The Great Arab Conquests (30 page)
Read The Great Arab Conquests Online
Authors: Hugh Kennedy
The last years of the saintly Coptic patriarch Benjamin could hardly have been more different.
61
We have some details in the highly partisan but near-contemporary biography of the patriarch. When Amr occupied Alexandria, a Coptic nobleman (
duqs
) called Sanutius persuaded him to send out a proclamation of safe conduct for Benjamin and an invitation to return to Alexandria. When he arrived, after thirteen years in concealment, Amr treated him with love and respect and said, ‘In all the lands I have conquered, I have never seen a man of God like this!’ He was then instructed by the governor to resume control over the Coptic Church and he set about reconciling those Copts who had deserted the faith during the period of Cyrus’s rule, including a number of bishops. He arranged for the restoration of the monasteries in the Wadi Natrun that had been ruined by the Chalcedonians, including the great house of St Macarius, which still exists as a functioning monastery in the present day. ‘The good works of the orthodox [i.e. the Copts] grew and increased and the people rejoiced like young calves when their halters are unfastened and they are set free to be nourished by their mother’s milk.’
62
Now once again in Alexandria, seated in the midst of his flock, he established himself in the monastery of St Metras, because all the monks there were Egyptians (
misriyūn
) and they had not allowed it to be polluted by the hated Chalcedonians.
61
We have some details in the highly partisan but near-contemporary biography of the patriarch. When Amr occupied Alexandria, a Coptic nobleman (
duqs
) called Sanutius persuaded him to send out a proclamation of safe conduct for Benjamin and an invitation to return to Alexandria. When he arrived, after thirteen years in concealment, Amr treated him with love and respect and said, ‘In all the lands I have conquered, I have never seen a man of God like this!’ He was then instructed by the governor to resume control over the Coptic Church and he set about reconciling those Copts who had deserted the faith during the period of Cyrus’s rule, including a number of bishops. He arranged for the restoration of the monasteries in the Wadi Natrun that had been ruined by the Chalcedonians, including the great house of St Macarius, which still exists as a functioning monastery in the present day. ‘The good works of the orthodox [i.e. the Copts] grew and increased and the people rejoiced like young calves when their halters are unfastened and they are set free to be nourished by their mother’s milk.’
62
Now once again in Alexandria, seated in the midst of his flock, he established himself in the monastery of St Metras, because all the monks there were Egyptians (
misriyūn
) and they had not allowed it to be polluted by the hated Chalcedonians.
Benjamin also established good relations with Amr. Shortly after the fall of Alexandria, Amr prepared to set out on his expedition to Libya. He made a request of Benjamin: ‘If you pray for me so that I go to the west and the Five Cities and take possession of them as I have of Egypt and return in safety and speedily, I will do everything that you ask of me.’ The pious biographer then presents us with the striking image of the patriarch praying for the success of the Muslim commander against the (Christian) inhabitants of the Cyrenaica.
63
63
Benjamin survived for almost twenty years after the fall of Egypt to the Muslims, dying full of years and honour in 661. His body was laid to rest in the monastery of St Macarius, where he is still venerated as a saint. There can be no doubt that he played a major role in the survival of the Coptic Church through the transition to Arab rule.
Amr survived Benjamin by another three years, but not continuously as governor of Egypt. In 645 he was dismissed by the new caliph Uthman, who was trying to centralize the government of the caliphate, and replaced by one Abd Allah b. Sa
c
d b. Abī Sarh, who would not have such close ties with the conquering army and could be relied upon to send more revenue to Medina. But Amr was not finished yet. He played an important role as adviser to his distant cousin Mu
c
āwiya b. Abī Sufyān, the first Umayyad caliph, in the struggle for power that followed Uthman’s death in 656. In 658 Mu
c
āwiya appointed him to lead an army to take Egypt from the supporters of his rival Alī. Although it was now thirteen years since he had last governed the province, he could still attract support from the surviving conquerors and their children. In a fierce battle near Fustāt in the summer of 658 he defeated Alī’s supporters and entered the capital he had founded in triumph. He remained governor until, aged about seventy, he died of natural causes early in 664. He was buried at the foot of the Muqattam hills, which rise to the east of Fustāt, but the early Muslims made little attempt to mark the burial places of their dead and the site of his tomb has never been identified.
