Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/773

749 MUSLIM CONQUEST.] EGYPT 749 conflict when attacked by Chosroes (A.D. 616). The success of Heraclius restored Egypt to the Empire and for a time it again received a Greek governor. The Monophysites, who had taken advantage of the Persian occupation, were persecuted and their patriarch expelled. The Arab conquest was welcomed by the native Christians, but with it they ceased to be the Egyptian nation. Their language is still used in their churches, but it is no longer spoken, and its literature, which is wholly ecclesiastical, has been long unproductive. The decline of Egypt was due to the purely military government of the Romans, and their subsequent alliance with the Greek party of Alexandria which never represented the country. Under weak emperors, the rest of Egypt was exposed to the inroads of savages, and left to fall into a condition of barbarism. Ecclesiastical dis putes tended to alienate both the native population and the Alex andrians. Thus at last the country was merely held by armed force, and the authority of the governor was little recognized beyond Alexandria, except where garrisons were stationed. There was no military spirit in a population unused to arms, nor any disinclination to be relieved from an arbitrary and persecuting rule. Thus the Muslim conquest was easy. [Iti the year 639 of our Era, or the eighteenth of the Flight, 1 Egypt was invaded by the Muslims, under the celebrated Amr Ibn-El-As (or El-Asee). Entering the country from Syria, at the head of only 4000 men, he besieged Pelusium, and took it after thirty days. This town was considered the key of Egypt on the Syrian frontier, and its capture was, therefore, an important advantage, which opened the country southwards to the Arab general. He marched thence to Eyn-Shems, the ancient Heliopolis, where he found the Greeks collected in force, and commanded by John Mukowkis, or rather John the Mukowkis, or Gureyg the Mukowkis, 2 the governor of Memphis, a native Egyptian. They offered a vigorous defence, but were put to the rout, and Amr advanced to the banks of the Nile and laid siege to Egyptian Babylon, a fortress of great strength, and garrisoned by a Roman legion. Here he received two reinforcements of 4000 Muslims each, and after a protracted siege of seven months he took the place by assault. In an enemy s country, and far from all supplies, the small army of the Arabs was still in a critical position and unable to push on against the capital, Alexandria, when the enmity of rival Christians and the perfidy of Mukowkis decided the balance in their favour. The persecutions which the Copts had suffered had greatly embittered them against the Greeks, and, as Gibbon observes, had &quot; converted a sect into a nation, and alienated Egypt from their religion and government.&quot; Mukowkis, who governed Memphis, was in heart a Mono- physite, and had also withheld the tribute due at Constanti nople ; and both he and his Coptic brethren, after the first resistance, hailed the new invaders as their deliverers from the Greek yoke. On the fall of Babylon they entered into 1 The years of the Muslim era, the Hijrah, or Flight of Mohammad from Mecca, are generally used in this portion of the history, as they are more convenient to Oriental scholars. The principal dates are, however, given according to both methods of computation. The authorities upon which this sketch of the history of Egypt under Muslim rule is based are these : Eutychius, Annales ;the Karnil of Ibn-el-Atheer (ed. Tornberg); Abu-1-Fida, Annales Musle- rnici (ed. Reiske); El-Makreezee s Khitat; El-Ishakee (MS.) ; Ab-ul- Mahasin ; Ibn-Khallikan s Biogr. Diet. (trs. De Slane) ; Es-Suyootee s Kit&b Ilusn cl-Mohddarah (MS.) and Ta-reekh El-Khulafd ; EI- Makreszee s Kitab-es-Su,look (trs. Quatremcre); Baha-ed-Deen s Vita Saladini (ed. Schultens); El-Gabartee s Annals (MS.); Wtistenf eld s Die Ktatthalter von Aegypten zur Zeit der Chalifen (1876) ; Weil s Geschichte der Chalifen; Quatreraere s Vie de Moczz-li-din- Allah, and M moires geogr. ct. hist, sur FlZgypte; Midland s Hist, des Croisades ; Joiuville s Vic de Saint Louis ; Marcel ; Mengin s Hist, de VEgypte; Sir R. Wilson s History of the British Expedition; Lane s Modern Egyptians; Mrs Poole s Englishwoman in Egypt; M Coan s Egypt as it is ; &c. , 2 Mukowkis, meaning a kind of ring-dove, seems (according to the Kamoos) to have been the symbol of the governor of Egypt under the Greeks, just as the hawk was the symbol of the Pharaohs. Gureyg may also be written Jureyj, but the former, representing the Egyptian pronunciation of the letter jccm, is preferred iu this article in this and