Arab conquest of Egypt
| Muslim conquest of Egypt | |||||||||
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| Part of the Muslim conquests and the Arab–Byzantine wars | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Byzantine Empire | Rashidun Caliphate | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Emperor Heraclius |
Caliph Umar |
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Emperor Heraclius
Theodorus
Aretion
Constans II
Caliph Umar
Amr ibn al-Aas
Zubair ibn al-Awam
Miqdad bin Al-Aswad
Ubaida bin As-Samit
At the commencement of the Muslim conquest of Egypt, Egypt was part of the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire, which had its capital at Constantinople. Egypt had been conquered just a decade before by the Persian Empire under Khosrau II (616–629 AD); however, Emperor Heraclius re-captured it after a series of campaigns against the Sassanid Persians, only to lose it to the Muslim Rashidun army ten years later. Before the Muslim conquest of Egypt had begun, the Byzantines had already lost the Levant and its Arab ally, the Ghassanid Kingdom, to the Muslims. All of this left the Byzantine Empire dangerously exposed and vulnerable.
In December 639, 'Amr ibn al-'As left for Egypt with a force of 4,000 troops. Most of the soldiers belonged to the Arab tribe of 'Ak, although Al-Kindi mentions that one-third of the soldiers belonged to the Arab tribe of Ghafik. The Arab soldiers were also joined by some Roman and Persian converts to Islam. However, 'Umar, the Muslim caliph, reconsidered his orders to Amr, thinking it foolhardy to expect to conquer such a large country as Egypt with a mere 4,000 soldiers. Accordingly, he wrote a letter to 'Amr commanding him to come back.
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Wikipedia