Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/187

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CHAPTER XXII

CONQUEST OF EGYPT^[1]

19–20 A.H. 640–641 A.D.

19 A.H.
640 A.D.The year following was one of comparative repose. Islām continued to push its way now steadily into Persia. Reserving the advance in that direction, we will first narrate the conquest of Egypt.

ʿAmr casts an eye on Egypt.The project was, it is said, due to ʿAmr, who had made trading expeditions in the country in his

↑ The chief authorities for the Muslim conquest of Egypt are the contemporary chronicle of the Copt John of Nikiu, a number of papyri dating from that period in the collection of the Archduke Rainer, the contemporary and later accounts preserved by the early Arabic historians Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (d. 268 A.H.), Al-Bilādhuri (d. 279 A.H., 892 A.D.), and Ṭabari (d. 310 A.H., 966 A.D.), as well as the later Ibn al-Athīr (d. 630 A.H., 1233 A.D.), Al-Maḳrīzi (d. 845 A.H., 1442 A.D.), As-Suyūṭi (d. 911 A.H., 1505 A.D.), and many others.

The value of the Chronicle of John of Nikiu (of which the text with a French translation will be found in Notices et Extraits des MSS. de la Bibliothèque Nationale, vol. xxiv.) is diminished by the fact that it is extant only in an Ethiopic version made in the year 1602, from an ancient Arabic translation, the original having been composed in Greek, with some chapters in Coptic. Moreover, in the narrative itself the events do not appear to follow the order of time.

The Papyri of the Rainer Collection have been published by Prof. Karabacek in the Denkschriften and Sitzungsberichte of the Vienna Academy, as well as in the Mittheilungen.

The question of the sequence of events in the Conquest of Egypt has been discussed and, as far as practicable, settled by Mr E. W. Brooks in the Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 1895, p. 436 ff. The Arab historians are fully awake to the confusion which exists (Ṭab. i. 2580). Ibn al-Athīr attempts to find one fixed point by stating that the conquest of Miṣr must in any case have been before the Year of Ashes (see p. 153), since in that year ʿAmr sent supplies by way of Suez to Medīna by sea, but he wisely adds that God knoweth best (ii., 440, Cf. Ṭab. i. 2577).

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[1] The chief authorities for the Muslim conquest of Egypt are the contemporary chronicle of the Copt John of Nikiu, a number of papyri dating from that period in the collection of the Archduke Rainer, the contemporary and later accounts preserved by the early Arabic historians Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (d. 268 A.H.), Al-Bilādhuri (d. 279 A.H., 892 A.D.), and Ṭabari (d. 310 A.H., 966 A.D.), as well as the later Ibn al-Athīr (d. 630 A.H., 1233 A.D.), Al-Maḳrīzi (d. 845 A.H., 1442 A.D.), As-Suyūṭi (d. 911 A.H., 1505 A.D.), and many others.

The value of the Chronicle of John of Nikiu (of which the text with a French translation will be found in Notices et Extraits des MSS. de la Bibliothèque Nationale, vol. xxiv.) is diminished by the fact that it is extant only in an Ethiopic version made in the year 1602, from an ancient Arabic translation, the original having been composed in Greek, with some chapters in Coptic. Moreover, in the narrative itself the events do not appear to follow the order of time.

The Papyri of the Rainer Collection have been published by Prof. Karabacek in the Denkschriften and Sitzungsberichte of the Vienna Academy, as well as in the Mittheilungen.

The question of the sequence of events in the Conquest of Egypt has been discussed and, as far as practicable, settled by Mr E. W. Brooks in the Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 1895, p. 436 ff. The Arab historians are fully awake to the confusion which exists (Ṭab. i. 2580). Ibn al-Athīr attempts to find one fixed point by stating that the conquest of Miṣr must in any case have been before the Year of Ashes (see p. 153), since in that year ʿAmr sent supplies by way of Suez to Medīna by sea, but he wisely adds that God knoweth best (ii., 440, Cf. Ṭab. i. 2577).

[1]