Last of five parts from the book, "The Arab Invasion of Egypt," by Alfred Butler.

The disclosure to the people [of the capitulation arranged by Cyrus] was made not by open avoval of Cyrus, or by the voice of rumour, but by the sudden appearance of an Arab force advancing towards the city. The alarm rang out, and from every quarter the people hastened to man the walls and towers. The Arabs rode forward unconcerned, while the Roman generals, who had now destroyed all fighting spirit in the army, tried to calm the people by arguing that further resistance was hopeless and impossible. ... but when the Saracens stood within speaking distance, what was the amazement of the Romans to hear that the enemy had come, not to attack the city, but to receive the tribute agreed upon by Cyrus, Al Mukaukas, in the treaty which he had proposed and had signed for the capitulation of Alexandria. Furious and incredulous the mob tore through the streets towards the Archbishop's palace; and when at last Cyrus appeared, for a moment his life was in danger, as the people ran upon him to stone him.... (page 331)

The action he had taken, he said, was forced upon him: no other course was possible in the interests of his hearers and of their children. The Arabs were irresistible: God had willed to bring the land of Egypt under their dominion. Either the Romans must come to terms, or they must see their streets deluged with blood, and after pillage and massacre the survivors must forfeit the remnant of their possessions. The capitulation secured life and property and religion.... (page 332)

The guilt of deliberate treason to the Roman Empire must remain an indelible stain on his memory, stained already by the folly and the brutality of the ten years' persecution.... (page 334)

It must be repeated that Alexandria was practically impregnable to any force which Amr could bring against it. The total circuit of the walls was some nine or ten miles, of which about three rested on the sea, while lake, morass, and canal protected the greater part of the remainder. Since, then, only a very small section of the walls was open to attack, it was easy for the defenders to concentrate all their force in repelling an assault: and even if the Arabs could have put out of action the formidable engines on the ramparts, their crude methods would never have breached the walls. In fact there appears no instance in all the history of Alexandria in which the city was captured by storm without betrayal from within.... (page 336)

A little to the north of the ruined Roman fortress there stands to this day the venerable mosque of Amr-- the oldest mosque in Egypt.... the original mosque of Amr was a very simple building. Its dimensions were only fifty cubits by thirty: the roof was very low: there was an open space in front of the mosque, but no courtyard, and a roadway round it: six doors gave access to the building.... (page 342-344)

... it is true that rapid results were accomplished by the vast gangs of natives, who were driven like slaves to the work and kept at it by taskmasters, according to the custom in vogue from time immemorial. The Arabs indeed seem to have applied this system of forced labour with exceptional rigour: insomuch that the Egyptian bishop is betrayed into very strong language: "The yoke they laid on the Egpytians was heavier than the yoke which had been laid on Israel by Pharaoh. Him God judged by a righteous judgement by drowning him in the (page 347)

Red Sea after He had sent many plagues both on men and cattle. When God's judgement lights upon these Muslims, may He do unto them as He did aforetime unto Pharaoh." ... (page 348)

But the town was soon forced to capitulate: and, although it yielded under a written treaty, many prisoners were taken and sent to Omar at Medina. A like fate befell Balhib, which was a strong place a few miles south of Rosetta: and it was here apparently that Amr received Omar's ratification of the Treaty of Alexandria. In the Caliph's letter, which was read out (page 349)

before the troops, instructions were given that all prisoners who chose to adopt Islam should be set at liberty and received as brothers. The story is that a great number of the captives went over to the Muslim religion, their decision being hailed with shouts of triumph by the Arabs. But a sudden and wholesale conversion of this kind was certainly an unusual, ... (page 350)

Torn by unavailing remorse, he deplored his betrayal of Egypt with ceaseless tears. So plunged in gloom and despondency he fell an easy victim to a dysentery, which seized him on Palm Sunday, and on the following Thursday, March 21, 642, he died.... (page 361)

We have already seen that Amr treated the Egyptians during the conquest with great harshness, and that the Coptic historian's wrath is roused against him for the severity of the tasks laid on his countrymen. So here, in speaking of the Patriarch's last days, John says, "Amr had no mercy upon the Egyptians, and he failed to observe the treaty they had made with him: for he was of barbarian race." In another passage he enters into more detail, and records that a man named Menas, who had been nominated Prefect of Lower Egypt by Heraclius, was continued in office by the Arabs. Menas was a presumptuous man, unlettered, and a deep hater of the Egyptians. Similarly one Sinoda, or Sanutius, was continued as Prefect of the Rif, and one Philoxenus as (page 362)

