King Farouk on the left and the Coptic politician Salib Pasha Sami on the right
Salib Pasha Sami (1885 – 1958) was a Coptic politician who occupied several ministerial posts in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, including minister of agriculture, trade and industry, transport, supplies, war and foreign affairs. He was member of the Liberal Constitutional Party and then Unity Party; and in this sense one would expect him to King Farouk of Egypt (r. 1936 – 1952), but the truth is that Farouk hated him, and used to tell his premieres that Sami was too frank, or as Sami himself tells us, in other words, “impolite قليل الأدب”.[1]
Farouk in fact was one of the nastiest rulers who have ever been in charge of a country – corrupt and disrespectful. One cannot imagine him other than being a hater of the Copts. Sami tells us that in one of the opening performances in the Opera House, which was located in Azbakiyah, Cairo, and which Farouk attended, Sami was representing the cabinet as he was the oldest minister, and he was sitting next to Farouk. Sami tells us that in that occasion Farouk intentionally used a “Coptic and Islamic” phrase to hurt him “تعمد إيلامي بعبارة قبطية ومسلمة”.[2] He does not tell us the date of the occasion; and he does not tell us what phrase Farouk exactly used.
I guess, and it is only a guess, he used the phrase “يا كوفتيس (Oh, Kophtes)”. Kophtes may have been derived from the German ‘Kophtisch’ for ‘Coptic’, but was, and is still used, by Muslims as a derogatory word to insult the Copts, as, for example, ‘Niger’ is used to insult the Blacks.
The King of Egypt, whether he used this phrase or not, was not different from the least in his Muslim subjects.
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[1] صليب باشا سامي، ذكريات ١٨٩١ ـ ١٩٥٢ (القاهرة، مكتبة مدبولي، ١٩٩٩)، ص ٢٦٠
[2] Ibid.