Arab conquest of Egypt
The Arab conquest of Egypt, led by the army of 'Amr ibn al-'As,[1] took place between 639 and 642 AD and was overseen by the Rashidun Caliphate. It ended the seven-century-long Roman period in Egypt that had begun in 30 BC, and widely speaking Greco-Roman period that had lasted about a millennium.
Shortly before the conquest, Byzantine (Eastern Roman) rule in the country had been shaken, as Egypt had been conquered and occupied for a decade by the Sasanian Empire in 618–629, before being recovered by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius. The Caliphate took advantage of Byzantines' exhaustion to invade Egypt.
During the mid-630s, the Romans had already lost the Levant and its Ghassanid allies in Arabia to the Caliphate. The loss of the prosperous province of Egypt and the defeat of the Byzantine armies severely weakened the empire, resulting in further territorial losses in the centuries to come.[2]
Background[edit]
Following the death of Muhammad in 632 AD, the Arab armies of the Rashidun Caliphate began expanding toward both Sasanian Persia and the Byzantine Empire.[3] Neither of the two former powers was prepared for the aggressive expansion of the Arabs, as both largely underestimated Islam and its growing support; this is best depicted by the ambivalent views held by the Byzantines and the painstakingly slow reaction of the Sasanians.[4]
After defeating the Byzantines at Yarmuk (636) and the Persians at Qadisiyah (637), the gaze of the Arab generals turned towards the riches of Byzantine Africa. After the Siege of Jerusalem, it was Amr ibn al-As who suggested an invasion of Egypt to the Caliph,[1] being familiar with the country's prosperity both from visiting it as a merchant and from leading the expedition to Gaza in 637.[1] Appealing to the Caliph, he said "the conquest of Egypt will give great power to the Muslims and will be a great aid to them, for it is the wealthiest land and the weakest in fighting and war power."[1]
After being convinced by Amr to proceed with the invasion, the caliph Umar is said to have had "an eleventh-hour change of heart", but too late to stop it. This element of the story, which conveys the caliph's wariness at allowing a general to seize such an asset, may have been a later embellishment in light of Amr's subsequent reputation as a stubbornly independent governor.[1]
Invasion of Nubia[edit]
In the summer of 642, 'Amr ibn al-'As sent an expedition to the Christian kingdom of Nubia, which bordered Egypt to the south, under the command of his cousin 'Uqbah ibn Nafi as a pre-emptive raid to announce the arrival of new rulers in Egypt.[40] 'Uqbah ibn Nafi, who later made a great name for himself as the conqueror of Africa and led his horse to the Atlantic, had an unhappy experience in Nubia. No pitched battle was fought, but there were only skirmishes and haphazard engagements, the type of warfare in which the Nubians excelled. They were skilful archers and subjected the Muslims to a merciless barrage of arrows, resulting in 250 Muslims losing their eyes in the engagement.
The Nubian cavalry displayed remarkable speed,[18] even more so than the Muslim cavalry. The Nubians would strike hard and then vanish before the Muslims could recover and counterattack. The hit-and-run raids took their toll on the Muslim expedition. 'Uqbah reported that to 'Amr,[30] who ordered 'Uqbah to withdraw from Nubia, terminating the expedition. A treaty was finally concluded with the Nubians in 651–2, securing the southern frontier of Muslim rule in Egypt.[41]
(1902). The Arab Conquest of Egypt and the Last Thirty Years of the Roman Dominion. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
