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S. Rappoport - History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12)

S >> S. Rappoport >> History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12)




[Illustration: 327.jpg COIN OF OMAR]

Amr wished to organise his new government, and, having left a sufficient
garrison in Alexandria, he gave orders to the rest of his army to leave
the camp in the town and to occupy the interior of Egypt. "Where shall
we pitch our new camp?" the soldiers asked each other, and the answer
came from all parts, "Round the general's tent." The army, in fact,
did camp on the banks of the Nile, in the vicinity of the modern Cairo,
where Amr had ordered his tent to be left; and round this tent, which
had become the centre of reunion, the soldiers built temporary huts
which were soon changed into solid, permanent habitations. Spacious
houses were built for the leaders, and palaces for the generals, and
this collection of buildings soon became an important military town,
with strongly marked Muhammedan characteristics. It was called Fostat
(tent) in memory of the event, otherwise unimportant, which was the
origin of its creation. Amr determined to make his new town the capital
of Egypt; whilst still preserving the name of Fostat, he added that of
Misr,--a title always borne by the capital of Egypt, and which Memphis
had hitherto preserved in spite of the rivalry of Alexandria.

Fostat was then surrounded by fortifications, and Amr took up his
residence there, forming various establishments and giving himself up
entirely to the organisation of the vast province whose government the
caliph had entrusted to him. The personal tax, which was the only one,
had been determined in a fixed manner by the treaty of submission he
had concluded with the Kopts; and an unimportant ground rent on landed
property was added in favour of the holy towns of Mecca and Medina, as
well as to defray some expenses of local administration.

[Illustration: 329.jpg OLD CAIRO (FOSTAT)]

Egypt was entirely divided into provincial districts, all of which
had their own governor and administrators taken from among the Kopts
themselves. The lands which had belonged to the imperial government of
Constantinople, and those of the Greeks who had abandoned Egypt or been
killed in the war against the Mussulmans, were either declared to be the
property of the new government or given out again as fiefs or rewards
to the chief officers of the army. All these lands were leased to the
Koptic farmers, and the respective rights of the new proprietors
or tenant farmers and of the peasant proprietors were determined by
decisive and invariable rules. Thus the agricultural population enjoyed
under the Mussulmans a security and ease which replaced the tyrannical
annoyances and arbitrary exactions of the Christian agents of the
treasury of Constantinople; for, in fact, little by little, there had
disappeared under these Greek agents the sound principles of the old
administration that had been established by the wise kings of ancient
Egypt, and which the Ptolemies had scrupulously preserved, as did also
the first governors under the Caesars.

After all these improvements in the internal administration, the
governor turned his attention to the question of justice, which until
that moment had been subject to the decision of financial agents, or
of the soldiers of the Greek government. Amr now created permanent and
regular tribunals composed of honourable, independent, and enlightened
men, who enjoyed public respect and esteem. To Amr dates back the first
of those _divans_, chosen from the elite of the population, as sureties
of the fairness of the _cadis_, which received appeals from first
judgments to confirm them, or, in the case of wrongful decisions, to
alter them. The decrees of the Arab judges had force only for those
Mussulmans who formed a part of the occupying army. Whenever a Koptic
inhabitant was a party in an action, the Koptic authorities had the
right to intervene, and the parties were judged by their equals in race
and religion.

One striking act of justice succeeded in winning for Amr the hearts of
all. Despite the terror inspired by the religious persecutions which
Heraclius had carried on with so much energy, one man, the Koptic
patriarch Benjamin, had bravely kept his faith intact. He belonged
to the Jacobite sect and abandoned none of its dogmas, and in their
intolerance the all-powerful Melchites did not hesitate to choose him as
their chief victim. Benjamin was dispossessed of his patriarchal throne,
his liberty and life were threatened, and he only succeeded in saving
both by taking flight. He lived thus forgotten in the various refuges
that the desert monasteries afforded him, while Heraclius replaced him
by an ardent supporter of the opinions favoured at court. The whole of
Egypt was then divided into two churches separated from each other by an
implacable hatred. At the head of the Melchites was the new patriarch,
who was followed by a few priests and a small number of partisans who
were more attached to him by fear than by faith. The Jacobites, on the
other hand, comprised the immense majority of the population, who looked
upon the patriarch as an intruder chosen by the emperor. The church
still acknowledged as its real head Benjamin, the patriarch who had been
for thirteen years a wanderer, and whose return was ardently desired.
This wish found public expression as soon as the downfall of the
imperial power in Egypt permitted its free manifestation. Amr listened
to the supplications that were addressed to him, and, turning out the
usurper in his turn, recalled Benjamin from his long exile and replaced
him on the patriarchal throne.

