Arab conquest of Egypt

Between 639 and 642, an Arab army led by Amr ibn al-As took Egypt from the Byzantine Empire for the Rashidun Caliphate. The fall of Alexandria in 642 ended nearly seven centuries of Roman rule over the Nile valley. Egypt became one of the richest provinces of the new Islamic state and a base for further conquests across North Africa, and it has remained under Muslim rule ever since.

Egypt had only recently returned to Byzantine hands. The Sasanian Empire of Persia had occupied it for about a decade before the emperor Heraclius recovered it in 629. Its government was divided among several provinces, and most Egyptians belonged to a Christian church that rejected the doctrine of Constantinople; their own patriarch, Benjamin, was in hiding, while Cyrus, the patriarch appointed by the emperor, also acted as governor.

After the death of Muhammad in 632, Arab armies advanced into Byzantine and Persian territory. Following victories at Yarmuk in 636 and over the Persians the next year, Amr, who knew Egypt's wealth from his days as a merchant, urged Caliph Umar to let him invade. According to tradition, Umar later had second thoughts and sent a letter recalling him, but Amr read it only after crossing the frontier, which allowed him to carry on.

Amr set out in December 639 with about 4,000 men, joined on the way by Bedouin and others hoping for booty. Pelusium, the eastern gateway to Egypt, fell in early 640 after a siege of about two months, and Bilbeis fell after another month. In May 640 the Arabs reached Babylon, a great fortress near what is now Cairo, which they could not storm. Reinforcements from Medina, including the veteran commander Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, raised Amr's army to perhaps 12,000. The Arabs defeated a Byzantine force at Heliopolis, occupied the Faiyum and kept up the siege of Babylon, which finally surrendered in April 641 after seven months.

Heraclius died in February 641, and the court in Constantinople fell into a power struggle. Cyrus, who had earlier been exiled for offering terms to the Arabs, returned to Egypt that September with permission to make peace. He agreed a treaty with Amr: the people would pay a fixed tribute, an armistice of about eleven months would follow, the Byzantine garrison would leave by sea, and the churches would be left alone. The first tribute was paid on 10 December 641. The last Byzantine troops sailed for Cyprus in September 642, and at the end of that month Amr entered Alexandria.

An expedition sent south into Nubia in 642 was beaten back by the skilful Nubian cavalry, and a treaty in 651–652 eventually fixed the southern frontier with the kingdom of Makuria. In 645 the emperor Constans II sent a fleet of 300 ships, which retook Alexandria. Amr, by then removed from office, was sent back to command; he defeated the Byzantines at Nikiou and stormed the city, which suffered burning and looting. It was the last serious Byzantine attempt to recover Egypt for about five centuries.

Umar refused to keep Alexandria, a port exposed to Byzantine sea power, as the capital. Instead Amr founded Fustat beside the old fortress of Babylon; its first building was the mosque that still bears his name, and the town grew into Egypt's commercial centre. Egyptians were made to pay the jizya, a poll tax, and a canal was dug from the Nile to the Red Sea to ease trade with Arabia. Amr allowed Benjamin to return and lead the Coptic Church, which helped it survive. Contemporary Christian writers differed sharply in their views of the conquerors, some praising Amr's restraint and others recording destruction and violence. From Egypt, Arab armies went on to conquer the rest of North Africa during the early Muslim conquests.

Our 600 map shows Egypt as a Byzantine province, and our 700 map shows it as part of the caliphate.