Conquest of Egypt 's conquest of Egypt From his base in southern Palestine, Amr launched the conquest of
Byzantine Egypt. He had established trading interests there before his conversion to Islam, making him aware of its importance in international trade. The traditional Muslim sources generally hold that Amr undertook the campaign with Caliph Umar's reluctant approval, though a number of accounts hold that he entered the region without Umar's authorization. At the head of 4,000 cavalries and with no siege engines, Amr arrived at the frontier town of
al-Arish along the northern Sinai coastline on 12 December 639. He captured the strategic Mediterranean port city of
Pelusium (al-Farama) following a month-long siege and moved against
Bilbeis, which also fell after a month-long siege. Amr halted his campaign before the fortified Byzantine stronghold of
Babylon, at the head of the
Nile Delta, and requested reinforcements from Umar. The latter dispatched
al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, a leading Qurayshite companion of Muhammad, with a 4,000-strong force, which joined Amr's camp in June 640. Amr retained the supreme command of Arab forces in Egypt. In the following month, his army decisively defeated the Byzantines at the
Battle of Heliopolis. He captured
Memphis soon after and
besieged Babylon. During the siege, Amr entered truce negotiations with the
Alexandria-based Byzantine governor
Cyrus; Emperor Heraclius opposed the talks and recalled Cyrus to
Constantinople. Though strong resistance was put up by Babylon's defenders, their morale was sapped after news of Heraclius' death in February 641. Amr made an agreement with the Byzantine garrison, allowing their peaceful withdrawal toward the provincial capital Alexandria on 9 April 641. Amr then sent his lieutenants to conquer different parts of the country. One of them,
Kharija ibn Hudhafa, captured the
Fayyum oasis,
Oxyrhynchus (Bahnasa),
Hermopolis (el-Ashmunein) and
Akhmim, all in
Middle Egypt, and an unspecified number of villages in
Upper Egypt. (
pictured in 2008), but ultimately forced its Byzantine garrison to evacuate in April 641 after a
lengthy siege. In late 641, Amr
besieged Alexandria. It fell virtually without resistance after Cyrus, who had since been restored to office, and Amr finalized a treaty in Babylon guaranteeing the security of Egypt's inhabitants and imposing a
poll tax on adult males. The date of the city's surrender was likely November 642. Taking advantage of the uncertain political situation in the wake of Umar's death in 644 and the meager Arab military presence in Alexandria, Emperor
Constans II () dispatched a naval expedition led by a certain
Manuel which occupied the city and killed most of its Arab garrison in 645. Alexandria's elite and most of the inhabitants assisted the Byzantines; medieval Byzantine, Coptic and, to a lesser extent, Muslim sources indicate the city was not firmly in Arab hands during the preceding three years. Byzantine forces pushed deeper into the Nile Delta, but Amr forced them back at the
Battle of Nikiou. He besieged and captured Alexandria in the summer of 646; most of the Byzantines, including Manuel, were slain, many of its inhabitants were killed and the city was burned until Amr ordered an end to the onslaught. Afterward, Muslim rule in Alexandria was gradually solidified. In contrast to the disarray of the Byzantine defense, the Muslim forces under Amr's command were unified and organized; Amr frequently coordinated with Caliph
Umar and his own troops for all major military decisions. According to the historian Vassilios Christides, Amr "cautiously counterbalanced the superiority in numbers and equipment of the Byzantine army by applying skillful military tactics" and despite the lack of "definite, prepared, long-term plans, the Arab army moved with great flexibility as the occasion arose". In the absence of siege engines, Amr oversaw long sieges of heavily fortified Byzantine positions, most prominently
Babylon, cut supply lines and engaged in long wars of attrition. He made advantageous use out of the nomads in his ranks, who were seasoned in hit-and-run tactics, and his settled troops, who were generally more acquainted with siege warfare. His cavalry-dominated army moved through Egypt's deserts and oases with relative ease. Moreover, political circumstances became more favorable to Amr with the death of the hawkish Heraclius and his short-term replacement with the more pacifist
Heraklonas and
Martina.. si
Expeditions in Cyrenaica and Tripolitania After the surrender of Alexandria in 642, Amr marched his army westward, bypassing the fortified Byzantine coastal strongholds of
Paraetonium (Marsa Matruh),
Appolonia Sozusa (Marsa Soussa) and
Ptolemais (Tolmeita), capturing
Barca and reaching Torca in
Cyrenaica. Toward the end of the year, Amr launched a second cavalry assault targeting
Tripoli. The city was heavily fortified by the Byzantines and contained several naval vessels in its harbor. Due to his lack of siege engines, he employed the lengthy siege tactic used in the Egyptian conquest. After about a month, his troops entered Tripoli through a vulnerable point in its walls and sacked the city. Its fall, which entailed the evacuation by sea of the Byzantine garrison and most of the population, is dated to 642 or 643/44. Though the Arab hold over Cyrenaica and
Zawila to the far south remained firm for decades except for a short-lived Byzantine occupation in 690, Tripoli was recaptured by the Byzantines a few years after Amr's entry. The region was definitively conquered by the Arabs during the reign of Caliph
Abd al-Malik ().