similar instances. a treaty with the Arabs, engaging to pay to them a poll-tax of two de-enars on every adult male, and agreeing to furnish them with supplies and assistance while completing the subjugation of the country. Having concluded this treaty, and founded the city of El-Fustat on the site of his first encampment on the banks of the Nile, with the mosque known by his name, Amr marched against Alexandria ; and after overcoming many obstacles, and disputing the whole way with the Greeks, who conducted their retreat, in the face of a victorious array, with great ability, in twenty-two days he appeared before it. Fresh warriors continued to arrive from Syria to strengthen the besieg ing force ; but the defence was as obstinate as the attacks of the Muslims were brilliant, and was protracted for fourteen months. At length, on the 10th December 641, the metropolis of Egypt, the first city of the East, capitu lated ; but it is said that this conquest was only achieved with the sacrifice of 25,000 Muslims. Abu-1-Farag relates that Amr, wishing, at the earnest request of John the Grammarian, to spare the famous Library, wrote to the caliph (khaleefeh) Omar, asking his instructions respect ing it, and that he answered : &quot; As to the books you have mentioned, if they contain what is agreeable with the book of God, in the book of God is sufficient without them ; and if they contain what is contrary to the book of God, there is no need of them; so give orders for their destruction.&quot; The historian adds, that they were burnt in the public baths of the city, and in the space of six months were consumed. 3 The conquest of the rest of Egypt was soon effected, and the various strongholds successively fell into the hands of the invaders. Amr governed the country with much wisdom for four years, but was dismissed by Othman, who appointed in his place Abd-Allah Ibn-Saad Ibn-Abec-Sarh. The latter reduced Alexandria, which had been, retaken by the emperor Constans II., and pushed his conquests beyond Africa Proper. He died at Ascalon, in the year 36, having governed eleven years. His successor s rule was short, and the next viceroy, Mohammad, son of the caliph Aboo-Bekr, on assuming the reins of government acted with such tyranny towards the followers of Othman, that Mu awiyeh was compelled to dis patch Amr to Egypt with a force from Syria, and a great battle was fought in A.II. 38 between the two armies of Muslims, in which Amr was again victorious. As a reward for this service, he waa a second time appointed governor of Egypt, and he died there at the age of ninety years, in A.H. 43. From this time to A.D. 868, or for rather more than two centuries, Egypt was governed by a succession of viceroys, appointed by the caliphs of Damascus and Baghdad. Their period was distinguished by intestine troubles and a constant change of rulers, resulting from the caprice of the caliphs or the vicissitudes of their fortunes. Here we may mention, that shortly after the overthrow of the Amawee (&quot;Ommiade&quot;) Dynasty of Damascus, and the accession of the house of Abbas, which ruled at Baghdad, the city of El- Askar, immediately to the north-east of El-Fustat, was founded, and the seat of government removed thither. The site is without the walls of modern Cairo, and is marked by extensive mounds of rubbish. In A.D. 868 (A.H. 254) Ahmad, the son of Tooloon, a Turkish slave who held a high office at Baghdad, was appointed governor of the province of Misr by the caliph El-Moatezz, and two years after of that of Alexandria also, by his successor El-Muhtedee. His temporal allegiance to the caliph soon became merely nominal, and he was virtually sovereign of Egypt ; but at the same time he endeavoured to avoid a complete rupture by continuing the prayer for the Prince of the Faithful in the mosques, and the mention of his name on the coins which he struck. Later in his reign, however, he forbade the mention of the next caliph s brother and colleague El-Muwaffik in the prayers and state-documents of Egypt, and El- Moaternid, who was a weak prince, was prevailed on to denounce 3 This tradition is, we believe, only mentioned fully by Abu-1-Farag, but he was a Christian, and Muslim writers would consider it an occur rence of no importance. Abd-el-Lateef merely says, &quot; Here was the library which Amr Ibn-El- As burned by permission of Omar ; &quot; and El-Makreezee, speaking of Pompey s Pillar, says, &quot;It is said that this pillar is one of those which stood in the portico of Aristotle, who there taught philosophy, and that his academy contained a library which Amr Ibn-El- As burned by direction of Omar.&quot; See Englishwoman in Egypt, vol. i. 40, seqq.