The conquest of Egypt by the Arab 'Amr Ibn Al-'As was a milestone in the country's history, yet accounts of it are vague and contradictory. Jill Kamil looks at evidence that Arab rule was marked by liberal policies When General 'Amr Ibn Al-'As entered the eastern Delta in the year 639AD, the leading church officials in Egypt were Cyrus (Al-Muqawqas in Arabic) the patriarch from Constantinople and one of the worst oppressors of Egyptian Christians, who was resident at Alexandria, and Benjamin the Coptic patriarch resident at Wadi Natrun. There were allegedly some 200,000 Christians loyal to the former, while many million Copts formed the nucleus of a widespread national movement hostile to the government. The fact that there were warring factions was not lost on 'Amr. The word Rumi ((Roman) was adopted to identify the Eastern Roman occupying forces, while Egypt was referred to as dar Al- Qibt, "home of the Copts" (a word derived from the ancient Egyptian Hikaptah -- the temple of Ptah -- via the Greek Aigyptos). Arab accounts of the conquest, written centuries after the event, are understandably vague and contradictory. Nevertheless they do agree on many points: on the overcoming of the Melkite (Eastern Roman) forces at Al-Farama (Pelusium) in north-west Sinai; the victory at Heliopolis; the subsequent taking over of Misr (an ancient word that referred to the whole country in pre-Islamic times but which was subsequently applied to the area around the old Roman fortress of Babylon); the signing of a peace treaty; and 'Amr's goodwill towards the Qibt in virtue of Islam's traditional kinship through Hagar, the Egyptian mother of Ismail, the ancestor of the prophet Mohamed. John, bishop of Nikiu and "rector of the bishops of Upper Egypt", who was born about the time of the invasion, gives a more contemporary account. In his Chronicle he describes, on the one hand, Egyptians aiding the Muslims, and, on the other, a clearer picture of the ill will between the church officials than can be obtained elsewhere. "And after the capture of the Fajum with all its territory by the Moslem... ," he wrote, "['Amr] mustered all his troops about him in order to carry on a vigorous warfare... And people began to help the Moslem" (Ch. CXIII: 1). "And when the Moslem saw... the hostility of the people to the emperor Heraclius at the instigation of Cyrus the Chalcedonian patriarch, they became bolder and stronger in war." (Ch. CXV: 9). Nikau preserved the terms of the treaty: "'Amr granted the people of Egypt -- Egyptians, Romans, Nubians and Jews -- peace and freedom of worship provided they pay the Jizya (per capita poll-tax excluding women, children and aged men), a land-tax, and hospitality to the Muslim army". Confirmation of the latter, that mingling with the local population as part of the policy adopted by 'Amr, is provided in Ibrahim Ahmed El-Adawi's The History of the Islamic World. He points out that the Arab conqueror initiated Nizam Al-Irtiba'a, or the "Spring Tour System", which lasted for three months from the end of the winter to the beginning of summer when Arab tribes living in Fustat were encouraged to travel around Egyptian villages for shooting and other recreational activities. The Islamic authorities issued a booklet, a sort of travel guide, addressing each of the tribes with details of their destinations. At first these were near Fustat, but later they were extended to include the Delta and Upper Egypt. El-Adawi quotes from an address given by 'Amr prior to their departure each spring, "You should treat the Copts who are your neighbours well," and he reads into this statement encouragement to intermingle with the local population, not to cause harm or inconvenience to them. The treaty stipulated, moreover, that whosoever rejected the treaty and chose to go away would be protected "till he reach a place of safety or leave our kingdom". In fact, the patriarch of Constantinople with his priestly entourage sailed out of Alexandria harbour on 17 September 642. His army began their withdrawal soon afterwards -- apart from those who chose to join 'Amr's army, or to settle down with their families in Egypt. "And Abba (Father) Benjamin, the patriarch of the Egyptians, returned to the city of Alexandria in the 13th year after his flight from the Romans, and he went to the Churches and inspected all of them," Nikau wrote.