Chapter XXIV: Conquest of Egypt

A.H. XX. A.D. 641.

[Sidenote: A.H. XIX. A.D. 641.]

The year following the plague and drought was one of comparative repose. The arms of Islam were now pushing their way steadily into Persia. But I must reserve the advance in that direction, and first narrate the conquest of Egypt.

[Sidenote: Amru casts an eye on Egypt.]

The project is due to Amru. After the fall of Cæsarea, he chafed at a life of inaction in Palestine, which was now completely pacified. All around he looked for the ground of some new conquest. When the Caliph last visited Syria, he sought permission to make a descent upon Egypt, as every way desirable; for, to gain hold of a land that was at once weak and wealthy, would enfeeble the power of the enemy, and, by an easy stroke, augment their own. The advice was good; for Egypt, once the granary of Rome, now fed Constantinople with corn. Alexandria, though inhabited largely by natives of the country, drew its population from every quarter. It was the second city in the Byzantine empire, the seat of commerce, luxury, and letters. Romans and Greeks, Arabs and Copts, Christians, Jews, and Gentiles mingled here on common ground. But the life was essentially Byzantine. The vast population was provided in unexampled profusion and magnificence with theatres, baths, and places of amusement. A forest of ships, guarded by the ancient Pharos, ever congregated in its safe and spacious harbour, from whence communication was maintained with all the seaports of the empire. And Alexandria was thus a European, rather than an Egyptian, city.[366]

[Sidenote: The land of Egypt disaffected towards Byzantine rule.]

It was far otherwise with the rich valley irrigated by the Nile. Emerging from the environs of the luxurious city, the traveller dropped at once from the pinnacle of civilisation to the very depths of poverty and squalor. Egypt was then, as ever, the servant of nations. The overflowing produce of its well-watered fields was swept off by the tax-gatherers to feed the great cities of the empire. And the people of the soil, ground down by oppression, were always ready to rise in insurrection. They bore the foreign yoke uneasily. Hatred was embittered here, as in other lands, by the never-ceasing endeavour of the Court to convert the inhabitants to orthodoxy, while the Copts held tenaciously by the Monophysite creed. Thus chronic disaffection pervaded the land, and the people courted deliverance from Byzantine rule. There were here, it is true, no Bedouin tribes, or Arabian sympathies, as in the provinces of Syria. But elements of even greater weakness had long been undermining the Roman power in Egypt.

[Sidenote: Amru invades Egypt, A.H. XIX., XX. A.D. 640, 641.]

It was in the nineteenth or twentieth year of the Hegira that Amru, having obtained the hesitating consent of the Caliph, set out from Palestine for Egypt. His army, though joined on its march by bands of Bedouins lured by the hope of plunder, did not at the first exceed four thousand men. Soon after he had left, Omar, concerned at the smallness of his force, would have recalled him; but finding that he had already gone too far to be stopped, he sent heavy reinforcements, under Zobeir, one of the chief Companions, after him. The army of Amru was thus swelled to an imposing array of from twelve to sixteen thousand men, some of them warriors of renown.[367]

[Sidenote: And reduces Misr and Upper Egypt.]

Amru entered Egypt by Arîsh, and overcoming the garrison at Faroma, turned to the left and so passed onward through the desert, reaching thus the easternmost of the seven estuaries of the Nile. Along this branch of the river he marched by Bubastis towards Upper Egypt, where Mucoucus, the Copt, was governor--the same, we are told, who sent Mary the Egyptian bond-maid as a gift to Mahomet.[368] On the way he routed several columns sent forth to arrest the inroad; and amongst these a force commanded by his Syrian antagonist Artabûn, who was slain upon the field of battle. Marching thus along the vale of the Nile, with channels fed from the swelling river, verdant fields, and groves of the fig tree and acacia, Amru, now reinforced by Zobeir, reached at last the obelisks and ruined temples of Ain Shems, or Heliopolis, near to the great city of Misr.[369] There the Catholicos or bishop procured for Mucoucus a truce of four days. At its close, an action took place in which the Egyptians were driven back into their city and there besieged. The opposition must at one time have been warm, for the Yemen troops gave way. Reproached by Amru for their cowardice, one of these replied, ‘We are but men, not made of iron or stone.’ ‘Be quiet, thou yelping dog!’ cried Amru. ‘If we are dogs,’ answered the angry Arab, ‘then what art thou but the commander of dogs?’ Amru made no reply, but called on a column of veterans to step forth; and before their fiery onset the Egyptians fled. But, however bravely the native army may have fought at first, there was not much heart in their resistance. ‘What chance,’ said the Copts one to another, ‘have we against men that have beaten the Chosroes and the Kaiser?’ And, in truth, they deemed it little loss to be rid of the Byzantine yoke. The siege was of no long duration. A general assault was made, and Zobeir, with desperate valour, had already scaled the walls, and the place was at the mercy of the Arabs, when a deputation from Mucoucus obtained terms from Amru. A capitation tax was fixed of two dinars on every male adult, with other impositions similar to those of Syria. Many prisoners had already been taken; and a fifth part of their number, and of the spoil, was sent to Medîna. The same conditions were given to the Greek and Nubian settlers in Upper Egypt. But the Greeks, fallen now to the level of those over whom they used to domineer, and hated by them, were glad to make their escape to the sea coast.[370]

