employed to restore order, garrison the towns and arrange the usual Moslem terms of submission for the native Christians. It is commonly said that the Copts, hating the Roman Government and the Melkites, helped the Arab conquerors. Their Patriarch Benjamin, then in exile, is said to have sent a message to his people urging them to submit peaceably to 'Amr. The Arab historians tell of a certain Christian, Al-Muķauķis, who betrayed the land to them.[1] This person justly incurs the scorn of all Christians, as the arch-traitor to his faith and fatherland. But there is some doubt as to who he may be. Muķauķis is clearly the transliteration of a Greek title.[2] He is often said to be no other than the Coptic Patriarch, Benjamin. Mr. A. J. Butler, on the other hand, defends a view exactly opposite to this. He maintains that the Copts were bitterly hostile to the Moslems, that Al-Muķauķis is the Melkite Patriarch, Cyrus.[3] Considering the extreme improbability of this (since the Melkites were just the Government party, the Copts always hostile to the empire), and that the Moslems at first favoured the Copts and persecuted the Melkites, his view is difficult to accept.[4]
'Amr made Fusțāț ("the Camp," where his army had lain during the siege of Babylon) his capital. Alexandria from now becomes a city of secondary importance. Egypt was ruled by a governor under the Khalif. When the Moslems became masters of the land they found it inhabited almost entirely by the Monophysite Copts, with a small handful of Melkites. Al-Maķrīzī, who now becomes a chief authority, says: "When the Moslems entered Egypt it was filled with Christians, who were divided into two separate parts by descent and religion. One part, the governing body, consisted only of Romans from the army of the
2 (
Greek characters), "glorious."
- ↑ See S. Lane-Poole: A History of Egypt in the Middle Ages (Methuen, 1901), pp. 6-7.
- ↑ 2
- ↑ The Arab Conquest of Egypt (Oxford, 1902), pp. 508-526.
- ↑ AlMakin (ib. 511): "Al-Muķauķis was Governor of Egypt in the name of Heraķl. He and the chiefs of the Copts met together and made peace with 'Amr, son of 'Āși, on the terms that they should pay tribute." J. Karabacek has written a monograph on this person, using newly found Egyptian documents (Der Mokaukis von Aegypten, in the Mittheilungen from Archduke Rainer's papyri, pt. 1). According to him George Megauches was a Copt, Imperial governor for taxes (Pagarch) in Lower Egypt.
