Part 36

During the period that elapsed between the Moslem conquest and the end of the Omayyad dynasty the nature of the Arab occupation had changed from what had originally been intended, the establishment of garrisons, to systematic colonization. Conversions of Copts to Islam were at first rare, and the old system of taxation was maintained for the greater part of the first Islamic century. This was at the rate of a dinar per _feddan_, of which the proceeds were used in the first place for the pay of the troops and their families, with about half the amount in kind for the rations of the army. The process by which the first of these contributions was turned into coin is still obscure; it is clear that the corn when threshed was taken over by certain public officials who deducted the amount due to the state. In general the system is well illustrated by the papyri forming the Schott-Reinhardt collection at Heidelberg (edited by C.H. Becker, 1906), which contain a number of letters on the subject from Qurrah b. Sharik, governor from A.H. 90 to 96. The old division of the country into districts (_nomoi_) is maintained, and to the inhabitants of these districts demands are directly addressed by the governor of Egypt, while the head of the community, ordinarily a Copt, but in some cases a Moslem, is responsible for compliance with the demand. An official called "receiver" (_qabbal_) is chosen by the inhabitants of each district to take charge of the produce till it is delivered into the public magazines, and receives 5% for his trouble. Some further details are to be found in documents preserved by the archaeologist Maqrizi, from which it appears that the sum for which each district was responsible was distributed over the unit in such a way that artisans and tradesmen paid at a rate similar to that which was enforced on those employed in agriculture. It is not known at what time the practice of having the amount due settled by the community was altered into that according to which it was settled by the governor, or at what time the practice of deducting from the total certain expenses necessary for the maintenance of the community was abandoned. The researches of Wellhausen and Becker have made it clear that the difference which is marked in later Islam between a poll-tax (_jizyah_) and a land-tax (_kharaj_) did not at first exist: the papyri of the 1st century know only of the jizyah, which, however, is not a poll-tax but a land-tax (in the main). The development of the poll-tax imposed on members of tolerated cults seems to be due to various causes, chief of them the acquisition of land by Moslems, who were not at first allowed to possess any, the conversion of Coptic landowners to Islam, and the enforcement (towards the end of the 1st century of Islam) of the poll-tax on monks. The treasury could not afford to lose the land-tax, which it would naturally forfeit by the first two of the above occurrences, and we read of various expedients being tried to prevent this loss. Such were making the Christian community to which the proselyte had belonged pay as much as it had paid when his lands belonged to it, making proselytes pay as before their conversion, or compelling them to abandon their lands on conversion. Eventually the theory spread that all land paid land-tax, whereas members of tolerated sects paid a personal tax also; but during the evolution of this doctrine the relations between conquerors and conquered became more and more strained, and from the time when the control of the finance was separated from the administration of the country (A.D. 715) complaints of extortion became serious; under the predecessor of Qurrah, 'Abdallah b. 'Abd al-Malik, the country suffered from famine, and under this ruler it was unable to recover. Under the finance minister Obaidallah b. Habhab (720-734) the first government survey by Moslems was made, followed by a census; but before this time the higher administrative posts had been largely taken out of the hands of Copts and filled with Arabs. The resentment of the Copts finally expressed itself in a revolt, which broke out in the year 725, and was suppressed with difficulty. Two years after, in order that the Arab element in Egypt might be strengthened, a colony of North Arabians (Qaisites) was sent for and planted near Bilbeis, reaching the number of 3000 persons; this immigration also restored the balance between the two branches of the Arab race, as the first immigrants had belonged almost exclusively to the South Arabian stock. Meanwhile the employment of the Arabic language had been steadily gaining ground, and in 706 it was made the official language of the bureaux, though the occasional use of Greek for this purpose is attested by documents as late as the year 780. Other revolts of the Copts are recorded for the year 739 and 750, the last year of Omayyad domination. The outbreaks in all cases are attributed to increased taxation.

