ancient Egyptians ...
The four centuries of ceaseless warfare between the Byzantine (Eastern-Roman) Empire and the Sassanid Persian Empire in the 6th and 7th centuries had weakened both empires.
It was at this unfortunate juncture that the Muslim Arabs pounced on both empires in fourth decade of the 7th century (641 C.E.). After their conquest of the Byzantine provinces of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine (today’s Israel), they invaded Egypt in December 641 C.E.
Scholars have differed in views on how the ancient library of Alexandria was destroyed. However, recent research by Luciano Canfora concluded that the Arab general Amr at the orders of the Arab Caliph Umar did the heinous deed of destruction of the library.
The story of the Arabs destruction of the library indicates that it took them six months to burn the books in about one thousand public baths in Alexandria.
This was a shameful act on part of the unlettered Arabs, whose Islamic mentality told them that no other book need now exist, as the Quran contained all that they needed! This was the justification of the barefooted and lizard-eating Arab Muslims for burning down all libraries, not just in Egypt but also in Syria (Damascus), Persia (where they burned the royal Zoroastrian library at Ctesiphon), Spain, India (where they burned the Buddhist university of Nalanda). The burning of libraries was one of the most heinous of the many Muslim crimes against humanity.
Yeah. The Copts are the descendants of the Ancient Egyptians. Their Christian Church ritule is in a Coptic, a form of later Ancient Egyptian. Using it and the Rosettta Stone, linguistis and Egyptiologists were able to decipher hieroglphs. Ancient Egyptian was a separate and distinct language from Arabic and although they are related, the relationship is very distant - like between English and Tocharian - an ancient extinct language of Central Asia.
So the Copts are the real Egyptians and the Islamic Egyptians are descendents of Arabs who speak Arabic or Arabicized Ancient Egyptians.