escape their misfortunes by flight; so he sent soldiers to watch the harbours and kill all who tried to escape. Then, goaded to despair, some of them rose in open rebellion. This was put down and a great number were killed.[1] A law was made that every monk should bear an iron fetter round his wrist, marked with his name and that of his monastery; whoever was found without this fetter had his hand cut off.[2] 'Usāmah ibn Zaid at-tanūḫi "upset the monasteries and caught a great number of monks without their mark. Of these some were beheaded; the others were scourged till they died. Hereupon churches were destroyed, crosses broken, and the idols, of which many were found, all smashed."[3] Hishām ibn 'Abdi-lMalik (Khalif, 724-743), who ruled over the united Moslem Empire at the time of its greatest extent, meant to be tolerant and sent orders to Egypt that Christians there were to be treated fairly, according to the law for ḏimmis. But the Amīr Ḥanẓalah ibn Ṣafwān, in spite of this, carried on a cruel persecution. He increased the poll-tax on Christians, made them all carry a mark stamped with the figure of a lion, and had the hand of everyone cut off who was found without it.[4] There was another rebellion followed by a massacre. A bishop, who was seized and commanded to pay a thousand pieces of gold, was hung up at the door of a church and scourged almost to death, till his friends collected three hundred pieces.[5] This was a favourite method of raising money, used by needy governors throughout this period. A perfectly inoffensive bishop or Patriarch was suddenly seized and some quite impossible amount of money demanded of him. He naturally protested that he had not a tenth part of what was asked. He was told that his friends must raise it. Meanwhile he was kept in prison, scourged and tortured till as much as the sight of his anguish could procure from his people was raised; and by this he was ransomed.
Under the Khalif Marwān II (744-750), a savage tyrant who particularly hated Christians, the persecution became still fiercer. A number of Coptic nuns were torn from their convents and handed over to the soldiers. Maḳrīzī tells a curious story of one of these nuns who by a trick saved her honour at the price of her
