From Byzantine to Islamic Egypt

Religion, Identity and Politics after the Arab Conquest

Maged S. A. Mikhail

• Editorial: I.B. Tauris
• Año: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780857736826
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: History
• Categoría: Military & Maritime History

The conquest of Egypt by Islamic armies under the command of Amr ibn al-As in the seventh century transformed medieval Egyptian society. Seeking to uncover the broader cultural changes of the period by drawing on a wide array of literary and documentary sources, Maged Mikhail stresses the cultural and institutional developments that punctuated the histories of Christians and Muslims in the province under early Islamic rule. From Byzantine to Islamic Egypt traces how the largely agrarian Egyptian society responded to the influx of Arabic and Islam, the means by which the Coptic Church constructed its sectarian identity, the Islamisation of the administrative classes and how these factors converged to create a new medieval society. The result is a fascinating and essential study for scholars of Byzantine and early Islamic Egypt.

CHAPTER 1

CHARTING THE COURSE

The world has thirty wonders,
twenty of which are in Egypt

– Ibn Zūlāq, Faḍā'il miṣr

Suddenly in the mid-seventh century, Byzantine and Sasanid armies found themselves reeling from disastrous military defeats and extensive territorial losses to an enemy hardly known to them. In rapid succession, Damascus, Ctesiphon, and Jerusalem surrendered, and in late November 641 CE Arab armies would boast of yet another major acquisition—Egypt. The conquest of the province, somberly dubbed “the Egyptian disaster” by Theophanes, constituted an enduring achievement for the nascent caliphate and an exasperating loss for the Byzantine Empire. Relatively peaceful, economically prosperous, and intellectually vibrant, Egypt was an ancient land punctuated by enigmatic monuments that linked it to the history and prophets of the monotheistic faiths through history and lore. By ushering in a new political order, the Arab conquest facilitated an unparalleled cultural metamorphosis in Egypt in which the Abrahamic religions, various “ethnicities,” three distinct languages, and a host of classical, patristic, and Qur'ānic texts and ideas comingled. Incrementally, Egypt's Copto–Byzantine society transitioned into an Islamic one, often without contemporaries realizing the depth or ramifications of the developments they witnessed. As such, this study seeks to identify the aspects of hybridity, innovation, and continuity that characterize this transformative era, and to interpret their significance within the context of Egypt's history and that of the caliphate.

Scholars have traditionally identified 641 CE as a pivotal year demarcating the end of “Byzantine” and the beginning of “Islamic” Egypt. Nonetheless, while 641 may provide an accurate political marker, it proves inadequate, even misleading, when addressing almost every other aspect of historical inquiry, be it social, cultural, or intellectual. This has led to the rise of the more malleable designations of “late antique,” “Byzantine,” and “Early Islamic” Egypt.¹ Conceptually, the terms evoke very different cultural patterns: “late antique” and “Byzantine” suggest a Greco-Roman Christian society, while the third classification of “Early Islamic” demarcates an Arab Muslim one. Admittedly, the labels and chronological schemes employed are imperfect. Not only do they routinely overlap and are inconsistently applied by academics, but they are misleading. Much of what is deemed “late antique” persisted for centuries under Arab rule with little or no disguise, and throughout early “Islamic” Egypt Christians remained the best documented and the demographically dominant constituency. Flawed as they are, however, these designations facilitate a more nuanced discussion of cultural transformations. Ultimately, at the intersection of these conceptual frameworks and tentative nomenclature are old historical questions: which issues and accounts should one stress; when does nominal change translate into tangible evidence; and which catalysts brought about “significant” change?

The centuries under investigation, roughly the seventh through the tenth, have been surveyed by historians of the Late Roman Empire, the Mediterranean world, the early caliphate, Egypt, and the Coptic church,² though rarely have they served as the sole focus of study.³ In part, this stems from the fragmentation rampant among scholars focused on the region. Late Roman historians largely discuss the Arab conquests as an historical appendix; those studying early Islamic history have become somewhat cloistered due to unique historiographic concerns and are more concerned with developments east of Egypt, and scholarship on the Fāṭimids reflects but a passing interest in earlier developments and texts. These professional partitions only multiply as an individual scholar's disciplinary outlook, topical interests, and linguistic training are considered. The prevailing specialization hardly needs an apology,⁴ though it has undoubtedly limited substantive cross-pollination. Arabization provides a salient example. Overlooking historiographic and methodological concerns for the moment, the topic has attracted papyrologists, historians of the Middle East (focusing on Islamic narratives), and specialists in Coptic Arabic literary and liturgical manuscripts. Despite addressing the same phenomenon, however, the findings of each bevy of specialists are seldom meaningfully informed by those of their peers.⁵ Here, in an attempt to overcome such fissures, a deliberate attempt is made to situate old data in new and arguably more valid contexts, to traverse chronological and disciplinary boundaries, and to diversify the canon of studies and texts that inform the analysis of specific issues.

