.
According to a May 19, 2021 Arabic-language report, Egypt’s Ministry of Endowments just announced that, since September 2020, 1,413 mosques—1,315 of which are brand new—were opened in the North Africa nation.
This announcement underscores the double standards that Christians and Muslims can expect in Egypt. For inasmuch as mosques proliferate all throughout the nation, building new or even renovating old churches is like pulling teeth for Copts.
According to one detailed study by author Adel Guindy, “there is one church per 5,800 Orthodox Copts”; this forces many Christians “to travel far distances outside of their towns for religious services (baptism, marriage, funerals, and regular mass).” On the other hand, based on the number of mosques in Egypt (114,000 in 2016, more now) and Egypt’s estimated Muslim population, there is about one mosque for every 700 Muslims. In other words, even after balancing out the ratio between Muslims to Christians, there are still about eight mosques for every one church. The discrepancy could not be clearer.