c
d b. Abī Sarh, who would not have such close ties with the conquering army and could be relied upon to send more revenue to Medina. But Amr was not finished yet. He played an important role as adviser to his distant cousin Mu
c
āwiya b. Abī Sufyān, the first Umayyad caliph, in the struggle for power that followed Uthman’s death in 656. In 658 Mu
c
āwiya appointed him to lead an army to take Egypt from the supporters of his rival Alī. Although it was now thirteen years since he had last governed the province, he could still attract support from the surviving conquerors and their children. In a fierce battle near Fustāt in the summer of 658 he defeated Alī’s supporters and entered the capital he had founded in triumph. He remained governor until, aged about seventy, he died of natural causes early in 664. He was buried at the foot of the Muqattam hills, which rise to the east of Fustāt, but the early Muslims made little attempt to mark the burial places of their dead and the site of his tomb has never been identified.
The historical sources give Amr a good reputation. Of his competence as a military commander and politician there can be no doubt - the results speak for themselves - but he also has a reputation for straight dealing and justice. In the Egyptian-Arab tradition, he is revered not just as a conqueror but as a man who upheld the interests of the soldiers and families of the conquering army against the central government in Medina or Damascus. He is portrayed on his deathbed as wise and pious, a man whom the Prophet himself had commended in person.
64
He also has a good image in the Coptic sources. We have already seen how the biographer of Benjamin describes the good relations Amr had with his hero. Even more striking is the verdict of John of Nikiu. John was no admirer of Muslim government and was fierce in his denunciation of what he saw as oppression and abuse, but he says of Amr: ‘He exacted the taxes which had been determined upon but he took none of the property of the churches, and he committed no act of spoliation or plunder, and he preserved them throughout all his days.’
65
64
He also has a good image in the Coptic sources. We have already seen how the biographer of Benjamin describes the good relations Amr had with his hero. Even more striking is the verdict of John of Nikiu. John was no admirer of Muslim government and was fierce in his denunciation of what he saw as oppression and abuse, but he says of Amr: ‘He exacted the taxes which had been determined upon but he took none of the property of the churches, and he committed no act of spoliation or plunder, and he preserved them throughout all his days.’
65
Of all the early Muslim conquests, that of Egypt was the swiftest and most complete. Within a space of two years the country had come entirely under Arab rule. Even more remarkably, it has remained under Muslim rule ever since. Seldom in history can so massive a political change have happened so swiftly and been so long lasting.
While the country came under Arab-Muslim rule, it did not at this stage become an Arab or a Muslim land. For centuries, Arabic speakers and Muslims were in a minority, at first a very small minority which grew very slowly. If we suggest a total Arab population of 100,000 in a total population of 3 million we can have some idea just how small, about one in thirty, this minority was.
66
Paradoxically, however, the fact that the conquerors were so few may actually have made their rule easier. They did not initially exert intolerable pressure on resources and they did not deprive local people of their lands or houses; they lived off the proceeds of taxation and they built a new town to live in. Nor did they interfere in the religious practices or buildings of the Christians. The administration continued largely unchanged. Certainly a hundred years later, taxation was beginning to seem very oppressive and we hear of violent Coptic revolts, but by that time Muslim rule was too well established to be overthrown.
66
Paradoxically, however, the fact that the conquerors were so few may actually have made their rule easier. They did not initially exert intolerable pressure on resources and they did not deprive local people of their lands or houses; they lived off the proceeds of taxation and they built a new town to live in. Nor did they interfere in the religious practices or buildings of the Christians. The administration continued largely unchanged. Certainly a hundred years later, taxation was beginning to seem very oppressive and we hear of violent Coptic revolts, but by that time Muslim rule was too well established to be overthrown.