The Abbasid period was marked at its commencement by the erection of a new capital to the north of Fostat, bearing the name _'Askar_ or "camp." Apparently at this time the practice of farming the taxes began, which naturally led to even greater extortion than before; and a fresh rising of the Copts is recorded for the fourth year of Abbasid rule. Governors, as will be seen from the list, were frequently changed. The three officials of importance whose nomination is mentioned by the historians in addition to that of the governor were the commander of the bodyguard, the minister of finance and the judge. Towards the beginning of the 3rd Islamic century the practice of giving Egypt in fief to a governor was resumed by the caliph Mamun, who bestowed this privilege on 'Abdallah b. Tahir, who in 827 was sent to recover Alexandria, which for some ten years had been held by exiles from Spain. 'Abdallah b. Tahir decided to reside at Bagdad, sending a deputy to Egypt to govern for him; and this example was afterwards followed. In 828, when Mamun's brother Motasim was feudal lord, a violent insurrection broke out in the Hauf, occasioned, as usual, by excessive taxation; it was partly quelled in the next year by Motasim, who marched against the rebels with an army of 4000 Turks. The rebellion broke out repeatedly in the following years, and in 831 the Copts joined with the Arabs against the government; the state of affairs became so serious that the caliph Mamun himself visited Egypt, arriving at Fostat in February 832; his general Afshin fought a decisive battle with the rebels at Basharud in the Hauf region, at which the Copts were compelled to surrender; the males were massacred and the women and children sold as slaves.

Turkish governors appointed.

This event finally crushed the Coptic nation, which never again made head against the Moslems. In the following year the caliph Motasim, who surrounded himself with a foreign bodyguard, withdrew the stipends of the Arab soldiers in Egypt; this measure caused some of the Arab tribes who had been long settled in Egypt to revolt, but their resistance was crushed, and the domination of the Arab element in the country from this time gave way to that of foreign mercenaries, who, belonging to one nation or another, held it for most of its subsequent history. Egypt was given in fief to a Turkish general Ashnas (Ashinas), who never visited the country, and the rule of individuals of Turkish origin prevailed till the rise of the Fatimites, who for a time interrupted it. The presence of Turks in Egypt is attested by documents as early as 808. While the governor was appointed by the feudal lord, the finance minister continued to be appointed by the caliph. On the death of Ashnas in 844 Egypt was given in fief to another Turkish general Itakh, but in 850 this person fell out of favour, and the fief was transferred to Montasir, son of the caliph Motawakkil. In 856 it was transferred from him to the vizier Fath b. Khaqan, who for the first time appointed a Turkish governor. The chief places in the state were also filled with Turks. The period between the rise of the Abbasids and the quasi-independent dynasties of Egypt was marked by much religious persecution, occasioned by the fanaticism of some of the caliphs, the victims being generally Moslem sectarians. (For Egypt under Motawakkil see CALIPHATE, § c. par. 10.)

The policy of these caliphs also led to severe measures being taken against any members of the Alid family or adherents of their cause who were to be found in Egypt.

Tulunid Dynasty.