[Sidenote: Alexandria, besieged,]

Amru lost no time in marching upon Alexandria, so as to reach it before the Greek troops, hastily called in from the outlying garrisons, could rally there for its defence. [Sidenote: capitulates A.H. XX. A.D. 641.]On the way he put to flight several columns which sought to hinder his advance; and at last presented himself before the walls of the great city, which, offering (as it still does) on the land side a narrow and well-fortified front, was capable of an obstinate resistance. Towards the sea also it was open to succour at the pleasure of the Byzantine Court. But during the siege, Heraclius died, and the opportunity of relief was supinely allowed to slip away.[371] Some of the protective outworks on the narrow isthmus were taken by storm; and there appearing no prospect of support from Constantinople, the spirit of the garrison began to flag. The Greeks took to their ships, and in great numbers pusillanimously deserted the beleaguered city. At last Mucoucus, who after his defeat had retired to Alexandria, finding the place too weak for a prolonged defence, offered to capitulate, on the same terms as were given to Upper Egypt, and on condition that the prisoners taken throughout the campaign were set free. The Caliph, being referred to, readily agreed. ‘Tribute,’ he replied, ‘is better than booty; for it continueth, whereas spoil soon vanisheth as if it had not been. Touching the captives, such as are already scattered, are beyond my power; but those that remain, saving such as were seized on the field of battle, shall be restored.’ And so the city escaped sack, and the people became tributary to the conquerors.[372]

[Sidenote: Amru founds _Fostât_, or Cairo.]

Amru, it is said, wished to fix his seat of government at Alexandria, but Omar would not allow him to remain so far away from his camp, with so many branches of the Nile between. So he returned to Upper Egypt. A body of the Arabs crossed the Nile and settled in Ghîzeh, on the western bank--a movement which Omar permitted only on condition that a strong fortress was constructed there to prevent the possibility of their being surprised and cut off.[373] The head-quarters of the army were pitched near Memphis. Around them grew up a military station, called from its origin FOSTÂT, or ‘the Encampment.’ It expanded rapidly into the capital of Egypt, the modern Cairo.[374] And there Amru laid the foundations of a great Mosque, which still bears his name.

[Sidenote: The soil left in the hands of the cultivators.]

Zobeir urged Amru to enforce the right of conquest, and divide the land among his followers.[375] But Amru refused; and the Caliph, as might have been expected, confirmed the judgment. ‘Leave the land of Egypt,’ was his wise reply, ‘in the people’s hands to nurse and fructify.’ As elsewhere, Omar would not allow the Arabs to become proprietors of a single acre. Even Amru was refused ground whereupon to build a mansion for himself. He had a dwelling-place, the Caliph reminded him, at Medîna, and that should suffice. So the land of Egypt, left in the hands of its ancestral occupants, became a rich granary for the Hejâz, even as in bygone times it had been the granary of Italy and the Byzantine empire.

[Sidenote: Amru reopens communication between the Nile and Suez. A.H. XXI. A.D. 641–2.]