The Muslims came to rule Egypt because of their military success. They defeated the Byzantine army in battle on a number of occasions and took its bases at Babylon and Alexandria. Quite why the Byzantine forces performed so badly is not clear. It was certainly not superior numbers nor superior technologies which allowed the Muslims to win. Part of the problem may have been the contrast that the Arab sources love to make between the tough, austere Muslim soldiers and the plushy and coddled Romans, and it is interesting to note John of Nikiu’s comment about the overweight and unwarlike John, who failed to defend the Fayyum.
There was also a failure of leadership on the Roman side. One of the abiding mysteries attached to the Muslim conquest of Egypt is the policies of Cyrus towards the Arabs. He had spent the decade before the coming of the Muslims in a sustained and ruthless attempt to impose imperial authority over the land and the Church of Egypt. Yet the testimony of both Christian and Muslim sources makes it clear that he soon despaired of defending the land against the Muslims and set out to make terms. John of Nikiu’s description of his secret surrender of Alexandria is a particularly telling example of this. It is difficult to account for this attitude. For Butler, writing with a deep sense of moral outrage, he was a treacherous schemer, working to betray the empire to build up the power of the patriarchate.
67
He played a ‘dark and subtle part’ in events and ‘the guilt of deliberate treason to the Roman empire must remain an indelible stain on his memory’.
68
It is possible that he simply had a failure of nerve, but it is also possible that he imagined himself being viceroy for the caliphs as he had been for the emperors. Whether they were a product of incompetence or misguided realpolitik, it is clear that Cyrus’s policies were a significant if not determining factor in the course of events.
67
He played a ‘dark and subtle part’ in events and ‘the guilt of deliberate treason to the Roman empire must remain an indelible stain on his memory’.
68
It is possible that he simply had a failure of nerve, but it is also possible that he imagined himself being viceroy for the caliphs as he had been for the emperors. Whether they were a product of incompetence or misguided realpolitik, it is clear that Cyrus’s policies were a significant if not determining factor in the course of events.
Part of the explanation for the speed of the conquest lies in the political structure of Egypt. From pharaonic times the administration of the country was highly centralized. In late antiquity, defence was in the hands of the governor and his army. Most of the population had neither arms nor military training. There were no semi-independent lords with their own military following who could continue resistance on a local basis. There is a clear contrast here with Iran, where local lords and princes preserved their local cultures and a measure of independence long after the central Sasanian government had been defeated.
The attitude of the Copts, the vast bulk of the population, remains the subject of controversy. Did they, or did they not, aid the Muslim conquest? For Butler the answer was clear: they did not and he repeatedly and adamantly denounces any writer who suggests that they may have done. Butler was a great authority on Coptic culture and he was clearly determined to exculpate them from any charge of betraying Christianity. Standing back from the controversies of the late nineteenth century, the picture is less certain. The Egyptian-Arab tradition makes repeated reference to Copts aiding the Muslims, but always in a supporting role, never as fighting soldiers. The Coptic patriarch Benjamin is said to have urged his followers to make friendly contact with Amr as soon as the invasion began. This is interesting evidence. There seems to be no good reason why the tradition should make this up, particularly because it was probably first written down in the eighth century, at a time when relations between Muslims and Copts were deteriorating. It is hard to see why the tradition would give credit to the Copts for some of the Arab military achievements unless it was an ancient and integral part of the record. These references are all the more telling because they seem to have no parallel elsewhere: the accounts of the conquest of Syria, for example, give no specific examples of the Monophysite Christians, whose relationship to the Roman authorities was not very different from that of the Copts, aiding the Muslims.
John of Nikiu’s testimony is even clearer. John was no apologist for Muslim rule. For him Islam was ‘the faith of the beast’.
69
Nevertheless, he records that at Antinoe in Middle Egypt the inhabitants of the province, who must have been overwhelmingly Coptic, submitted to the Muslims and paid them tribute. And they put to the sword all the Roman soldiers they encountered.
70
The Copts, in fact, are said to have helped the Muslims on a number of occasions, but this was by no means a general pattern, and they suffered like the Romans from the depredations of the Muslims and the effects of heavy and arbitrary taxation. The truth seems to be that the responses of the Copts were varied and perhaps confused: some of them at some times clearly welcomed and collaborated with the conquerors. At other times they are to be found fighting alongside the Romans. Many Egyptians in the villages and small towns of the Nile valley and the delta must have felt that they had simply exchanged one group of alien and exploitative rulers for another.
