From May 18th to May 21st, I was privileged to attend the 2025 annual conference of the African Consortium for Law and Religion Studies hosted at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Ben Guerir, Morocco. Sponsored by the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University, the consortium draws diverse scholars and practitioners from all over Africa who work at the intersection of law and religion. The central theme of the conference this year was “Law, Religion, and Work in Africa.” The conference included keynote addresses from UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Dr. Nazila Ghanea, the Coptic Orthodox Archbishop of London, Archbishop Angaelos, and Dr. Azza Karam, a Dutch-Egyptian scholar who has taught at several universities on interfaith relations and sustainable development while working in a variety of positions with the United Nations and other international organizations. 

For my presentation, I was asked to speak on Christian-Muslim relations in the workplace in Egypt. Drawing on the work of urban planner and economist David Sims and anthropologist Andrea Rugh, I initially sketched some of the challenges that face the Egyptian economy, including thirty percent of the population which lives on or below the poverty line ($2.15 per day), a largely desert environment outside the Nile valley which comprises over ninety-percent of the country, and demographic pressures from a population that has multiplied in recent decades to 115 million people. 

In such an economic climate, there can be significant competition for even low-wage, informal work, not to mention more lucrative positions. It would make sense that one must utilize all the connections and credentials one has to secure a place, including one’s religious identity. While I’m not aware of any extant data on this, it seems that when other factors are more or less equal, Muslims are more likely to hire Muslims and Christians operate in the same way. Of course, this is not an ironclad law and many exceptions can be found. Not infrequently Muslims and Christians will discuss how they try to push against these trends by hiring from outside their religious communities.

(I was privileged to meet Archbishop Angaelos at the conference, the Coptic Orthodox archbishop of London.)

There is another relevant consideration which may help to explain the hiring and employment patterns in Egypt. According to Andrea Rugh’s research, in some cases it is considered a pragmatic choice to hire from within one’s religious community because it is less likely that mundane and inevitable work conflicts will be interpreted through the powerful lens of interreligious relations in the country. In conclusion, I briefly discussed the experiences of two Christian professors at Egyptian universities. In one case, the professor explained that they had no problems whatsoever in their career due to their religious identity. In the other case, the professor described significant challenges they believed were related to their religious identity. Such contrasting experiences suggest some of the complexities involved in trying to understand Christian-Muslim relations in the Egyptian workplace.

It was truly a privilege to meet so many scholars working on similar questions from Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Morocco, and other African countries. I am deeply grateful to Jeremy Barker, Associate Vice President for International Strategies at the Religious Freedom Institute, Dr. Rosalind Hackett, Chancellor’s Professor in Religious Studies at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and Hannah Clayson Smith, Senior Fellow at the International Center for Religion and Law Studies at Brigham Young University, for this meaingful experience.

Matthew Anderson

Director - Center for Arab-West Understanding

Executive Editor - Dialogue Across Borders (Brill)

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June 1, 2025