CONCLUSION:

1- We assert here that the Arab conquest of Egypt did not marginalize the strategic importance of the geographical location of Egypt and its relation to the Levant. Hence, the strategy of Egypt controlling the Levant to secure and protect Egypt has remained pretty much the same before and after the Arab conquest. The Levant, or at least the Levantine South region, is of vital importance to protect Egyptian lands and borders against possible invasions coming from the East (Asia), and this is why many powerful and strong Egyptian rulers had to control and dominate over the Levant; similarly any invaders coming to Egypt from the West (Libya and North Africa) would threaten the Levant and invade it to secure and maintain Egypt. Hence, any ambitious ruler of the Levant would readily think of conquering Egypt in its periods of weakness. We have provided in this book many examples from history to prove these points in strategy. In most cases in history, Egyptian ruler controlled and conquered the Levant, as the Levantine region has been a mosaic/mosaïque of races and religions that were rarely united as one powerful State. Hence, typically, the Levant was subordinate to powerful Egyptian rulers for the protection of Egypt from any possible threat coming from the East. Therefore, Egypt and the Levant are one strategic unit that is very strong and mighty when united, and any weakness or deterioration periods in Egypt would resulted in heavy price paid by both Egypt and the Levant, especially the Levantine region that would suffer unrest and wars. In our modern times, this is more true than ever; the colonial powers have wedged and planted Israel in Palestine in 1948 for many reasons, chief among them is to separate Egypt and the Levant, and Israel poses a threat to both Egypt and the Levant until now, but because Egypt has always been more powerful than the Levant, most of the Arab-Israeli conflicts involve Egypt mainly in 1956, 1967, and 1973 wars. When the late leader and president Gamal Abdel-Nasser attempted to make a unity between Egypt and Syria to face Israel (and its secret alliance with Jordan), he failed and then the Nasserite project/dream collapsed in 1967 when Israel occupied Sinai, resulting in the marginalization of the role of Egypt in the Arab world even after 1973 war and after Egypt has liberated and regained its Egyptian peninsula of Sinai. Throughout the presidential terms of Sadat and Mubarak, Egypt lost its leading role in the Middle East and has been subordinate to the USA, the KSA, and Israel. Arab countries paid a heavy price for this marginalization of Egypt, as dwarfed and relatively new Arab countries attempted to fill in the void created by this marginalization of Egypt, without their having weight, civilization, long history, and strategic structures at all to play such a role (we mean especially Libya, Iraq, and the KSA). Historically, these Arab countries were ruled for long periods of time by Egypt and were subordinate to it in other periods, and they could never play the role assumed by Egypt for tens of centuries. Therefore, unrest in the Arab world never cease until now, and Arabs are getting more weak, whereas Israel gets more powerful. Hence, a strong Egypt one day will assume its role in leading all its neighboring countries and act as the safety valve for the Middle East. Historically, Egyptian weakness periods and powerful periods were linked to the character of its ruler or Pharaoh. Tyranny has been the dominant culture of the previous eras, but the Nasserite period proves that tyranny cannot create, in modern times of democracy, a powerful State however good the intentions of a tyrannical ruler like Nasser. Egypt cannot be powerful and strong again except through real democracy that will activate millions of Egyptians to tap into their inherent dormant power and their sentiments of nationalism to neutralize or get rid of the external danger (of Israel and the KSA) and the internal danger (the Wahabi terrorist MB group and Salafists, and their likes who aim for backward theocracy). Both external and internal dangers or threats increase in magnitude and power because of the backwardness and weakness of Egypt. When Egypt regains its power, strategic weight, and leading role after applying democracy and getting rid of tyranny, Egyptians will save themselves and save the Levant and the whole Arabs. Because the colonial powers realize this fact, they make sure Egypt would remain threatened and weakened. We repeat here that the Arab conquest of Egypt has never changed the strategic policy of Egypt at all.   