But even here Amr's protection of the Koptic religion did not end.
He opened the door of his Mussulman town, and allowed them to live
in Fostat and to build churches there in the midst of the Mussulman
soldiers, even when Islamism was still without a temple in the city, or
a consecrated place worthy of the religion of the conquerors.

Amr at length resolved to build in his new capital a magnificent mosque
in imitation of the one at Mecca. Designs were speedily drawn up, the
location of the new temple being, according to Arab authors, that of an
ancient pyre consecrated by the Persians, and which had been in ruins
since the time of the Ptolemies.

[Illustration: 333.jpg A MODERN KOPT]

The monuments of Memphis had often been pillaged by Greek and Roman
emperors, and now they were once again despoiled to furnish the mosque
of Amr with the beautiful colonnades of marble and porphyry which adorn
the walls, and on which, the Arab historians assure us, the whole Koran
was written in letters of gold.

Omar died in 644, and under his successor, Othman, the Arabian conquests
were extended in Northern Africa. Othman dying in 656, the claims of Ali
were warmly supported, but not universally recognised, many looking to
Muawia as an acceptable candidate for the caliphate. This was especially
the view of the Syrian Muham-medans, and in 661 Muawia I. was elected
caliph. He promptly transferred the capital from Medina to Damascus, and
became in fact the founder of a dynasty known as the Ommayads, the new
caliph being a descendant of the famous Arabian chieftain Ommayad. Egypt
acknowledged the new authority and remained quiet and submissive. It
furnished Abd el-Malik, who became caliph in 685, not only with rich
subsidies and abundant provisions, but also with part of his troops.

The attachment of the Egyptians to their new masters was chiefly owing
to the gentleness and wisdom of Abd el-Aziz ibn Merwan, who administered
the country after Amr was put to death in 689. He visited all the
provinces of Egypt, and, arriving at Alexandria, he ordered the
building of a bridge over the canal, recognising the importance of this
communication between the town and country.

Benefiting by the religious liberty that Mussulman sovereignship had
secured them, the Kopts no longer attended to the quarrels of their
masters. They only occupied themselves in maintaining the quiet
peaceful-ness they had obtained by regular payment of their taxes, and
by supplying men and commodities when occasion demanded it. During the
reign of Abd el-Malik in Egypt the only remarkable event there was the
election, in 688, of the Jacobite Isaac as patriarch of Alexandria. The
Koptic clergy give him no other claim to historical remembrance than
the formulating of a decree ordaining "that the patriarch can only be
inaugurated on a Sunday."

[Illustration: 335.jpg MOSQUE OF AMR]

Isaac was succeeded by Simon the Syrian, whom the Koptic church looks
upon as a saint, and for whom is claimed the power of reviving the dead.
He nevertheless died from the effects of poison given him at the altar
by some jealous rival. Arab historians relate how deputies came to Simon
from India to ask for a bishop and some priests. The patriarch refused
to comply with this request, but Abd el-Aziz, thinking that this
relation with India might prove politically useful, gave the order to
other and more docile priests.

The patriarchal seat was empty for three years after the death of Simon.
The Kopts next appointed a patriarch named Alexander, who held the
office for a little over twenty years. The Koptic writers who recount
the history of this patriarch mention their discontent with the governor
Abd el-Aziz. The monks and other members of the clergy had grown very
numerous in Egypt and claimed to be exempt from taxation. Abd el-Aziz,
whose yearly tax was fixed, thought it unjust that the poorest classes
of the people should be made to pay while the priests, the bishop,
and the patriarch, all possessing abundance, should be privileged by
exemption. He therefore had a census made of all the monks and put
on them a tax of one dinar (about $2.53), while he exacted from the
patriarch an annual payment of three thousand dinars, or about $7,600.
This act of justice was the cause of many complaints among the clergy,
but they were soon suppressed and were without result.

[Illustration: 337a.jpg COIN OF ABU BEKR]

After more than twenty years of a prosperous government of Egypt, Abd
el-Aziz ibn Merwan died at Fostat in the year 708 (a.h. 86) at the very
time when, with many fresh plans for the future, he had completed the
building of a large and magnificent palace called ed-Dar el-mudahaba
(the golden house), and a quarter of the town called Suk el-hammam (the
pigeon market). The Caliph Abd el-Malik felt deeply the loss of this
brother, whose qualities he highly appreciated and whom he had appointed
as his successor.