Prefect of Arcadia, or the Fayum. All three of these men are described as loving the heathen and hating the Christians, upon whom they laid grievous burdens. The Copts were forced to carry fodder for the cattle of the Arabs, and to provide them with milk, honey, fruit, vegetables, and other things in great abundance over and above the ordinary rations, i.e. the taxes in kind: and these orders the Copts executed under the stroke of incessant terror.... (page 363)

... although the people there were already beginning to discover how idle were their dreams of a settled government with fixed taxation. The whole country is described as suffering oppression at the hands of the Muslims; but the burden fell most heavily upon the city of Alexandria. There the interruption of the traffic which had enriched the people, and also the departure of those wealthy nobles and merchants who had resolved to abandon their home in Egypt, made the incidence of the new taxation very severe upon those that remained. In spite of the smooth phrases of Cyrus, they were feeling now the bitterness of subjection to the enemies of their country and their religion.

Depression and melancholy hung over the city during the last few weeks of the armistice. Already many of the houses were left empty, and the bustle of departure from the quays grew less, as vessel after vessel, laden with retiring Romans and their goods and chattels, sailed northwards to return no more. ... (page 365)

Only a few days now remained for the wretched inhabitants to set their house in order. On September 29 the eleven months of the armistice expired: the great gates were flung open: and Amr at the head of his rude desert warriors marched in past the long lines of gleaming colonnade and the stately palaces of the great city of Alexandria. So the Roman Empire in Egypt ended. (page 367)

... But amazed as they were at the size and splendour of Alexandria, they were even more struck by its extraordinary brilliancy. "Alexandria is a city containing much (page 368)

marble in pavements, buildings, and columns," says one writer. "The city was all white and bright by night as well as by day," says another: and again, "By reason of the walls and pavements of white marble, the people used all to wear black or red garments: it was the glare of the marble which made the monks wear black. So too it was painful to go out by night: for the moonlight reflected from the white marble made the city so bright that a tailor could see to thread his needle without a lamp. No one entered the city without a covering over his eyes to veil him from the glare of the plaster and marble." Yet a third Arab writer, of the tenth century, alleges that awnings of green silk were hung over the streets to relieve the dazzling glare of the marble." ... (page 369)

[footnote page 372]... Two hundred years later the city had so shrunk that Bernard the Wise, c. 870, says: "Beyond the east gate is the monastery of St. Mark: there are monks here at the church where he formerly lay. But the Venetians coming by sea bore away his body to their own island" (id., ib., p. 5). By 1350 the church where St. Mark was martyred was "about two miles east of Alexandria" (id., vol. vi.p.33). So clearly is the dwindling of the city shown.... (page 372)

But in 1167 a wretched governor of Alexandria, named Karaja, the vizier of Saladin, had all these columns broken down and most of them taken to the seashore, where they were thrown into the sea to render an enemy's landing more difficult. And from that day to this Diocletian's Pillar has risen in solitary grandeur as the one remnant of that matchless group of buildings which stood on the acropolis of Alexandria. ... (page 388)

[After the conquest of Egypt, Amr continues his unprovoked aggression upon other nations.]

The spirit of conquest was as much in the genius of Amr as the spirit of expansion was in the genius of Islam. As soon, therefore, as Egypt was secured, and before the fighting there was all over, the Arab chief decided upon an expedition to Pentapolis, the next province of the Roman Empire westward of Egypt.... (page 427-478)

There is no record of any fighting at all at Barca, which seems at once to have capitulated under treaty, agreeing to pay 13,000 dinars as yearly tribute.... From Barca Amr swept on to Tripolis, which was better fortified and had a larger Roman garrison. The city shut its gates, and for some weeks withstood the blockade which the Arabs established.... (page 429)

Moving with characteristic swiftness, Amr next surprised the city of Sabrah, dashing upon it early in the morning. The inhabitants were entirely off their guard, as they fancied that the Arabs were still occupied in beleaguering Tripolis, and the city fell at the first onset. It was taken by force of arms and plundered. The marked the end of the rapid campaign. Amr returned to Barca, where he received the formal submission of the Berber tribe of Lawatah, which occupied most of the country; and thence he led his victorious forces back to Egypt, (page 430)

with a long train of captives and with abundance of spoil.... (page 431)

Meanwhile the country was settling down under the mild and just government of Amr ibn al Asi; for that was the character it assumed when the long struggle of the conquest was over.... (page 433)

... but of Amr he remarks that "while he exacted the taxes which had been determined upon, he took none of the property of the churches, and committed no act of spoliation or plunder; nay, he preserved the churches to the end of his days." ... (page 445)