Administration Amr "regulated the government of the country [Egypt], administration of justice and the imposition of taxes", according to the historian A. J. Wensinck. During his siege of Babylon, Amr had erected an encampment near the fortress. He originally intended for Alexandria to serve as the Arabs' capital in Egypt, but Umar rejected this on the basis that no body of water, i.e. the Nile, should separate the caliph from his army. Instead, following Alexandria's surrender, in 641 or 642, Amr made his encampment near Babylon the permanent
garrison town () of
Fustat, the first town founded by the Arabs in Egypt. Its location along the eastern bank of the Nile River and at the head of the Nile Delta and edge of the
Eastern Desert strategically positioned it to dominate the Upper and
Lower halves of Egypt. Fustat's proximity to Babylon, where Amr also established an Arab garrison, afforded the Arab settlers a convenient means to employ and oversee the
Coptic bureaucratic officials who inhabited Babylon and proved critical to running the day-to-day affairs of the Arab government. Amr had the original tents of Fustat replaced with mud brick and baked brick dwellings. Documents found in
Hermopolis (al-Ashmunayn) dating from the 640s confirm official orders to forward building materials to Babylon to construct the new city. The city was organized into allotments over an area stretching along the Nile and inland to the east. The allotments were distributed among the components of Amr's army, with priority given to the Quraysh, the Ansar and Amr's personal guard, the 'Ahl al-Rāya' (People of the Banner), which included several Bali tribesmen as a result of their kinship and marital ties to Amr. An opposing theory holds that Amr did not assign the plots; rather, the tribes staked their own claims and Amr established a commission to resolve the ensuing land disputes. At the center of the new capital Amr built a
congregational mosque, later known as the
Amr ibn al-As Mosque; the original structure was frequently redesigned and expanded between its foundation and its final form in 827. Amr had his own dwelling built immediately east of the mosque and it most likely served as his government headquarters. In the northwestern part of Alexandria, Amr built a hilltop congregational mosque, later called after him, before the Byzantine occupation of 645/46, after which he built a second called the Mosque of Mercy; neither mosque has been presently identified. Adjacent to the congregational mosque, Amr took personal ownership of a fort, which he later donated for government use. This part of the city became the administrative and social core of Arab settlement in Alexandria. Accounts vary as to the number of troops Amr garrisoned in the city, ranging from 1,000 soldiers from the
Azd and Banu Fahm tribes to a quarter of the army which was replaced on a rotational basis every six months. As per the 641 treaty with Cyrus, Amr imposed a poll tax of two
gold dinars on non-Muslim adult males. He imposed other measures, sanctioned by Umar, that entailed the inhabitants' regular provision of wheat, honey, oil and vinegar as a subsistence allowance for the Arab troops. He had these goods stored in a distribution warehouse called . After taking a census of the Muslims, he further ordered that each Muslim be annually supplied by the inhabitants a highly embroidered wool robe (Egyptian robes were prized by the Arabs), a
burnous, a turban, a
sirwal (trousers) and shoes. In a Greek papyrus dated to 8 January 643 and containing Amr's seal (a fighting bull), Amr (transliterated as "Ambros") requests fodder for his army's animals and bread for his soldiers from an Egyptian village. According to the historian
Martin Hinds, there is "no evidence" that Amr "did anything to streamline the cumbersome fiscal system taken over from the Byzantines; rather, the upheavals of conquest can only have made the system more open to abuse than ever". After entering Alexandria, Amr invited the
Coptic patriarch Benjamin to return to the city after his years of exile under Cyrus. The patriarch maintained close ties with Amr and restored the monasteries of
Wadi al-Natrun, including the
Saint Macarius Monastery, which functions until the present-day. According to the historian
Hugh N. Kennedy, "Benjamin played a major role in the survival of the Coptic Church through the transition to Arab rule".
Dismissal and aftermath Amr acted relatively independent as governor and retained much of the surplus tax revenue of the province for the benefit of its troops despite pressure from Umar to forward proceeds to Medina. He also amassed significant personal wealth in Egypt, part of which was confiscated by
Muhammad ibn Maslama on Umar's orders. At a certain point, the Caliph separated Upper Egypt from Amr's administration and appointed
Abd Allah ibn Sa'd over the region. Umar's successor Caliph
Uthman () initially kept Amr in his governorship and forged marital links with him by wedding to him his maternal half-sister
Umm Kulthum bint Uqba ibn Abi Mu'ayt. Uthman diluted Amr's power in 645/46 by transferring fiscal responsibilities to Ibn Abi Sarh, his own relative, leaving Amr in charge of military affairs. Amr and Ibn Sa'd lodged complaints to Uthman each alleging the other of incompetence, prompting Uthman to dismiss Amr entirely and replace him in his duties with Ibn Sa'd. Uthman's appointee established an effective fiscal system that largely preserved its Byzantine predecessor. Ibn Sa'd reduced the fiscal privileges of Egypt's original Arab military settlers, who had been shown favor by Amr, and secured the remittance of the surplus to Medina. This led to the consternation of the Arab garrisons and the native officials and elite, all of whom were "deprived of the opportunities for self-enrichment which they had hitherto enjoyed", according to Hinds. Open opposition to Ibn Sa'd and Uthman began under the leadership of the Qurayshite
Muhammad ibn Abi Hudhayfa in 654/55. ==Conflict with Uthman==