In the year 868 Egypt was given in fief to a Turkish general Bayikbeg, who sent thither as his representative his stepson Ahmad b. Tulun, the first founder of a quasi-independent dynasty. This personage was himself the son of a Turk who, originally sent as a slave to Bagdad, had risen to high rank in the service of the caliphs. Ahmad b. Tulun spent some of his early life in Tarsus, and on his return distinguished himself by rescuing his caravan, which conveyed treasure belonging to the caliph, from brigands who attacked it; he afterwards accompanied the caliph Mosta'in into exile, and displayed some honourable qualities in his treatment of the fallen sovereign. He found a rival in Egypt in the person of Ibn al-Modabbir, the finance minister, who occupied an independent position, and who started the practice of surrounding himself with an army of his own slaves or freedmen; of these Ibn Tulun succeeded in depriving the finance minister, and they formed the nucleus of an army by which he eventually secured his own independence. Insurrections by adherents of the Alids gave him the opportunity to display his military skill; and when in 870 his stepfather died, by a stroke of luck the fief was given to his father-in-law, who retained Ahmad in the lieutenancy, and indeed extended his authority to Alexandria, which had till that time been outside it. The enterprise of a usurper in Syria in the year 872 caused the caliph to require the presence of Ahmad in that country at the head of an army to quell it; and although this army was not actually employed for the purpose, it was not disbanded by Ahmad, who on his return founded a fresh city called Kata'i', "the fiefs," S.E. of modern Cairo, to house it. On the death of Ahmad's father-in-law in the same year, when Egypt was given in fief to the caliph's brother Mowaffaq (famous for his defeat of the Zanj), Ahmad secured himself in his post by extensive bribery at headquarters; and in the following year the administration of the Syrian frontier was conferred on him as well. By 875 he found himself strong enough to refuse to send tribute to Bagdad, preferring to spend the revenues of Egypt on the maintenance of his army and the erection of great buildings, such as his famous mosque; and though Mowaffaq advanced against him with an army, the project of reducing Ahmad to submission had to be abandoned for want of means. In 877 and 878 Ahmad advanced into Syria and obtained the submission of the chief cities, and at Tarsus entered into friendly relations with the representatives of the Byzantine emperor. During his absence his son 'Abbas revolted in Egypt; on the news of his father's return he fled to Barca, whence he endeavoured to conquer the Aghlabite dominions in the Maghrib; he was, however, defeated by the Aghlabite ruler, and returned to Barca, where he was again defeated by his father's forces and taken prisoner.

In 882 relations between Ahmad and Mowaffaq again became strained, and the former conceived the bold plan of getting the caliph Mo'tamid into his power, which, however, was frustrated by Mowaffaq's vigilance; but an open rupture was the result, as Mowaffaq formally deprived Ahmad of his lieutenancy, while Ahmad equally formally declared that Mowaffaq had forfeited the succession. A revolt that broke out at Tarsus caused Ahmad to traverse Syria once more in 883, but illness compelled him to return, and on the 10th of May 884 he died at his residence in Kata'i'. He was the first to establish the claim of Egypt to govern Syria, and from his time Egypt grew more and more independent of the Eastern caliphate. He appears to have invented the fiction which afterwards was repeatedly employed, by which the money spent on mosque-building was supposed to have been furnished by discoveries of buried treasure.

He was succeeded by his son Khomaruya, then twenty years of age, who immediately after his accession had to deal with an attempt on the part of the caliph to recover Syria; this attempt failed chiefly through dissensions between the caliph's officers, but partly through the ability of Khomaruya's general, who succeeded in winning a battle after his master had run away from the field. By 886 Mowaffaq found it expedient to grant Khomaruya the possession of Egypt, Syria, and the frontier towns for a period of thirty years, and ere long, owing to the disputes of the provincial governors, Khomaruya found it possible to extend his domain to the Euphrates and even the Tigris. On the death of Mowaffaq in 891 the Egyptian governor was able to renew peaceful relations with the caliphs, and receive fresh confirmation in his possessions for thirty years. The security which he thereby gained gave him the opportunity to indulge his taste for costly buildings, parks and other luxuries, of which the chroniclers give accounts bordering on the fabulous. After the marriage of his daughter to the caliph, which was celebrated at enormous expense, an arrangement was made giving the Tulunid sovereign the viceroyalty of a region extending from Barca on the west to Hit on the east; but tribute, ordinarily to the amount of 300,000 dinars, was to be sent to the metropolis. His realm enjoyed peace till his death in 896, when he fell a victim to some palace intrigue at Damascus.