He now named as his heir to the caliphate Walid, his eldest son, and
replaced Abd el-Aziz in the government of Egypt with his second son,
Abd Allah ibn Abd el-Malik. The Kopts hoped to obtain from the new
governor the repeal of the act that exacted yearly tribute from the
clergy, but Abd Allah did not think it fair to grant this unjust
discrimination against the poorer classes of the Egyptians. Those monks
who have written the history of the patriarchs have therefore painted
Abd Allah in even blacker colours than they did his predecessor. For
the rest, Abd Allah only held the reins of government in Egypt until the
death of his father, which occurred a few months later.

[Illustration: 337b.jpg COIN OF OTHMAN]

Suleiman succeeded his brother Walid I. The new caliph vigorously put
into execution all the plans his brother had formed for the propagation
of the religion of the Prophet. In the first year of his reign he
conquered Tabaristan and Georgia, and sent his brother Maslama to lay
fresh siege to Constantinople. On his accession to the throne Suleiman
placed the government of Egypt in the hands of Assama ibn Yazid, with
the title of agent-general of finances.

The Koptic clerical historians, according to their usual habit, portray
this governor as still worse than his predecessors, but in this case
the Mussulman authorities are in agreement in accusing him of the most
iniquitous extortions and most barbarous massacres. The gravest reproach
they bring against him is that, calling all the monks together, he told
them that not only did he intend to maintain the old regulations of Abd
el-Aziz, by which they had to pay an annual tax of one dinar ($2.53),
but also that they would be obliged to receive yearly from his agents an
iron ring bearing their name and the date of the financial transaction,
for which ring they were to make personal contribution. He forced
the wearing of this ring continually, and the hand found without this
strange form of receipt was to be cut off. Several monks who endeavoured
to evade this strict order were pitilessly mutilated, while a number of
them, rebelling against the payment of the tax, retired into convents,
thinking they could safely defraud the treasury. Assama, however, sent
his soldiers to search these retreats, and all the monks found without
rings were beheaded or put to death by the bastinado.

[Illustration: 338.jpg COIN OF MALIK]

Careful about all that related to the Egyptian revenues, Assama
commanded the keeping up of the various Nilometers, which still served
to regulate the assessment of the ground tax. In the year 718 he learned
that the Nilometer established at Helwan, a little below Fostat, had
fallen in, and hastened to report the fact to the caliph. By the orders
of this prince the ruined Nilometer was abandoned, and a new one built
at the meridional point of the island now called Rhodha, just between
Fostat and Gizeh.

[Illustration: 339.jpg CITADEL OF CAIRO (FOSTAT).]

But of all the financial transactions of Assama, the one that vexed most
the inhabitants of Egypt, and which brought down on him the most violent
and implacable hatred, was the ordinance by which all ascending or
descending the Nile were obliged to provide themselves with a passport
bearing a tax. This exorbitant claim was carried out with an abusive
and arbitrary sternness. A poor widow, the Oriental writers say, was
travelling up the Nile with her son, having with her a correct passport,
the payment of which had taken nearly all she possessed. The young man,
while stretched along the boat to drink of the river's water, was seized
by a crocodile and swallowed, together with the passport he carried
in his breast. The treasury officers insisted that the wretched widow
should take a fresh one; and to obtain payment for it she sold all she
had, even to the very clothes she wore. Such intolerable exactions
and excesses ended by thoroughly rousing the indignant Egyptians. The
malcontents assembled, and a general revolt would have been the result
but for the news of the death of the Caliph Suleiman (717), which gave
birth to the hope that justice might be obtained from his successor.

The next caliph was Omar II., a grandson of Merwan I., who had been
nominated as his successor by Suleiman. In his reign the Muhammedans
were repulsed from Constantinople, and the political movement began
which finally established the Abbasid dynasty at Baghdad. Omar dying
in the year 720, Yazid II., a son of Abd el-Malik, succeeded to the
caliphate, and reigned for four years, history being for the most part
silent as to the general condition of Egypt under these two caliphs.
It is recorded that in the year 720, one of Yazid's brothers, by name
Muhammed ibn Abd el-Malik, ruled over Egypt. The Kopts complained of his
rule, and declared that during the whole reign of Yazid ibn Abd el-Malik
the Christians were persecuted, crosses overthrown, and churches
destroyed.