A memorable work, set on foot by Amru after his return from Alexandria to Fostât, facilitated the transport of corn from Egypt to Arabia. It was nothing less than the reopening of the communication of old subsisting between the waters of the Nile in Upper Egypt and those of the Red Sea at Suez. The channel followed the most eastern branch of the river as far north as Belbeis, then turned to the right through the vale of Tumlât, and, striking the Salt Lakes near Timseh, so reached the Red Sea by what is now the lower portion of the Suez Canal. Long disused, the bed, where shallow and artificial, had in that sandy region become choked with silt. The obstructions, however, could not have been very formidable, for within a year they were cleared away by the labour of the Egyptians, and navigation thus restored. The Caliph, going down to Yenbó (the Port of Medîna), there saw with his own eyes vessels discharge the burdens with which they had been freighted by Egyptian hands under the shadow of the Pyramids of Ghîzeh. The Canal remained navigable till the reign of Omar II., that is, for eighty years, when, choked with sand, it was again abandoned.[376]

[Sidenote: Amru would teach the natives to respect the Arabs.]

Finding that the Egyptians, used to the delicate and luxurious living of their land, looked down upon the Arabs for their simple and frugal fare, Amru chose a singular expedient to disabuse them of the prejudice, and raise his people in their estimation. First he had a feast prepared of slaughtered camels, after the Bedouin fashion; and the Egyptians looked on with wonder while the army satisfied themselves with the rude repast. Next day he commanded a sumptuous banquet to be set before them, with all the dainties of the Egyptian table; and here again the warriors fell to with equal zest. On the third day there was a grand parade of all the troops in battle array, and the people flocked to see it. Then Amru addressed them, saying: ‘The first day’s entertainment was to let you see the plain and simple manner of our life at home; the second to show you that we can, not the less, enjoy the good things of the lands we enter; and yet retain, as ye see in the spectacle here before you, our martial vigour notwithstanding.’ Amru gained his end; for the Copts retired saying one to the other, ‘See ye not that the Arabs have but to raise their heel upon us, and it is enough!’ Omar was delighted at his lieutenant’s device, and said of him, ‘Of a truth it is on wisdom and resolve, as well as on mere force, that the success of warfare doth depend.’

[Sidenote: Fable of a maiden sacrifice and Omar’s rescript.]

A curious tale is told of the rising of the Nile and of Omar’s rescript in reference to the same. The yearly flood was long delayed; and, according to wont, the Copts desired to cast into the river a maiden beautifully attired. When asked what course should be pursued to meet their wish, the Caliph indited this singular letter, and inclosed it in a despatch to Amru:--

‘The Commander of the Faithful to the River Nile, greeting. If in times past thou hast risen of thine own will, then stay thy flood; but if by the will of Almighty God, then to Him we pray that thy waters may rise and overspread the land.

‘OMAR.’

‘Cast this letter,’ wrote the Caliph, ‘into the stream, and it is enough.’ It was done, and the fertilising tide began to rise abundantly.[377]

[Sidenote: Alexandria retaken, besieged, and finally reoccupied by Moslems. A.H. XXV. A.D. 646.]

The seaboard of Africa lay open to the naval power of the Byzantine empire; but for a time, it was little used against the Saracens. Amru, with the restless spirit of his faith, soon pushed his conquests westward beyond the limits of Egypt, established himself in Barca, and reached even to Tripoli.[378] The subject races in these quarters rendered their tribute in a fixed quota of African slaves, thus early legalising in that unhappy land the iniquitous traffic which has ever since prevailed in human flesh and blood. The maritime settlements and native tribes thus ravaged, received little or no aid from the Byzantine fleets. But early in the Caliphate of Othmân, a desperate attempt was made to regain possession of Alexandria. The Moslems, busy with their conquests elsewhere, had left the city insufficiently protected. The Greek inhabitants conspired with the Court; and a fleet of three hundred ships was sent under command of Manuel, who drove out the garrison and took possession of the city. Amru hastened to its rescue. A great battle was fought outside the walls: the Greeks were defeated, and the unhappy town was subjected to the miseries of a second and a longer siege. It was at last taken by storm and given up to plunder. To obviate the possibility of another similar mishap, Amru razed the fortifications, and quartered in the vicinity a strong garrison, which, every six months, was relieved from Upper Egypt. The city, though still maintaining its commercial import, fell now from its high estate. The pomp and circumstance of the Moslem Court were transferred to Fostât, and Alexandria ceased to be the capital of Egypt.[379]