2- The Arab conquest of Egypt that carried banners and labels of 'Islam' wrongly and falsely (as such Arab conquests had nothing to do with real Islam/the Quran) had little influence, if indeed any influence had occurred, over the millennia-old Egyptian religion inherited from the Pharaonic Era. This is a historical fact known by so many and yet still refused by many others inside Egypt. Let us bear in mind that there is always a huge gap between God's commands in the celestial religion of the Quran (real Islam or the last version of it in Arabic in the last message of God to humanity) and how people have applied them in different eras until now. This huge gap is manifested in many stages of the millennia-old Egyptian history that prove that Egyptians have sanctified inherited traditions so much that they have Egyptianized Islam, and thus, they moved away from the monotheism of (There is no God but Allah) by deifying and sanctifying sites, items, relics, tombs, and mortals until now. Yet, there is a unique element in Egyptian history, and never mentioned in any book of history,  mentioned exclusively in the Quran; namely, Egypt had its monotheistic believers in God honored by Him by being mentioned in the Quranic text as examples of deep, monotheistic faith in Allah. These people are 1) the repentant Potiphar's wife in the story of Joseph, 2) magicians of Moses' Pharaoh, 3) wife of Moses' Pharaoh, and 4) the believing man within the retinue or family of Moses' Pharaoh. This means that Egypt was not devoid of real monotheistic believers in Allah/God, however intimidating the tyranny, control, and power of pharaohs ruling it. Therefore, Egypt is the pioneer country where, in the 20^th century, religious reformers and reformist thinkers emerged and authored their books of enlightenment to dispel centuries-old religious myths imposed on Islam, and where Quranism or Quranist school of thought emerged in the 1980 by us, Dr. A. S. Mansour, in order to direct people toward real Islam (Quranism) within peaceful intellectual jihad. We sincerely hope that the Quranist trend will cause a revival of real Islam to purify religion and faith (of Egyptian and non-Egyptian Sufi, Sunnite, and Shiite Muhammadans) from polytheism and mythology derived from the Ancient Pharaonic religion.             

3- The last point in this book about the character of Egypt before and after the Arab conquest is to assert a very important fact; our views and those of others regarding the similarity of polytheistic notions between Egyptian Muhammadans and Copts are relative, as history and its accounts record only overt events, with huge gaps never known to most people in all eras. Yet, we assert also that the Quran more than 1400 years ago tells us that the vast majority of people (regarding religion) follow their whims and the devils, as disbelief and polytheism in the Quranic text are synonymous and linked to the lack of understanding, insight, and, good reasoning: "But most people, for all your eagerness, are not believers." (12:103); "And most of them do not believe in God unless while being polytheists." (12:106); "Have you seen him who chose his desire as his god? Would you be an agent for him? Or do you assume that most of them hear or understand? They are just like cattle, but even more errant in their way." (25:43-44); "... but a few of My servants are thankful." (34:13); "... except those who believe and do good deeds, but these are so few..." (38:24); "And the forerunners, the forerunners. Those are the nearest. In the Gardens of Bliss. A throng from the ancients. And a small band from the latecomers." (56:10-14). The Quran also tells us that the vast majority of the People of the Book/Scripture (i.e., Jews and Christians) moved away from God's Path, and few among them were really monotheistic believers in God: "They are not alike. Among the People of the Scripture is a community that is upright; they recite God's revelations throughout the night, and they prostrate themselves. They believe in God and the Last Day, and advocate righteousness and forbid evil, and are quick to do good deeds. These are among the righteous. Whatever good they do, they will not be denied it. God knows the righteous." (3:113-115); "Among the People of the Scripture are those who believe in God, and in what was revealed to you, and in what was revealed to them. They are humble before God, and they do not sell God's revelations for a cheap price. These will have their reward with their Lord. God is swift in reckoning." (3:199). The same applies to the Egyptian Muhammadans (who think of themselves wrongly as 'monotheistic Muslims'), because they imitated their Pharaonic and Coptic ancestors in their inherited religious traditions while changing names and labels into Arabic 'Islamicised' ones that re-produced the basic, millennia-old, and deep-seated Egyptian faith tenets, as we have explained how each new trend or faith that came into Egypt has been Egyptianized by adding religious traits, qualities, practices, and features of the 50-century-old Egyptian civilization that remain influential before and after the Arab conquest. Sadly, many Egyptians through many generations and eras in the last 1400 years have followed the ways of Moses' Pharaoh, but it is a source of comfort and consolation that there were also some Egyptians who adhered to the monotheistic faith (i.e., Islam, God's religion conveyed by all messengers and prophets) as God tells us in the Quran. this shows that the spread and dominance of tyranny and disbelief in any era of Egyptian history would not remove the existence of true monotheistic faith in God within Egypt. Yet , history does not tell us about them anything and does not mention them or their name at all within the Coptic, Fatimid, and Sufi eras; because history tackles only overt movements and general events within relative facts and links its lines in books, accounts, and chronicles to people of power, authority, and wealth. This is why we cannot find even between the lines of history the mention of monotheistic believers that God tells us about in the Quran. Finally, it is enough consolation that God honors these Egyptian monotheistic real believers in Him by mentioning them in the Quranic text to notify us about their existence in the past, as great examples and parables of good faith for us to learn from and ponder about. These Egyptian believers are as follows: the believing man in the retinue of Moses' Pharaoh's palace-court who was saved by the Lord: "So God protected him from the evils of their scheming, while a terrible torment besieged Pharaoh's people." (40:45); the great endurance and patience of the Egyptian magicians of Moses' Pharaoh when they believed in the God and the message of Moses: "They said, "We will not prefer you to the proofs that have come to us, and Him who created us. So issue whatever judgment you wish to issue. You can only rule in this lowly life. We have believed in our Lord, so that He may forgive us our sins, and the magic you have compelled us to practice. God is Better, and more Lasting." Whoever comes to his Lord guilty, for him is Hell, where he neither dies nor lives. But whoever comes to Him a believer, having worked righteousness-these will have the highest ranks." (20:72-75); and the Egyptian wife of Moses' Pharaoh who is made by God as an example and model for real believers of both genders: "And God illustrates an example of those who believe: the wife of Pharaoh, when she said, "My Lord, build for me, with you, a house in Paradise, and save me from Pharaoh and his works, and save me from the wrongdoing people."" (66:11).     