For all agreed in saying, "This expulsion of the Romans and victory of the Muslims is due to the wickedness of the Emperor Heraclius and his persecution of the orthodox by means of the Patriarch Cyrus; this was the cause of the ruin of the Romans and the subjugation of Egypt by the Muslims." Such was the popular verdict. The verdict of history will not take quite so sectarian a colour; ... (page 446)

... the obligation to pay tribute is governed by two classes of conditions-- the first absolutely binding in all cases, the second depending in each case on the terms of the treaty. The binding conditions are these: (1) the Kuran is not to be reviled, nor copies of it burned; (2) the Prophet must not be called a liar nor spoken of contemptuously; (3) the religion of Islam is not to be condemned, nor must any attempt be made to refute it; (4) no Christians may marry a Muslim woman; (5) no attempt may be made to seduce a Muslim from his religion, nor to injure him in purse or person; (6) the enemies of Islam must not be assisted, nor the rich men among them entertained.

The contingent conditions are as follows: (1) subjects must wear a distinctive garment with a girdle fastened round the waist; (2) their houses must not be built higher than those of the Muslims; (3) the sound of their bells must not be forced on the ears of Muslims, nor their reading or chanting, nor their opinions on their peculiar tenets, whether Jewish or (page 448)

Christian; (4) crosses must not be displayed nor wine drunk in public, nor must swine be seen; (5) the dead are to be mourned in private and to be buried in private; (6) subjects must ride only common horses or mules, not thoroughbreds....

Many regulations, which grew out of usage into law, came in the days of law to be regarded as part of the original constitution of Islam. For example, Ma'wardi sayd, "It is not lawful for subject people to build a new church or synagogue in the territory of Islam, and any such building must be demolished; but they may restore old churches or synagogues which have fallen into ruin." But this distinction cannot be traced in the beginning of Muslim rule in Egypt, because not only is Benjamin described as receiving a large sum of money from the duke Sanutius for the purpose of building a church to St. Mark in Alexandria, but the Patriarch John of Samanud did actually build a church with the same dedication, and under his successor, Isaac, the ruler of Egypt Abd al (page 449)

Aziz himself is represented as giving orders for the erection of a church at his newly settled town of Hulwan. It would seem, therefore, that in matters ecclesiastical the Copts were granted every reasonable freedom.... (page 450)

It is certain that the people sorely fretted under the new system [of taxation].... (page 454)

That the early government of Amr was animated by a spirit of justice and even sympathy for the subject population, can hardly be questioned. He received, however, little encouragement from the Caliph. Amr had filled the Caliph's granaries with corn from from Egypt, had poured gold into his coffers, and had extended his dominion: in return he received little but abuse and ingratitude from Omar. The relations of the two men at this time are shown in a vivid light by some correspondence which has been preserved, and which must be regarded as quite authentic. "I have been thinking," writes (page 456)

Omar, "upon you and your condition. You find yourself in a great and splendid country, whose inhabitants God has blessed in number and power, by land and by water. It is a land which even the Pharaohs, in spite of their unbelief, brought by useful works to a state of prosperity. I am therefore greatly astonished that it does not bring in the half of its former revenue, although this falling-off cannot be excused by reason of famine or failure of crops. Moreover you have written ere this of many taxes which you have laid upon the country. I hoped now that they would come to me, instead of which you bring excuses which have no meaning. I shall surely not take less than was formerly paid. . . . Even in the past year I might have demanded this of you, but I hoped that you would yourself fulfil your duty. Now, however, I see that it is your bad administration which hinders you. But, by the help of God, I have means to compel you to render me what I demand"; and so forth....

[Amr answers] "I have served (page 457)

the Apostle of God," he proceeds," and his successor, Abu Bakr; I have (praise be to God) answered to the trust reposed in me, and I have rendered towards my prince the duty which God laid upon me. . . . Now take back the governorship which you have given me: for God has kept me free from the avarice and meanness wherewith you have charged me in your letters. . . . You could not have said more of a Jew of Khaibar. God forgive you and me."

This simple and dignified language produced no effect upon Omar, who replied bluntly: "I did not send you to Egypt in order to sate your lusts and those of your people, but because I hoped you would by good administration increase our revenue. Therefore upon receipt of this letter send me the taxes; ... (page 458)

And in truth the charge of greed recoils on Omar, who, as Baladhuri says, "was in the habit of fixing and writing down the total of the revenues of each province, when he appointed a governor for it; and whatever was raised beyond this amount he used to share with the governor, or in some cases take entirely for himself."...

