Egypt

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521838238.015

13 - Egypt

from PART III - REGIONALISM

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2011

Michael Brett

Edited by

Chase F. Robinson

Show author details

Chase F. Robinson: Affiliation:
The Graduate Center, The City University of New York

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Muslims and Christians

In Egypt the Arab conquest initiated a cultural transformation that left unchanged the constants of the country’s history over the past three thousand years. The country itself was an anomaly, a vast oasis formed in the desert by the Valley and Delta of the Nile, a great tropical river bringing an immense amount of water to a rainless land. From the first cataract at Aswan to the sea, it made possible irrigated agriculture on a grand scale, a large agricultural population and a centralised state. To the north, the Delta or Lower Egypt looked to the Mediterranean and Near East; to the south, the Valley or Upper Egypt looked to Nubia, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The arc became a full circle with Islam, which added the western and central Sudan, and a systematic relationship with North Africa. Politically, the state had the resources to expand north-eastwards into Syria, westwards to (modern) Cyrenaica in Libya and southwards into Nubia, but the country was equally open to invasion and conquest, so that for the past fifteen hundred years it had alternated between the status of a province and a seat of empire ruled by immigrants. The history of the first four hundred years of Muslim rule is the history of its further progress from province to empire under the impulsion of fresh waves of conquest. The novel feature was the accompanying passage from Christianity, Coptic and Greek to Islam and Arabic.

Keywords

Arab conquest Arab supremacy Arabisation Syria Islamisation Tulunids patrimonial state Fatimid empire Ikhshidids Egyptian Arabs

Type: Chapter
Information: The New Cambridge History of Islam , pp. 541 - 580

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521838238.015 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ḥasan, Y. F., The Arabs and the Sudan, Edinburgh, 1967.

,(Abū Ṣāliḥ the Armenian), Churches and monasteries of Egypt, ed. and trans. Evetts, B. T. A., Oxford, 1895.

,(Severus ibn al-Muqaffaʿ), History of the patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria/the Egyptian Church, ed. and trans. Evetts, B. T. A., ʿAbd al-Masih, Y., Burmester, O. H. E. and Khater, A., 3 vols., Paris, 1901; Cairo, 1943–59, 1968–70.

al-Kindī, , Governors and judges of Egypt, ed. Guest, R., Leiden and London, 1912.

al-Maqrīzī, al-Muqaffā, ed. Yalaoui, M., Beirut, 1991.

al-Maqrīzī, Kitāb al-mawāʿiẓ wa ’l-iʿtibār fī dhikr al-khiṭaṭ wa ’l-āthār (al-Khiṭṭat¯), ed. Wiet, G. (4 vols. only), Cairo, 1911; full text, Būlāq, 1853–4; autograph, ed. Sayyid, A. F., London, 1995.

al-Maqrīzī, , Ittiʿāẓ al-ḥunafāʾ, ed. al-Shayyāl, J. D. and Aḥmad, M. H. M., 3 vols., Cairo, 1967–73.

al-Muqaddasī, , Aḥsan al-taqāsim fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm, Damascus, 1980.

Ashtor, E., ‘Migrations de l’Irak vers les pays méditerranéens’, in Ashtor, E., The medieval Near East: Social and economic history, Variorum Series, London, 1978, IV.Google Scholar

Bagnall, R. S. (ed.), Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300–700 (Cambridge, 2007).

Bianquis, T., ‘al-Hʾâkim bi amr Allâh ou la folie de l’unité chez un souverain fât’imide’, in Julien, C. A. et al. (eds.), Les Africains, vol. XI, Paris, 1978 –33.Google Scholar

Brett, M., ‘ʿAbbasids, Fatimids and Seljuqs’, in Luscombe, David and Riley-Smith, Jonathan (eds.), The new Cambridge medieval history, vol. IV, Cambridge, 2004 –720.Google Scholar

Brett, M., The rise of the Fatimids: The world of the Mediterranean and the Middle East in the fourth century of the hijra, tenth century CE, Leiden, 2001.