REFERENCES LIST:

- "Ehiaa Olom Eddine" by the Sufi author Al-Ghazaly.

- "Al-Insan Al-Kamel" Vol. I&II, by the Sufi author and poet Abdul-Kareem Al-Jeily.

- "Fusus Al-Hukm" by the Sufi author and poet Ibn Araby.

- "History of Ibn Al-Atheer", by Ibn Al-Atheer.

- "History of Al-Tabari" by Al-Tabari.

- "History of Ibn Eyas", by Ibn Eyas.

- The Balfour Declaration" by Dr. Mahmoud Al-Mansi, published by Dar Al-Fikr Al-Araby.

- "Lataeif Al-Minan" by the Sufi author Al-Shaarany, Dar Al-Fikr, edition of 1288 A.H.

- "The Link between Sufism and the Shiite Creed", by Mustafa Al-Sheiby.

- "The Religion of the Ancient Egyptians" by Georg Steindorff.

- "Al-Tabakat Al-Kobra" by Al-Shaarany.

- ''Al-Risala Al-Qosheiriyya'', by the Sufi author Al-Qosheiry.

- "A Social History of Egypt" by Ahmad Zaki Badawi.

- "A Short History of the World", H. G. Wells, translated into Arabic by Abdel-Aziz Gaweed, 1985.

- "The Ismaili Shiite Sect" by Dr. M. Kamel Hussein, Maktabat Al-Nahda Publishers, 1^st edition, 1959.

- "Ministries and Ministers during the Fatimid Era" by Al-Manaoui, published by Dar Al-Maaref.

- "History of the Coptic Orthodox Church" by the priest Menassa Youhanna, 3^rd edition, 1982.

- "Egypt from Alexander the Great to the Arab Conquest", Al-Abady, published by the Anglo-Egyptian Bookshop, 1972, Cairo, Egypt.

- "Islamic Sufism" by Nicolson.

- "On the Islamic Thought" by M. Al-Bahy.

- "Periodicals of Cairo" by Abdel-Aziz Saleh.

- "Al-Hakim Biamrallah" by Abdel-Moneim Majid, published by the Anglo-Egyptian Bookshop, 1959.

- "Ancient History of Iran", Hassan Pirnia, translated into Arabic by Dr. Noor-Eddine Abdel-Moneim and Dr. Al-Seibaay M. Al-Seibaay, published by the Anglo-Egyptian Bookshop, 1979.

- "A Historical Sketch of the Protestant Church" J. G. Lorimer.

- "The Religion of Ancient Egypt" by Adolf Erman.

- "Ancient, Medieval and Modern Christianity: The Evolution of a Religion" by Charles Guignebert, translated into Arabic in Egypt by Dr. Abdel-Haleem Mahmoud.

- "The Philosophy in the Orient", authored originally in French 1939 by Paul Masson-Oursel, a translated Arabic edition.

- A. S. Mansour, "Al-Sayed Al-Badawi between Fact and Myth", edition of 1982.

- A. S. Mansour, unpublished MA thesis, at the History Department, Al-Azhar University, titled "The Influence of Tribalism on the Umayyad Caliphate".

- A. S. Mansour, unpublished PhD thesis, at the History Department, Al-Azhar University, titled "The Influence of Sufism on Egypt during the Mameluke Era".