In striving toward these goals, however, several of the following discussions may first seem revisionist. Although unintentional, this proved unavoidable. The scholarship of the past century, while foundational to the present study, has sheltered and promulgated a pervasive nationalist reading that maintains the existence of an “authentic,” distinct, and unalterable Egyptian political and cultural consciousness that has defied “foreign” intrusions.⁶ This ideological perspective has infiltrated every aspect of historical inquiry; the historiography of the Arab conquest, that of Coptic literature, and the history of the Melkite community in Egypt have all been affected to one extent or another. Cognizant of the problem, contemporary scholars avoid such anachronistic concepts in their own research (with varying degrees of success), but they have implicitly accepted many of the nationalist-inspired suppositions and conclusions of earlier generations.⁷ This has led to the persistence of a master narrative that is frequently at odds with what may be soundly deduced from the historical record; the subsequent discussions of the Arab conquest, its immediate aftermath, and the perceptions of the Greek language in post-conquest Egypt demonstrate as much.⁸

Before addressing these issues, however, this chapter will provide something of a textual and methodological orientation focused on the most pressing interpretive issues and problematic texts. It concludes with a discussion of the habitually distorted beliefs of the anti-Chalcedonians of Egypt, and the questions pertaining to the origins of their hierarchy and the extent of their demographic hold.

Sources and their Limitations

Egypt yields a wealth of historical sources, possessing unique qualities as well as methodological limitations. These “limits of abundance” are the focus here.⁹ Narratives for the period surveyed demonstrate remarkable range and depth, though only a handful of writings, such as Ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥakam's Futūḥ miṣr and the History of the Patriarchs, have (with good reason) attracted the greater part of scholarly attention. Nonetheless, there exists a much deeper reservoir of literary accounts than has been traditionally utilized. Critical editions and studies by specialists in an assortment of fields ranging from hagiography and apocrypha to liturgical and Arab Christian studies add breadth as well as substance to the historical record, and are incorporated here whenever possible.

Normative histories and chronicles, whether written by Christians or Muslims, share two significant characteristics. First, they are largely the selective writings of the urban (secular and religious) elites of the Delta. Early Arab historians in Egypt, such as Ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥakam or al-Kindī, focused almost exclusively on the Muslim community.¹⁰ Similarly, Christian authors, though more forthcoming in this respect, were equally particular, discussing Muslim governors, edicts, and sectarian incidents only as far as they had a direct bearing on their community. Second, the literature enshrines communal perspectives penned by later generations, who constructed, imagined, and employed the past in light of later developments or, more intentionally, to serve contemporary socio-political needs. This has long been argued for the early Islamic tradition; here, a similar, though not as distinct a pattern, is demonstrated among Christian sources as well.

Early Arabic sources present the greatest interpretive obstacles since they are plagued by a ubiquitous historiographic problem. Tersely stated, with the exception of the Qur'ān, the entirety of that literature circulated orally for the duration of Umayyad rule and, where Egyptian writings are concerned, well into the ‘Abbāsid era.¹¹ Repeatedly, scholars have demonstrated that this corpus passed through various socio-political alignments, realignments, and ideologically inspired additions and omissions before it was ever written down.¹² This has led to highly polarized views as to the reliability of the early Islamic tradition,¹³ which often (though fortunately not always) indulges in literary topoi, presents contradictory details, and fixates on anachronistic issues.¹⁴ To compensate, the present study carefully weighs the sources in order to discern topoi as such, to read against the grain wherever possible, and to reinforce Islamic writings with Christian tracts and documentary papyri when feasible.

