ABSTRACT
Melkites, or "Royalists," and chose their own patriarch; they were afterwards called Copts,
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Egypt for ten years; they were expelled by Heraclius A.D. 629.
expedition against Egypt with about 4,000 men, but the Khalifa Omar sent him reinforcements, and by the time the famous general arrived at 'Arish his army numbered 16,000 men. Having vanquished the garrison at Pelusium, he marched along the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, and passed by way of Bubastis to Heliopolis. A truce of four days was obtained for George. the Ma~aw~as, the governor of Upper Egypt, by the Coptic Patriarch Benjamin, and it seems that the Egyptian official, who was a Jacobite Copt, and a hater of the ruling class in Egypt, greatly aided the Arab general. The Arabs moved on towards Memphis, and soon after, under Zuber, 'Anu's colleague, made a general assault upon the fortress of Babylon, scaled the walls, and so became masters of the capital of Upper Egypt. George, the
Ma~aw~as, arranged the details of the capitulation, and a capitation tax of two dinars for every male adult, besides other payments. 'Ann then marched on Alexandria, and as the Greeks took to their
ships and fled, George, the Ma~aw~as, who had gone to Alexandria after the fall of Babylon, offered to capitulate on the same terms as he had made for that city. 'Amr returned to Memphis, and made the head-quarters of the army at Fostat, near which the Illodern town of Cairo has grown up. 'Amr refused to possess himself of any land, and he was not even given a site whereon to build a house. One of his most useful works was. to reopen the old canal which ran from Belbes through the Wadi Tftmilat to the Bitter Lakes, and thence to the Red Sea; by this means it was possible to convey corn which had been loaded into ships at Memphis from that city into Yenbo, the port of Medina in Arabia, without transhipment. This canal was in use for about eighty years, when it became silted up. After the second siege of Alexandria (A.D. 646) the Arabs made Fostat the capital of Egypt.
