the Christian Kingdom of Aksum. Like the vast majority (90%) of Muslims in the world, most Muslims in Africa are also Sunni Muslims; the complexity of Islam in Africa is revealed in the various schools of thought, traditions, and voices in many African countries. Many African ethnicities, mostly in North, West and East Africa consider Islam their Traditional religion. The practice of Islam on the continent is not static and is constantly being reshaped by prevalent social, economic, and political conditions. Generally Islam in Africa often adapted to African cultural contexts and belief systems forming Africa's own orthodoxies.
Christians in Morocco constitute less than 1% of the country's population of 33,600,000. Most of the Christian adherents are Catholic and Protestants.
Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and the Sinai Peninsula in the southwest corner of Asia. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip of Palestine and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. The Gulf of Aqaba in the northeast separates Egypt from Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Cairo is the capital and largest city of Egypt, while Alexandria, the second-largest city, is an important industrial and tourist hub at the Mediterranean coast. At approximately 100 million inhabitants, Egypt is the 14th-most populated country in the world, and the third-most populated in Africa, behind Nigeria and Ethiopia.
The Palestrina Mosaic or Nile mosaic of Palestrina is a late Hellenistic floor mosaic depicting the Nile in its passage from the Blue Nile to the Mediterranean. The mosaic was part of a Classical sanctuary-grotto in Palestrina, a town east of Ancient Rome, in central Italy. It has a width of 5.85 metres and a height of 4.31 metres and provides a glimpse into the Roman fascination with ancient Egyptian exoticism in the 1st century BC, both as an early manifestation of the role of Egypt in the Roman imagination and an example of the genre of "Nilotic landscape", with a long iconographic history in Egypt and the Aegean.
Ayman Zohry is a demographer/geographer and expert on migration studies based in Cairo, Egypt. He was born in Souhag, Egypt. Zohry received his Ph.D. from the University of Sussex in 2002. He is a leading researcher in the field of migration studies in Egypt with a special focus on irregular migration.
The Egyptian diaspora consists of citizens of Egypt abroad sharing a common culture and Egyptian Arabic language. The phenomenon of Egyptians emigrating from Egypt was rare until Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power after overthrowing the monarchy in 1952. Before then, Cleland's 1936 declaration remained valid, that "Egyptians have the reputation of preferring their own soil. Few ever leave except to study or travel; and they always return... Egyptians do not emigrate".
Ethnic groups in Algeria include Arabs and Berbers, who represent 99% of the population, of which 75–85% are Arab and about 15–25% are Berber. Algeria also has a minority population of Europeans that represents less than 1% of the population. The minority European population is predominantly of French, Spanish, and Italian descent.
Arabs in Europe are people of Arab descent living in Europe today and over the centuries. Several million Arabs are residents in Europe. The vast majority form part of what is sometimes called the "Arab diaspora", i.e. ethnic Arabs or people descended from such living outside the Arab World. Most of the Arabs in Europe today are from the Maghreb.