Among Christian writings, the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria [HP] continues to reverberate on nearly every front, providing a deep reservoir of information not only for the history of the Coptic church, but for everything from taxation to theology and politics. Still, scholars often misuse this text. Historians of the Middle East tend to cite the HP when it corroborates information gleaned elsewhere, but promptly label it erroneous or partisan when it contradicts Arab Muslim sources. Similarly, in the (admittedly few) studies of the Melkite community in Egypt, information gleaned from the writings of Patriarch Eutychios (d. 940 CE) is read prima facie as more accurate than a history compiled by Copts.¹⁵ In neither case, however, can readings from the HP be dismissed so blithely, especially since it preserves some of the earliest evidence for a host of individuals and events that transpired during the first three Islamic centuries.

The traditional attribution of the HP to Bishop Sawīrus ibn al-Muqaffa‘ (d. ca. 1000 CE) has proven erroneous in light of the crucial glosses on the composition of that work by Michael of Tinnīs (d. 1056 CE) and Mawhūb ibn Manṣūr (ca. 1025–1100 CE).¹⁶ Most decisive, however, has been Johannes den Heijer's pivotal study which proves that it was Mawhūb ibn Manṣūr who translated and redacted the History.¹⁷ Overlooking the initial entries which were added later,¹⁸ the first group of biographies—2, Anianos, to 24, Cyril I (d. 444 CE)—are heavily reliant upon the now fragmentary Histories of the Holy Church, which in its original form chronicled the patriarchates of Dioskoros I and Timothy II (d. 477 CE) as well. The Histories was composed during the last quarter of the fifth century, perhaps by a monk named Menas.¹⁹ Early in the eighth century, Archdeacon Jirja (George) drafted the biographies spanning the patriarchates of Dioskoros I to Simon I (d. 701 CE). As with his successors, Jirja was well integrated into the ecclesiastical hierarchy; he was the spiritual son of John III (677–86 CE) and served as a scribe for Simon I.²⁰

By the third-quarter of the eighth century, Deacon John (who later became a bishop) composed the third group of biographies, covering 705 to 768 CE—from Alexander II to Khaīl (Michael) I. The spiritual son of the famed Bishop Moses of Awsīm, Deacon John developed a close friendship with Khaīl I,²¹ and at one point even shared a prison cell with that patriarch. Another John, a monk, wrote the fourth quire of biographies in the late ninth century, those of Mīnā I to Shinūda I (d. 880 CE). This John, “the Writer,” functioned as a scribe to the last three patriarchs whose Lives he recorded, and likely relied on a lost bios written by a contemporary of Yusāb I (Joseph: 831–49 CE) for that patriarch's lengthy biography.²² In the early 1050s CE, maintaining that no one had added to the biographies since John the Writer,²³ Bishop Michael of Tinnīs composed the next installment of biographies, those of Khaīl II to Shinūda II (d. 1046 CE). Bishop Michael's entries are extremely rich in content, well researched, and candid—at times, even scathing. A few decades later, his young contemporary Mawhūb ibn Manṣūr began to translate and redact the extant Lives, and he then appended the first biographies composed in Arabic, those of Khrisṭūdulūs and Kyrillus II (d. 1092 CE). After Mawhūb's death, Yūḥannā ibn Ṣā‘īd al-Qulzūmī contributed the biography of Khaīl IV (d. 1102 CE).

Notably, while the biographies down to the late eleventh century were filtered through Mawhūb (an important fact), the HP enshrines many accounts of contemporaries and eyewitnesses,²⁴ and as Mark Swanson's recent study has amply demonstrated, each quire of biographies retains distinct thematic elements that betray its author's style and point of view.²⁵ Contributing to the HP's reliability is Mawhūb's sober understanding of his initial task as one of translation, not of “correction” or censorship. (If he had taken the opposite view, perhaps none of Michael of Tinnīs' critical biographies would have survived.) Certainly, this does not eliminate the perspectives of the original writers or Mawhūb's editorial hand, but it speaks to the integrity and competence of the primary redactor through whose eyes the modern historian reads the biographies.

Still, the HP requires a great deal of scrutiny. First, there are the textual variants between the two main recensions, which for convenience are identified here as the “primitive” (11th c., HP-P) and “vulgate” (13th c., HP-V).²⁶ The differences between the two versions are significant on occasion, but more often inconsequen...