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Copts (Egyptian Christians) are often much lighter skinned than Muslim Egyptians. I'm guessing there was less intermarriage with the Arab invaders amongst the p
by HideousKojima 4y ago
Copts (Egyptian Christians) are often much lighter skinned than Muslim Egyptians. I'm guessing there was less intermarriage with the Arab invaders amongst the populace that didn't convert. You can look at Rami Malek for an example of a Copt that westerners would be familiar with.
- saiya-jin 4y agoAnother item may be simple sun exposure. Manual workers in any tropical country are much darker-skinned compared to white collar workers. Basically anywhere in subtropics its considered posh to look as white as possible, see massive business ie in India with skin whitening. You won't see many self-tanning creams in shops there but tons of whitening ones.
- keenmaster 4y agoEven with Arab gene flow, Muslim and Christian/Coptic Egyptians are very genetically similar, which shows how small Arab contribution to the Egyptian gene pool was. There is probably a bigger difference between Egyptians in the north vs south, and a much bigger difference between “city” Egyptians and Egyptians in the villages or desert. Across the Middle East, “city” people tend to be lighter, in part due to lifestyle but also often due to genetic differences (e.g. bedouins have genetic distinctions and don’t intermarry much with city folk). Copts with lighter skin are a small minority among Egyptians with lighter skin in general. Not that it matters much, but this is interesting to me from an anthropological standpoint.