Resurrect Cat Worship in Egypt and beyond?

Obviously today Egypt is primarily Sunni Muslim, and overwhelmingly Abrahamic. With a PoD of no earlier than 1550 is it possible for the role of conventional Islam to be diminished in favour of animistic deification of cats in the manner of Bastet during the pre-Hellenistic period? I suppose similar to the way that cows are considered sacred by Hindus and allowed to roam widely in modern-day India.

I suppose the encroachment of the Portuguese was insufficient to challenge the Islamic consensus at the time, but what about during the Age of Enlightenment - is it possible that Abrahamic religion falls into decay during this period, or could an independence movement against the Ottomans use animals like cats in a symbolic manner whilst clerics are considered a symbol of the pashas? Possibly in the way that the role of organized Abrahamic-style religion was severely diminished in the 20th century in the Soviet Union and PRC.

Is there any potential for animist traditions from the south in what is modern-day Sudan to spread north? As far as I am aware animism persisted even despite the prosyletizing of imams and later Christian missionaries.
 
uh not with a PoD in 1550 and not in Egypt. I'm really not sure how you de-islamify Egypt and make it religiously neopagan; let alone how you do so given the lack of knowledge of hieroglyphics.
 
Well, considering that "animistic deification of cats in the manner of Bastet" has very very little to do with Ancient Egyptian religion, it's kind of hard.

Considering that apostasy from Islam carries the death penalty, it's rather harder.

Considering that that until the 1960s or so, it was unheard of for significant numbers of people to convert from 'higher religions' (the Abrahamics, Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, etc.) to paganism, it's harder yet.

So. No. Not going to happen.
 
Actually this is pretty easy. Just have Egypt invent the internet :D

In seriousness, there's basically no way to accomplish this short of ASB. Egyptian paganism was dying long before Islam came to Egypt.
 
Well they say history repeats itself, vinyl came back big time in the US, its only a matter of time before Egyptians are carving images of Pusheen into stone blocks
 
I agree it's highly unlikely but the idea is fun.

ASB have the Egyptian God's show up, reconquer Egypt, and make Bast really popular for some reason.
 
Some would say cat worship is back in force these days...
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