Egyptian Christians face a serious challenge when they read the stories of Hagar and Sarah. This ... more Egyptian Christians face a serious challenge when they read the stories of Hagar and Sarah. This challenge has to do with the tension between the political and the religious aspects of the identity of Christian Egyptians. While ethnically they are related to Hagar because she was an Egyptian, they are religiously related to Sarah because she is a great grandmother of Christ. In this paper I argue that Egyptian Christian women, despite the hermeneutical and ethno--religious obstacles, can identify with Hagar, as well as Sarah, and find their story to be relevant to the Egyptian context, and a basis for coexistence, understanding, and solidarity among the whole Egyptian community. Keywords: Hagar, Christian, Women, Islam "Hagar does not belong to us… she is the great grandmother of Muslims." I still remember these words that my grandmother used to say. In fact, I can affirm that these words reflect the dominant attitude among Egyptian Christians, especially the women, toward Hagar. Therefore, when Egyptian Christian women read the biblical traditions concerning Hagar and Sarah 1 in Genesis 16 and 21, they identify themselves with the latter, although they are presumably ethnically related to the former. For me, however, reading African--American literature and theology helped me to think critically about our Egyptian Christian stereotype of Hagar and Sarah. At that point, I recognized that Egyptian Christians face a serious challenge when they read the stories of Hagar and Sarah. This challenge has to do with the tension between the political and the religious aspects of the identity of Christian Egyptians.
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