compare the fate of Christianity in two regions that in different ways had been critical to the development of the early church. Muslim forces occupied Egypt in the middle of the seventh century, and North Africa (roughly, Algeria and Tunisia) over the following fifty years or so. In Egypt, the Coptic Christians coped impressively with the new regime. Coptic Christianity flourishes today, in stark contrast to the faith of North Africa, which was all but extinct within a hundred years of the coming of the Arabs.
