al-Ṣabāḥ, and he sent ʿAwf ibn Mālik to Alexandria; each of the two men said to the people of the city he faced, “If you come down and surrender, you are guaranteed safety.” They waited to see what the folk of ʿAyn Shams would do; when those people accepted terms, the rest followed suit.

ʿAwf ibn Mālik said to the Alexandrians, “How lovely your city is!” They answered, “When Alexander built it he declared, ‘I shall found a city needy of Allah yet independent of people,’ (so its beauty has endured).

Abraha, on the other hand, said to the people of al-Faramā, “How wretched (1) your city is!” They replied, “When Faramā—Alexander’s brother—built it he said, ‘I shall build a city rich without Allah, poor toward people.’ For that reason its structures have ever remained (2) in ruins, and it has been marred thereby.”

Sayf relates that when ʿAbd Allah ibn Saʿd ibn Abī Sarḥ later assumed the governorship of Egypt, he increased their land-tax by adding a specified number of slaves which they were to present to the Muslims every year, while the Muslims in return supplied them with an agreed amount of food and clothing. ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān approved this arrangement, and so did the rulers after him, until the time of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, who likewise ratified it (3) out of consideration for them and in fulfillment of their covenant.

I say: The districts (4) of Egypt were called al-Fusṭāṭ after the tent (fusṭāṭ) of ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ. He had pitched his tent on the site of present-day Miṣr, the people built around it, and Old Miṣr was abandoned from the time of ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ to this very day. The tent was later removed, and on its spot a mosque was erected—the mosque that still bears his name today.

After Egypt’s conquest, the Muslims campaigned against Nubia and suffered many wounds; numerous eyes were lost because of the accuracy of Nubian archers, so the force was nicknamed “the Battalion of Blinded Eyes.” Allah later granted its conquest; to Him belong praise and favor.

There is a difference of opinion regarding the territories of Egypt. Some maintain that they were taken by treaty except for Alexandria—this is the view of Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥabīb. Others, among them Ibn ʿUmar, say that the entire land was seized by force.

It is narrated that ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ once addressed the people, declaring, “I have not sat in this seat while any Copt still holds a covenant with me that, should I wish, I might accept, or should I wish, sell, or should I wish, take a fifth of—except for the people of Ṭāblus, for they possess a covenant that we shall faithfully honor (5).”

[The Story of Egypt’s Nile]

It is transmitted through Ibn Lahīʿa, from Qays ibn al-Ḥajjāj, from someone who told him: When Egypt was conquered, its people came to ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ—this was when the month of Buʾnah of the Persian calendar had begun—and said, “O governor, our Nile (6) has a custom: it does not flow unless…"