Egypt time converter10/11/2023 ![]() The town put up no resistance, and the citizens offered allegiance on the usual terms. On Eid al-Adha, the Muslim army marched from Shajratein to El Arish, a small town lacking a garrison. When 'Umar received the reply, he decided to watch further developments and to start concentrating fresh forces at Madinah that could be dispatched to Egypt as reinforcements. ![]() The unanimous view was that as they had received the letter on Egyptian soil, they had permission to proceed. 'Amr then received and read 'Umar's letter and went on to consult his companions as to the course of action to be adopted. The army halted for the night at Shajratein, a little valley near the city of El Arish, which 'Amr knew to be beyond the Egyptian border. 'Uqbah, unaware of the contents of the letter, agreed and marched along with the army. Turning to 'Uqbah, 'Amr said that he would receive the caliph's letter from him when the army had halted after the day's journey. Guessing what might be in the letter, 'Amr ordered the army to quicken its pace. The messenger, 'Uqbah ibn 'Amr, caught up with Amr at Rafah, a little short of the Egyptian frontier. Accordingly, he wrote a letter to 'Amr ordering him to "return with all haste to the court of the Caliph, so that his soldiers might join additional campaigns being planned elsewhere", however there was a provision in the letter stating that 'Amr's first duty was the protection of his troops, and if he found himself on Egyptian soil by the time he received the letter, the Caliph would leave overall strategic command of movement to him, so as to not unduly burden troops already in the field. ![]() However, ' Umar, the Muslim caliph, reconsidered his orders to Amr and considered it foolhardy to expect to conquer such a large country as Egypt with a mere 4,000 soldiers. The Arab soldiers were also joined by some Roman and Persian converts to Islam. Most of the soldiers belonged to the Arab tribe of 'Ak, but Al-Kindi mentioned that one third of the soldiers belonged to the Arab tribe of Ghafik. Conquest of Isfahan & Tabaristan (642–643)Ĭrossing the Egyptian border Pyramids of GizaĪccording to Arab sources, In December 639, 'Amr ibn al-'As left for Egypt with a force of 4,000 troops.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. 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." Īfter 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. After the Siege of Jerusalem, it was Amr ibn al-As who suggested an invasion of Egypt to the Caliph, being familiar with the country's prosperity both from visiting it as a merchant and from leading the expedition to Gaza in 637. Īfter 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. 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 Sassanids. With the death of Muhammad in 632 AD, the Arab armies of the Rashidun Caliphate began assaulting the borders of both Sassanid Persia and the Byzantine Empire. 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. The caliphate took advantage of Byzantines' exhaustion and captured Egypt ten years after its reconquest by Heraclius.ĭuring the mid-630s, the Romans had already lost the Levant and its Ghassanid allies in Arabia to the Caliphate. Byzantine 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. It ended the seven-century-long period of Roman reign over Egypt that began in 30 BC. The Arab conquest of Egypt, led by the army of 'Amr ibn al-'As, took place between 639 and 646 AD and was overseen by the Rashidun Caliphate. Campaigns of Leo Apostyppes & Nikephoros Phokas the Elder.
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