His son and successor Abu'l-'Asakir Jaish was fourteen years old at his accession, and being without adequate guidance soon revealed his incompetence, which led to his being murdered after a reign of six months by his troops, who gave his place to his brother Harun, who was of about the same age. In the eight years of his government the Tulunid empire contracted, owing to the revolts of the deputies which Harun was unable to quell, though in 898 he endeavoured to secure a new lease of the sovereignty in Egypt and Syria by a fresh arrangement with the caliph, involving an increase of tribute. The following years witnessed serious troubles in Syria caused by the Carmathians, which called for the intervention of the caliph, who at last succeeded in defeating these fanatics; the officer Mahommed b. Solaiman, to whom the victory was due, was then commissioned by the caliph to reconquer Egypt from the Tulunids, and after securing the allegiance of the Syrian prefects he invaded Egypt by sea and land at once. Before the arrival of these troops Harun had met his death at the hands of an assassin, or else in an affray, and his uncle Shaiban, who was placed on the throne, found himself without the means to collect an army fit to grapple with the invaders. Fostat was taken by Mahommed b. Solaiman after very slight resistance, at the beginning of 905, and after the infliction of severe punishment on the inhabitants Egypt was once more put under a deputy, 'Isa al-Naushari, appointed directly by the caliph.

The old régime was not restored without an attempt made by an adherent of the Tulunids to reconquer Egypt ostensibly for their benefit, and for a time the caliph's viceroy had to quit the capital. The vigorous measures of the authorities at Bagdad speedily quelled this rebellion, and the Tulunid palace at Kata'i' was then destroyed in order that there might be nothing to remind the Egyptians of the dynasty. In the middle of the year 914 Egypt was invaded for the first time by a Fatimite force sent by the caliph al-Mahdi 'Obaidallah, now established at Kairawan. The Mahdi's son succeeded in taking Alexandria, and advancing as far as the Fayum; but once more the Abbasid caliph sent a powerful army to assist his viceroy, and the invaders were driven out of the country and pursued as far as Barca; the Fatimite caliph, however, continued to maintain active propaganda in Egypt. In 919 Alexandria was again seized by the Mahdi's son, afterwards the caliph al-Qa'im, and while his forces advanced northward as far as Ushmunain (Eshmunain) he was reinforced by a fleet which arrived at Alexandria. This fleet was destroyed by a far smaller one sent by the Bagdad caliph to Rosetta; but Egypt was not freed from the invaders till the year 921, when reinforcements had been repeatedly sent from Bagdad to deal with them. The extortions necessitated by these wars for the maintenance of armies and the incompetence of the viceroys brought Egypt at this time into a miserable condition; and the numerous political crises at Bagdad prevented for a time any serious measures being taken to improve it. After a struggle between various pretenders to the viceroyalty, in which some pitched battles were fought, Mahommed b. Tughj, son of a Tulunid prefect of Damascus, was sent by the caliph to restore order; he had to force his entrance into the country by an engagement with one of the pretenders, Ibn Kaighlagh, in which he was victorious, and entered Fostat in August 935.

Ikshidite Dynasty.

Mahommed b. Tughj was the founder of the Ikshidi dynasty, so called from the title Ikshid, conferred on him at his request by the caliph shortly after his appointment to the governorship of Egypt; it is said to have had the sense of "king" in Ferghana, whence this person's ancestors had come to enter the service of the caliph Motasim. He had himself served under the governor of Egypt, Takin, whose son he displaced, in various capacities, and had afterwards held various governorships in Syria. One of the historians represents his appointment to Egypt as effected by bribery and even forgery. He united in his person the offices of governor and minister of finance, which had been separate since the time of the Tulunids. He endeavoured to replenish the treasury not only by extreme economy, but by inflicting fines on a vast scale on persons who had held offices under his predecessor and others who had rendered themselves suspect. The disaffected in Egypt kept up communications with the Fatimites, against whom the Ikshid collected a vast army, which, however, had first to be employed in resisting an invasion of Egypt threatened by Ibn Raiq, an adventurer who had seized Syria; after an indecisive engagement at Lajun the Ikshid decided to make peace with Ibn Raiq, undertaking to pay him tribute. The favour afterwards shown to Ibn Raiq at Bagdad nearly threw the Ikshid into the arms of the Fatimite caliph, with whom he carried on a friendly correspondence, one letter of which is preserved. He is even said to have given orders to substitute the name of the Fatimite caliph for that of the Abbasid in public prayer, but to have been warned of the unwisdom of this course. In 941, after the death of Ibn Raiq, the Ikshid took the opportunity of invading Syria, which the caliph permitted him to hold with the addition of the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, which the Tulunids had aspired to possess. He is said at this time to have started (in imitation of Ahmad Ibn Tulun) a variety of vexatious enactments similar to those afterwards associated with the name of Hakim, e.g. compelling his soldiers to dye their hair, and adding to their pay for the purpose.