Brett, M., ‘The Arab conquest and the rise of Islam in North Africa’, in Fage, J. D. and Oliver, Roland (eds.), The Cambridge history of Africa, 8 vols., Cambridge, 1978, vol. II: From c. 500 BC to AD 1050, 490–555.Google Scholar

Brett, M., ‘The execution of al-Yāzūrī’, in Vermeulen, U. and Smet, D. (eds.), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras, vol. II, Leuven, 1998 –27.Google Scholar

Brett, M., ‘al-Karāza al-Marqusiya: The Coptic Church in the Fatimid empire’, in Vermeulen, U. and Steenbergen, J. (eds.), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk eras, vol. IV, Leuven, 2005 –60.Google Scholar

Brett, M., ‘The origins of the Mamluk military system in the Fatimid period’, in Vermeulen, U. and Smet, D. (eds.), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Periods, vol. I, Leuven, 1995 –52.Google Scholar

Brett, M., ‘Population and conversion to Islam in the mediaeval period’, in Vermeulen, U. and Steenbergen, J. (eds.), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk eras, vol. IV, Leuven, 2005 –32.Google Scholar

Brett, M., ‘The way of the peasant’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 47 (1984) –56.Google Scholar

Brunschvig, R., ‘Ibn ‘Abdalh’akam et la conquête de l’Afrique du Nord par les Arabes’, in Brunschvig, R., Études sur l’Islam classique et l’Afrique du Nord, ed. Turki, A.-M., Reprints, Variorum, London, 1986, XI.Google Scholar

Butler, A. J., The Arab conquest of Egypt and the last thirty years of the Roman dominion, 2nd edn, with critical bibliography by Fraser, P. M., Oxford, 1978.

Chaudhuri, K. N., Trade and civilisation in the Indian Ocean, Cambridge, 1985.

Cortese, D., and Calderini, S., Women and the Fatimids in the world of Islam, Edinburgh, 2006.

Crone, P., and Cook, M., Hagarism: The making of the Islamic world, Cambridge, 1977.

Daftary, F., The Ismāʿīlīs: Their history and doctrines, Cambridge, 1990.

Décobert, C., ‘Sur l’arabisation et l’islamisation de l’Egypte médiévale’, in Décobert, C. (ed.), Itinéraires de l’Egypte: Mélanges offerts au père Maurice Martin, SJ, Cairo, 1992 –300.Google Scholar

Dennett, D. C., Conversion and the poll-tax in early Islam, Cambridge, MA, 1950.

Forsyth, J., The Byzantine-Arab chronicle (938–1034) of Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Anṭākī, Ann Arbor, 1977.

Geertz, C., Islam observed: Religious development in Morocco and Indonesia, Chicago and London, 1968.

Gellens, S. I., ‘Egypt, Islamization of’, in Atiya, A. S. (gen. ed.), The Coptic encyclopedia, New York, 1991, vol. II –11.Google Scholar

Goitein, S. D., A Mediterranean society: The Jewish communities of the Arab world as portrayed in the documents of the Cairo Geniza, 5 vols., Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967–88, vol. I: The economic foundations.

Goodchild, R. G., ‘Byzantines, Berbers and Arabs in seventh-century Libya’, Antiquity, 51 (1967), 115–24; repr. in Goodchild, R. G., Libyan studies: Selected papers of the late Goodchild, R. G., ed. Reynolds, J. and Elek, Paul, London, 1976 –67.Google Scholar

Grohmann, A. (ed. and trans.), Arabic papyri in the Egyptian Library, 6 vols., Cairo, 1934–62.

Halm, H., The empire of the Mahdi, trans. Bonner, M., Leiden, 1996.

Halm, H., Die Kalifen von Kairo: Die Fatimiden in Ägypten 973–1074, Munich, 2003.

Hurst, H. E., The Nile, London, 1952.

ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Ibn, Kitāb futūḥ Miṣr wa ʾl-Maghrib, ed. Torrey, C. C., New Haven, 1922.

Ḥawqal, Ibn, Ṣūrat al-arḍ, ed. Kramers, J. H., 2 vols., Leiden, 1938–9; trans. Wiet, G. as Configuration de la terre, 2 vols., Beirut and Paris, 1964.

al-Ṣayrafī, Ibn, al-Ishāra ilā man nāla al-wizāra, ed. Mukhlis, A., Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale du Caire, 26 (1924).

Muyassar, Ibn, Choix de passages de la Chronique d’Egypte d’Ibn Muyassar, ed. Sayyid, A. F., Cairo, 1981.

Issawi, C., ‘The area and population of the Arab empire’, in Udovitch, A. (ed.), The Islamic Middle East, 700–1900, Princeton, 1981 –96.Google Scholar

Issawi, C., Egypt: An economic and social analysis, London, New York and Toronto, 1948.

,John of Nikiou, Chronique de Jean, Evêque de Nikiou, ed. and trans. Zotenberg, A., Paris, 1883; trans. Charles, R. M. as The chronicle of John, bishop of Nikiu, Oxford, 1916.

Johns, J., Arabic administration in Norman Sicily: The royal dīwān, Cambridge, 2002.

Kaegi, W. E., ‘Egypt on the eve of the Muslim conquest’, in Petry, C. F. (ed.), The Cambridge history of Egypt, vol. I: Islamic Egypt, 640–1517, Cambridge, 1998 –61.Google Scholar

Karabacek, J., Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer: Führer durch die Ausstellung, Vienna, 1892.