( Ch. CXXI: 1). As for the Arab attitude towards monks, part of a document in the monastery of St Catherine known as the "covenant of the prophet" (allegedly written by Mohamed himself but probably tabled by Umar Ibn Al-Khattab, the second caliph) states explicitly that there should be no change in their status: "If a priest or a hermit retires to a mountain, a hermitage, a plain, a desert, a town, a village or a church, I shall be his protector against every enemy, I, personally, my troops and my subjects... It is not allowed to move a bishop from his diocese, nor a priest from his religion, nor a hermit from his cell... He who does not conform to this would be going against God's law and that of his Prophet." (translation O Meinardus, Christian Egypt Ancient and Modern, 1977). This promise was renewed by successive rulers and can thus be taken as an indication of Muslim policy after the conquest. 'Amr Ibn Al-'As built the first mosque in Egypt, known as Al-Jamea Al-Atik ("the (most) ancient mosque"). It was at first a simple mud-brick structure, rectangular in shape, its roof supported by columns and covered with palm trunks and branches. When no longer able to accommodate the growing garrison it was replaced by a new mosque, built by the governor Maslama in 673. Designed with a minaret at each of the four corners, it was richly decorated in marble, mosaics and gilded Qur'anic inscriptions on a blue background. It served as a place of worship, council chamber, post office and lodging for travellers. In 710 the governor Kurrah built a palace, a sort of government house in the vicinity. Local labour was, of course, easy to come by. There were Egyptian craftsmen in the fields of stone, woodwork and glass manufacture and, within 15 years of its foundation of Fustat had expanded to the north. New mosques were built. In this expanding city, Muslim and Coptic households were not separated. Unlike Palestine and Syria there was no large Arab settlement in Egypt before the advent of Islam, and because the new rulers had neither practical knowledge nor aptitude in governing a country the size of Egypt they came to depend on the local population for material and administrative expertise. The various provinces were kept much as before, with Egyptian provincial governors and officials carrying out bureaucratic duties. Taxes were collected locally, either by large landowners or village notables under central supervision. Conversion to Islam was not as rapid as is generally supposed. The earliest converts were probably peasant farmers or those with small incomes who wanted to avoid the extra taxation. Among them were many pagans and perhaps some borderline Christians who had earlier wavered between Christian creeds. Among the Coptic- and Greek-speaking lower administrators who formed a professional bureaucratic class, there is little evidence of conversion even though there is little doubt that Egyptians developed a collaborative response to the principles of Islam and its simple creed: God is eternal, God is alone, God is great, there is no God but God, and Mohamed is the prophet of God. The call to prayer five times a day from a minaret by a muezzin did not demand attendance at a mosque. Islam sat easily on Egypt because the new faith came to a country traditionally tolerant of diverse beliefs and practices. Furthermore, the relationship between Copts and Muslims was marked by shared religious concepts: the immortality of the soul, resurrection, future rewards and punishments in paradise or hell, good and evil spirits (jinn), fasting, pilgrimage, and sacrifice. Almsgiving, an age-old practice from Pharaonic times and a Christian virtue, is an absolute duty under Islam. Arabic, the language of the Qur'an and of communication and culture, slowly came into general use all over the country. The earliest administrative papyri after the Arab conquest were all in Greek. Half a century later a decree was tabled that government affairs should forthwith be compiled in Arabic, and Copts who wished to keep their posts in the administration had to learn the Arabic script. Bilingual Greek-Arabic tax registers, receipts and the like began to appear. The first known purely Arabic papyrus dates from 709. As for Coptic manuscripts, they too reflect the increasing Arabisation of the country -- that is to say Egyptians were Arabised, but not Islamised. Greek-Coptic bilingual texts had been progressively replaced by Coptic (Bohairic) in the fifth and sixth centuries. When Caliph Walid I prohibited the use of Greek in 715, Coptic- Arabic bilingual texts began to appear. It was not, however, until the 12th century that Islam became so dominant that Patriarch Gabriel II instructed priests to explain the Lord's prayer in vernacular Arabic. Liturgical books increasingly carried Arabic translations alongside the Coptic, but not until the 13th and 14th centuries -- six centuries after the Arab conquest -- had the bulk of the population become Arabic-speaking.