69
Nevertheless, he records that at Antinoe in Middle Egypt the inhabitants of the province, who must have been overwhelmingly Coptic, submitted to the Muslims and paid them tribute. And they put to the sword all the Roman soldiers they encountered.
70
The Copts, in fact, are said to have helped the Muslims on a number of occasions, but this was by no means a general pattern, and they suffered like the Romans from the depredations of the Muslims and the effects of heavy and arbitrary taxation. The truth seems to be that the responses of the Copts were varied and perhaps confused: some of them at some times clearly welcomed and collaborated with the conquerors. At other times they are to be found fighting alongside the Romans. Many Egyptians in the villages and small towns of the Nile valley and the delta must have felt that they had simply exchanged one group of alien and exploitative rulers for another.
5
THE CONQUEST OF IRAN
The Zagros mountains rise steeply in a series of folds from the flat plains of Mesopotamia.
1
The foothills are green and friendly in the spring, and successive rulers of the rich flat lands of Iraq have used them to find some coolness and an escape from the heat of the plains. The Sasanian kings had loved their palaces here, and later the caliphs of the Abbasid dynasty in the eighth and ninth centuries liked to come here for the hunting. The higher mountains are much more barren and there is snow in the winter, blocking most access between Iraq and Iran. There are small fertile plains within the folds of the mountains but much of the land is fit only for use by tribes of transhumant shepherds, mostly Kurdish-speaking at the time of the conquests. They are the ancestors of those Kurds who still inhabit the mountains of north-west Iran and south-eastern Turkey.
1
The foothills are green and friendly in the spring, and successive rulers of the rich flat lands of Iraq have used them to find some coolness and an escape from the heat of the plains. The Sasanian kings had loved their palaces here, and later the caliphs of the Abbasid dynasty in the eighth and ninth centuries liked to come here for the hunting. The higher mountains are much more barren and there is snow in the winter, blocking most access between Iraq and Iran. There are small fertile plains within the folds of the mountains but much of the land is fit only for use by tribes of transhumant shepherds, mostly Kurdish-speaking at the time of the conquests. They are the ancestors of those Kurds who still inhabit the mountains of north-west Iran and south-eastern Turkey.
The ridges of the Zagros run parallel to the edge of the plain, one formidable obstacle after another. Apart from shepherds’ paths, there are only two major routes through the mountains. The most important of these was the Great Khurasan Road, the series of valleys and passes that led from Hulwān in the Iraqi plains, past the Sasanian palaces and gardens at Qasri Shīrīn and Daskara, and the rock-cut arch at Tāqi Bustān, with its spring-filled pool and relief sculptures of the Sasanian king hunting. From here the road wound on up through narrow defiles in the plain to Bisitun. Here, a thousand years before the Arab armies passed this way, the great Darius had set up a trilingual inscription, on a vertiginous site overlooking the road in the plain far below. It was unlikely that anyone at this time could understand the ancient languages, Babylonian, Old Persian and Elamite, carved in the old cuneiform script, but they may have been able to pick out the image of the king, sitting enthroned while his vanquished opponents were paraded before him. This was a route that great kings had passed along for centuries, leaving their mark on the main artery of the Sasanian Empire. Beyond the plain at Bisitun, the road wound up the steep pass above Asadabad before reaching the plateau. Here the lands opened out, the mountains receded and the traveller reached the ancient city of Hamadan.
The other route from plain to plateau lay far to the south. The road passed through the flat and fertile lands of Khuzistān around the head of the Gulf, crossing the Tāb river on the long Sasanian bridge at Arrajān, before winding its way through the mountains to Bishapur, the capital of Shapur I and Istakhr, the ancient capital of Fars. The route was longer than the northern road, and fiercely hot in the summer, but it ran through well-watered valleys and was seldom blocked by snow. Of course, the traveller or invader from Arabia could also cross the Gulf by boat and arrive at a little port like Jannāba on the scorching coast, then make his way up through the mountains. It was by all these routes that the Arab invaders penetrated the interior of Iran.
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