When counselled to restore what he had taken, Omar replied, "Before God, I restore nothing: I am a merchant for the benefit of the Muslims." By the Muslims he meant either himself or the narrow clique at Mecca: and this purblind view of his duty to Islam, this policy of filling his exchequer at the expense of his newly won dominions, was destined to cost him his life.
... When Abdallah ibn Sa'd, who was made governor of Upper Egypt and the Fayum by Omar, replaced the conqueror as Viceroy of Egypt, he contrived to wring another 2,000,000 dinars from the natives, raising the sum to 14,000,000. "The mich-camel gives more milk than in your time," said Othman to Amr. "Yes," was the reply; (page 459)

"and the reason is that you are starving her young ones." Not merely that, but to raise the tribute was clearly unlawful. I have already shown that when Wardan was ordered by the Caliph Muawiah to increase the tribute levied on the Copts, he answered that it was impossible owing to the terms of the treaty: and I have quoted Urwah son of Zubair as saying that "the people were taxed above their means and were in distress, notwithstanding the fact that Amr had made with them a treaty of fixed conditions." ... (page 460)

It is certain that the Copts had bitter reason to regret the removal of Amr from the government.... (page 461)

There was therefore a direct premium placed on a change of religion; and although religious freedom was in theory secured for the Copts under the capitulation, it soon proved in fact to be shadowy and illusory. For a religious freedom which became identified with social bondage and with financial bondage could have neither substance nor vitality. As Islam spread, the social pressure upon the Copts became enormous, while the financial pressure at least seemed harder to resist, as the number of Christians or Jews who were liable for the poll-tax diminished year by year, and their isolation became more conspicuous. This vicious system of bribing the Christians into conversion had also the obvious effect of crippling the state revenues. The fall in the income from tribute was rapid. For while Amr, as we have seen, raised 14,000,000; in the caliphate of Muawiah, when many had been converted, the total was reduced to 5,000,000. Under the great Harun ar Rashid it fell to 4,000,000; and after that it remained at 3,000,000 till towards the end of the ninth century. As the public (page 463)

exchequer thus became impoverished, new methods of taxation had to be devised to counterbalance the loss on the tribute; and it can scarcely be doubted that in fixing fresh taxes some discrimination was made in favour of the Muslims as against the Christians. It is thus probable that in fact, as well as in seeming, the burdens of the Christians grew heavier in proportion as their numbers lessened. The wonder, therefore, is not that so many Copts yielded to the current which bore then way sweeping force over to Islam, but that so great a multitude of Christians stood firmly against the stream, nor have all the storms of thirteen centuries moved their faith from the rock of its foundation.

Nevertheless, few things are more remarkable in history than the manner in which a handful of victorious Arabs from the desert absorbed and destroyed in Egypt, broadly speaking, both the Christian religion and that older Byzantine culture, which owed at once its refinement and its frailty to the blending of the three great and ancient civilizations of Rome, Greece, and Egypt. (page 464)

But the conquest of Egypt was not quite ended. The war, which seemed to have closed, was reopened by a fierce attempt on the part of the Romans to recover their dominion ...

Omar's evil policy of keeping all his Viceroys under suspicion and displeasure, and of wringing the last farthing from his dominions, hastened his end. He was assassinated a few days before the close of A.H. 23, and buried on 1 Muharram, A.H. 24, on which day Othman was proclaimed his successor in the caliphate. But bad as the rule of Omar had been, the change of rulers was a doubtful gain to the Muslim Empire. If Omar worried and abused his best agents, Othman deposed them. One of Omar's last acts had been to diminish the authority of Amr ibn al Asi by giving the government of Upper Egypt and the Fayum to Abdallah ibn Sa'd ibn Abi Sarh, whom he also made controller of the (page 465)

land-tax. Othman completed Amr's discomfiture by removing him altogether from the government of Egypt in favour of this same Abdallah, ...