In the year 944 he was summoned to Mesopotamia to assist the caliph, who had been driven from Bagdad by Tuzun and was in the power of the Hamdanids; and he proposed, though unsuccessfully, to take the caliph with him to Egypt. At this time he obtained hereditary rights for his family in the government of that country and Syria. The Hamdanid Saif addaula shortly after this assumed the governorship of Aleppo, and became involved in a struggle with the Ikshid, whose general, Kafur, he defeated in an engagement between Homs and Hamah (Hamath). In a later battle he was himself defeated by the Ikshid, when an arrangement was made permitting Saif addaula to retain most of Syria, while a prefect appointed by the Ikshid was to remain in Damascus. The Buyid ruler, who was now supreme at Bagdad, permitted the Ikshid to remain in possession of his viceroyalty, but shortly after receiving this confirmation he died at Damascus in 946.

The second of this dynasty was the Ikshid's son Unjur, who had been proclaimed in his father's time, and began his government under the tutelage of the negro Kafur. Syria was immediately overrun by Saif addaula, but he was defeated by Kafur in two engagements, and was compelled to recognize the overlordship of the Egyptian viceroy. At the death of Unjur in 961 his brother Abu'l-Hasan 'Ali was made viceroy with the caliph's consent by Kafur, who continued to govern for his chief as before. The land was during this period threatened at once by the Fatimites from the west; the Nubians from the south, and the Carmathians from the east; when the second Ikshidi died in 965, Kafur at first made a pretence of appointing his young son Ahmad as his successor, but deemed it safer to assume the viceroyalty himself, setting an example which in Mameluke times was often followed. He occupied the post little more than three years, and on his death in 968 the aforementioned Ahmad, called Abu'l-Fawaris, was appointed successor, under the tutelage of a vizier named Ibn Furat, who had long served under the Ikshidis. The accession of this prince was followed by an incursion of the Carmathians into Syria, before whom the Ikshidi governor fled into Egypt, where he had for a time to undertake the management of affairs, and arrested Ibn Furat, who had proved himself incompetent.

The administration of Ibn Furat was fatal to the Ikshidis and momentous for Egypt, since a Jewish convert, Jacob, son of Killis, who had been in the Ikshid's service, and was ill-treated by Ibn Furat, fled to the Fatimite sovereign, and persuaded him that the time for invading Egypt with a prospect of success had arrived, since there was no one in Fostat capable of organizing a plan of defence, and the dissensions between the Buyids at Bagdad rendered it improbable that any succour would arrive from that quarter. The Fatimite caliph Mo'izz li-din allah was also in correspondence with other residents in Egypt, where the Alid party from the beginning of Abbasid times had always had many supporters; and the danger from the Carmathians rendered the presence of a strong government necessary. The Fatimite general Jauhar (variously represented as of Greek, Slav and Sicilian origin), who enjoyed the complete confidence of the Fatimite sovereign, was placed at the head of an army of 100,000 men--if Oriental numbers are to be trusted--and started from Rakkada at the beginning of March 969 with the view of seizing Egypt.