[Illustration: 341.jpg A CROCODILE USED AS A TALISMAN]

Yazid was succeeded, in 724 A.D., by his brother Hisham, surnamed
Abu'l-Walid, the fourth son of Abd el-Malik to occupy the throne of
Islam, who, having been appointed by his brother as his successor, took
possession of the throne on the very day of his death. Muhammed was
replaced in Egypt by his cousin, Hassan ibn Yusuf, who only held office
for three years, resigning voluntarily in the year 730 a.d., or 108 of
the Hegira. The Caliph Hisham replaced him by Hafs ibn Walid, who was
deposed a year later, and in the year 109 of the Hegira the caliph
appointed in his place Abd el-Malik ibn Rifa, who had already governed
Egypt during the caliphate of Walid I. Hisham made many changes in
the governorship of Egypt, and amid a succession of rulers appointed
Handhala to the post. He had already been governor of Egypt under Yazid
II. He administered the province for another six years, and, according
to the Christian historians of the East, pursued the same course of
intolerance and tyranny that he had adopted when he governed Egypt for
the first time under Yazid.

The Caliph Hisham enjoined Handhala to be gentle with his subjects and
to treat the Christians with kindness, but far from conforming with
these wise and kindly intentions, he overwhelmed them with vexations and
tyrannous acts. He doubled the taxes by a general census, subjecting not
only men but also their animals to an impost. The receipts for the
new duty had to be stamped with the impression of a lion, and every
Christian found without one of these documents was deprived of one of
his hands.

In the year 746 (a.h. 124), on being informed of these abuses, the
caliph deprived him of the government of Egypt, and, giving him the
administration of Mauritania, appointed as his successor Hafs ibn Walid,
who, according to some accounts, had previously governed Egypt for
sixteen years, and who had left pleasanter recollections behind him.
Hafs, however, now only held office for a year.

Nothing of political importance happened in Egypt under the long reign
of Hisham, the only events noticed by the Christian historians being
those which relate solely to their ecclesiastical history. The 108th
year of the Hegira saw the death of Alexander, the forty-third Koptic
Patriarch of Alexandria. Since the conquest of Egypt by Omar, for a
period of about twenty-four years, the patriarchate had been in the
hands of the Jacobites; all the bishops in Egypt belonged to that sect,
and they had established Jacobite bishops even in Nubia, which they had
converted to their religion. The orthodox Christians elected Kosmas as
their patriarch. At that time the heretics had taken possession of all
the churches in Egypt, and the patriarch only retained that of Mar-Saba,
or the Holy Sabbath. Kosmas, by his solicitations, obtained from
Hisham an order to his financial administrator in Egypt, Abd Allah ibn
es-Sakari, to see that all the churches were returned to the sect to
which they belonged.

After occupying the patriarchal throne for only fifteen months,
Kosmas died. In the 109th year of the Hegira (a. d. 727-28) Kosmas was
succeeded by the patriarch Theodore. He occupied the seat for eleven
years. His patriarchate was a period of peace and quiet for the church
of Alexandria, and caused a temporary cessation of the quarrels between
the Melchites and the Jacobites. A vacancy of six years followed his
death until, in the year 127 of the Hegira (749 a. d.), Ibn Khalil was
promoted to the office of patriarch, and held his seat for twenty-three
years.

Walid II. succeeded to the caliphate in the year 749. One of his first
acts was to take the government of Egypt from Hafs, in spite of the
kindness of his rule, the wisdom and moderation of which had gained
for him the affection of all the provinces which he governed. He was
replaced by Isa ibn Abi Atta, who soon created a universal discontent,
as his administrative measures were oppressive.

In the year 750 the Ommayads were supplanted by the Abbasids, who
transferred the capital from Damascus to Baghdad. The first Abbasid
caliph was Abu'l-Abbas, who claimed descent from Abbas, the uncle of
Muhammed. The caliph Merwan II., the last of the Ommayads, in his flight
from his enemies came to Egypt and sent troops from Fostat to hold
Alexandria. He was now pursued to his death by the Abbasid general Salih
ibn Ali, who took possession of Postat for the new dynasty in 750. The
change from the Ommayad to the Abbasid caliphs was effected with little
difficulty, and Egypt continued to be a province of the caliphate and
was ruled by governors who were mostly Arabs or members of the Abbasid
family.