Kennedy, H., The Prophet and the age of the caliphates, London and New York, 1986.

Kennedy, H., ‘Egypt as a province of the Islamic caliphate, 641–868’, in Petry, C. F. (ed.), The Cambridge history of Egypt, vol. I: Islamic Egypt, 640–1517, Cambridge, 1998 –85.Google Scholar

Kubiak, W., al-Fustat: Its foundation and early urban development, Cairo, 1987.

Lane-Poole, S., A history of Egypt in the Middle Ages, 4th edn, London, 1925.

Lane-Poole, S., The story of Cairo, London, 1902.

Lapidus, I. M., ‘The conversion of Egypt to Islam’, Israel Oriental Studies, 2 (1972) –62.Google Scholar

Lev, Y., ‘The Fatimid navy, Byzantium and the Mediterranean sea, 909–1036 CE’, Byzantion, 54 (1984) –52.Google Scholar

Lev, Y. State and society in Fatimid Egypt, Leiden, 1991.

Lev, Y. ‘Tinnīs: An industrial medieval town’, in Barrucand, M. (ed.), L’Egypte fatimide: Son art et son histoire, Paris, 1999 –96.Google Scholar

Lombard, M., The golden age of Islam, Amsterdam, Oxford and New York, 1975.

Martin, M., ‘La province d’Ashmunayn’, Annales Islamologiques, 23 (1987) –29.Google Scholar

Michael, Brett, ‘The central lands of North Africa and Sicily until the beginning of the Almohad period’, in The new Cambridge history of Islam (Cambridge, 2010Google Scholar

Miquel, A., ‘L’Egypte vue par un géographe arabe du IVe/Xe siècle: al-Muqaddasī’, Annales Islamologiques, 11 (1972) –39.Google Scholar

Morimoto, K., The fiscal administration of Egypt in the early Islamic period, Kyoto, 1981.

Petry, C. F. (ed.), The Cambridge history of Egypt, vol. I: Islamic Egypt, 640–1517, Cambridge, 1998.

Rabie, H. H., ‘Technical aspects of agriculture in medieval Egypt’, in Udovitch, A. (ed.), The Islamic Middle East, 700–1900, Princeton, 1981 –80.Google Scholar

Raymond, A., Le Caire, Paris, 1993.

Baṭrīk [Eutychius], Saʿīd ibn, Eutychii Patriarchae Alexandrini Annales, ed. Cheikho, L., Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, Scriptores Arabici, 3rd series, vols. VI, VII, Beirut, Paris and Leipzig, 1906, 1909.

Sanders, P., Ritual, politics and the city in Fatimid Cairo, Albany, 1994.

Sanders, P., ‘The Fāṭimid state, 969–1171’, in Petry, C. F. (ed.), The Cambridge history of Egypt, vol. I: Islamic Egypt, 640–1517, Cambridge, 1998 –74.Google Scholar

Sato, T., ‘Irrigation in rural Egypt from the 12th to the 14th centuries’, Orient, 8 (1972) –92.Google Scholar

Sayyid, A. F., al-Dawla al-fāṭimiyya fī Miṣr/Les Fatimides en Egypte (in Arabic) (Cairo, 1992) –90

Shaban, M. A., Islamic history: A new interpretation, 2 vols., Cambridge, 1971–6; vol. I: AD 600–750 (AH 132), Cambridge, 1971.

Shinnie, P. L., ‘Christian Nubia’, in Fage, J. D. and Oliver, Roland (eds.), The Cambridge history of Africa, 8 vols., Cambridge, 1978, vol. II: From c. 500 BC to AD 1050 –88.

Sijpesteijn, P. M., and Sundelin, L. (eds.), Papyrology and the history of early Islamic Egypt, Leiden, 2004.

Turner, B. S., Weber and Islam, London, 1974.

Walters, C. C., Monastic archaeology in Egypt, Warminster, 1974.

Wilfong, T., ‘The non-Muslim communities: Christian communities’, in Petry, C. F. (ed.), The Cambridge history of Egypt, vol. I: Islamic Egypt, 640–1517, Cambridge, 1998 –97.Google Scholar

al-Anṭākī, Yaḥyā, Taʾrīkh, ed. Cheikho, L., Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, Scriptores Arabici, 3rd series, vol. VII, Beirut, Paris and Leipzig, 1909; and J. Forsyth, The Byzantine-Arab chronicle (938–1034) of Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Anṭākī, Ann Arbor, 1977.

Book contents

13 - Egypt

Summary

Keywords

Access options

References

Save book to Kindle

Save book to Dropbox

Save book to Google Drive