The Caliph's purpose in appointing Abdallah was to get a larger return from the tribute, and there is reason to think that (page 466)

Abdallah's first measure was to increase the proportion borne by the Alexandrians. Unquestionably the burden of taxation now lay very heavily upon them; and it was their distress under its weight which prompted some of their leading men to write letters to the Emperor Constans at Byzantium, praying to be delivered from the tyranny of the Muslims.... (page 467)

Upon the date of this seizure of Alexandria by the Romans there is unusual agreement among the Arab writers, who place it at the beginning of A.H. 25, i.e. towards the end of 645 of our era.... Amr had actually been recalled to Mecca, (page 469)

and, when the news of the revolt arrived, he there received orders to resume the command in Egypt. In any case it seems certain that he had been removed from office prior to the landing of the Romans, and that his incapable successor had let the defences of the country fall into a state of dangerous weakness. Manuel's army not only held Alexandria unchallenged, but they roamed over the adjacent country of the Delta, plundering the towns and villages and levying supplies of corn and wine and money with impunity.... the people were for the most part treated as conquered enemies.... (page 470)

On the other hand, the Copts had little enough to hope from a renewal of Roman ascendency. The record of Cyrus' persecution was graven too deep upon their memories: and even now, though the shadow of another tyranny was coming over them, they had a measure of civil and religious freedom greater than they could dream of retaining under the rule of Byzantium. The Copts, therefore, not only sided with the Arabs at this crisis, but they would have been guilty of supreme folly if they had again courted the stripes and fetters of the imperial government.... (page 471)

... and it is much easier to credit another account which in this siege, as in the siege of Diocletian, makes the capture due largely to treason from within. For it is said that one of the warders of the gate, named Ibn Bisamah, entered (page 474)

into communication with Amr, and undertook to throw open the gate, if his own safety and that of his family and property was guaranteed.

In whatever manner an entrance was made, the city was taken by storm in act of resistance, and the Arabs rushed in plundering, burning, and slaying all before them. Nearly all that remained in the eastern quarter by the gate, including the church of St. Mark, perished in the fire; and the work of slaughter went on till somewhere in the middle of the city Amr himself put an end to it. The spot on which he had bidden his followers to sheath the sword was afterwards marked by a mosque called the Mosque of Mercy. Some part of the Roman soldiers managed to reach their ships and put out to sea: but great numbers perished in the city, and Manuel himself was among the fallen. The women and children were taken as the prize of war.

This was the second capture of Alexandria; it took place in the summer of 646, and it was a capture by force.... (page 475)

Here, then, at last we find the Copts in willing co-operation, under regular agreement, with the Arabs, and their co-operation continued until the Roman army was destroyed and Alexandria recaptured. And this discovery reveals the true foundation on which rests the story of an alliance made between the Copts and the Arabs upon the first entry of the Arabs into Egypt-- a story which is false in itself and has been refuted over and over again in these pages, but which has been built on a basis of mingled fact and misunderstanding. Briefly the story is true of the campaign ending with the second capture of Alexandria, and not of any earlier campaign; it is true of the rebellion, and not true of the conquest; it is a historical picture, but set in the wrong framing. (page 480)

[Amr was once again removed from leading Egypt.] ... Amr's resentment of the mockery is well preserved in his caustic remark, "I should be like a man holding a cow by the horns while another milked her." But he had served the Caliph's turn in crushing the rebellion, and was no longer wanted. What the Caliph required was a man to wring money out of the Egyptians, and the man for that purpose was Abdallah. Amr accordingly quitted the country.... (page 489)

It has already been shown how powerful were the forces tending to drive the Copts into complete social and religious union with Islam: and few things are stranger in history than the absolute absorption of the one part of the Copts and the stubborn refusal of the other part to renounce their ancestral customs and their religion-- a refusal which has stood the test not only of the severest persecution, under which sufferers may be sustained by fire of enthusiasm, but also of that long dull wearing pressure of a daily life in which a sense of subjection, a consciousness of inferiority, was ever present. Of course the survival of Christianity was largely due to the influence of the monasteries, and their security was due in some degree to their (page 491)

remoteness in desert or mountain fastness.... But the part which Amr played in the troubled politics of Islam after his dismissal from Egypt; the story of Othman's murder; the contest between Ali and Muawiah; Amr's victorious march into Egypt and his reinstatement as governor-- all this is written in the chronicles of the caliphate, which have been long accessible to the reader.... (page 492)

He died on Yum al Fitr A.H. 43, or January 6, 664, at the age of about seventy.... (page 494)

The new capital of Fustat which Amr founded, and which rose later to great magnificence, has long since been levelled with the dust, leaving no vestige but the mosque which bears Amr's name, and which still marks at least the site of his original building.... (page 495)

Appendix D

If now we follow Ibn Abd al Hakam, Baladhuri, and Tabari in placing the entry of the Saracens in December, 639, we have the battle of Heliopolis in July or August, 640: and it may well be that the reinforcements of the Saracen army were first seen from the towers of Babylon on June 6, a day which from Severus and others is proved to have a strong hold on Coptic tradition, but which cannot be associated with any decisive event in the conquest. ... (page 533)