Abu'l-Abbas, after being inaugurated, began his rule by recalling all
the provincial governors, whom he replaced by his kinsmen and partisans.
He entrusted the government of Egypt to his paternal uncle, Salih ibn
Ali, who had obtained the province for him. Salih, however, did not rule
in person, but was represented by Abu Aun Abd el-Malik ibn Yazid, whom
he appointed vice-governor. The duties of patriarch of Alexandria were
then performed by Michel, commonly called Khail by the Kopts. This
patriarch was of the Jacobite sect and the forty-fifth successor of St.
Mark: he held the office about three years. He in turn was succeeded by
the patriarch Myna, a native of Semennud (the ancient Sebennytus).

In the year 754 Abu'l-Abbas died at the age of thirty-two, after
reigning four years, eight months, and twenty-six days, the Arabian
historians being always very precise in recording the duration of the
reign of the caliphs. He was the first of the caliphs to appoint a
vizier, the Ommayad caliphs employing only secretaries during their
administration. The successor of Abu'l-Abbas was his brother Abu
Jafar, surnamed El-Man-sur. Three years after his accession he took the
government of Egypt from his uncle, and in less than seven years Egypt
passed successively through the hands of six different governors. These
changes were instigated by the mistrustful disposition of the caliph,
who saw in every man a traitor and conspirator, dismissing on the
slightest provocation his most devoted adherents, some of whom were even
put to death by his orders. His last choice, Yazid ibn Hatim, governed
Egypt for eight years, and the caliph bestowed the title of Prince
of Egypt (Emir Misri) upon him, which title was also borne by his
successors.

These continual changes in the government of Egypt had not furthered
the prosperity and well-being of the inhabitants. Each ruler, certain
of speedy dismissal, busied himself with his personal affairs to the
detriment of the country, anxious only to amass by every possible
means sufficient money to compensate him for his inevitable deposition.
Moreover, each governor increased the taxation levied by his
predecessor. Such was the greed and rapacity of these governors that
every industry was continually subjected to increased taxation; the
working bricklayer, the vender of vegetables, the camel-driver, the
gravedigger, all callings, even that of mendicant, were taxed, and the
lower classes were reduced to eating dog's flesh and human remains. At
the moment when Egypt, unable to support such oppression longer, was on
the verge of insurrection, the welcome tidings of the death of El-Mansur
arrived.

Muhammed el-Mahdi, son of El-Mansur, succeeded his father and was the
third caliph of the house of Abbas. He was at Baghdad when his father
expired near Mecca, but, despite his absence, was immediately proclaimed
caliph. El-Mahdi betrayed in his deeds that same fickleness which
had signalised the caliphate of his father, El-Mansur. He appointed
a different governor of Egypt nearly every year. These many changes
resulted probably from the political views held by the caliph, or
perhaps he already perceived the tendency shown by each of his provinces
to separate itself from the centre of Islamism. Perhaps also he already
foresaw those divisions which destroyed the empire about half a century
later. Thus his prudence sought, in allowing but a short period of power
to each governor, to prevent their strengthening themselves sufficiently
in their provinces to become independent.

Egypt remained calm and subdued under these constant changes of
government. Syria and the neighbouring provinces followed suit, and the
Caliph el-Mahdi profited by this peaceful state of things to attack the
Emperor of the Greeks. His second son, Harun, undertook the continuation
of this war, and the young prince displayed such talent and bravery
that he gained brilliant victories, and returned to Baghdad after having
captured several cities from the Greeks, overthrown their generals,
and forced Constantinople to pay an annual tribute of seventy thousand
dinars (about $180,000). The Caliph el-Mahdi rewarded Harun by solemnly
naming him the future successor of his eldest son, Musa el-Hadi, whom he
had just definitely declared his heir to the throne. Shortly after this
decision, el-Mahdi died, in the year 785, having reigned ten years and
two months.

Musa el-Hadi, his eldest son, succeeded him, being the fourth caliph
of the race of Abbasids. On ascending the throne, he withdrew the
government of Egypt from Fadl ibn Salih, appointing in his place Ali ibn
Suleiman, also a descendant of Abbas. El-Hadi plotted against the claims
of Harun to the succession, but he died before his plans had matured,
and Harun became caliph in the year 786.

The reign of Harun er-Rashid was the most brilliant epoch of the empire
of Islamism, and his glory penetrated from the far East to the western
countries of Europe, where his name is still celebrated.

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