I'm reading a book about the crusades and it's very interesting so far. I have never really learned about the 7th century before, so all of this is new to me.
One section that stuck out was the fall of Egypt to the caliphate. The pretext is that the muslim armies have entered Egypt and are locked outside the walls of Alexandria. Their goal is to draw the Byzantines into battle outside the defenses of the city, but it's not working - so they attempt a siege.
Here is the passage from the book (highlighting is from me):
What followed ought to have been a hopeless siege, since Alexandria was a port and the Byzantine navy, which then had complete control of the seas, could easily supply and reinforce the city for as long as necessary. Being the second largest city in the whole Christian world, Alexandria “was surrounded by massive walls and towers, against which such missiles as the Arabs possessed were utterly ineffectual…Such a city could have held out for years.” But, for reasons that will never be known, in 641, a month after he had arrived by sea to become the new governor of Egypt, Cyrus went out to meet the Muslim commander and surrendered Alexandria and all of Egypt.
This made me very curious and I tried to google why this event happened, but to no avail. Does anyone have any expertise here on theories for why Cyrus did it? Or maybe if you know of a good youtube or article about this event?
Unfortunately we have very limited information on this event. There are a few accounts of the conquest of Egypt, but the only contemporary one is that of John of Nikiu, which survives through an Ethiopic copy of a lost Arabic abbreviation of the original manuscript. Nikephoros and Theophanes discuss the events, but through sources gathered in Syria or Eastern Roman heartland rather than Egypt. ibn 'Abd al-Hakam and al-Tabari provide Arabic-language accounts which are late but useful to compare with the Greek ones. However, it's possible to make a tentative reconstruction of how things went down.
The political situation in Egypt just before the Arab armies arrived was fraught. The Sassanids briefly occupied the province in 629, interrupting the grain shipments upon which Constantinople's bread dole depended. There were splits along various faultlines, especially religious; Emperor Heraclius had tried to institute a new christological doctrine known as Monoenergism (Christ is of two natures, but one will) to heal the wounds that had formed in the church, but most of Egypt followed the non-Chalcedonian doctrine of Miaphysitism (in which Christ is fully divine and fully human in one person and one nature). The two leading churchmen in Egypt in the 630s were Cyrus, the Monoenergist Patriarch of Alexandria, and Benjamin, the Coptic Patriarch of the same city (now venerated as St Benjamin I). Their relationship was very poor. Part of this may have been because Cyrus had been quite successful in his programme to unite Egypt under Monoenergism, already having reintegrated the Severan church in 633.
By 636, Syria and Palestine had already fallen, cutting off Egypt from any relief by land. The leadership equivocated regarding how to respond. Cyrus' brother (or son?)-in-law Domentianus wanted to reach an agreement with the Muslims, and the regent Martina seems to have taken a moderate stance, but Valentinos and John Barka wanted to resist. It seems, based on the testimony of Agapius and Severus, that Patriarch Cyrus chose to act by securing a truce with the caliph and sending tribute (possibly 200,000 solidi anually) from 636-639. To pay for this tribute, he instituted new commercial taxes. After three years of tribute payments, Cyrus was deposed and replaced by Manuelos. The tribute payments may have been more than the treasury could bear. When the Muslim emissaries arrived to receive the Egyptian tribute, Manuelos refused. Therefore, Caliph 'Umar sent an army to invade the province, led by one 'Amr bin al-As.
'Amr bin al-As, a very talented general, was already familiar with Egypt, having previously travelled there as a merchant. He had also led the expedition to conquer Gaza. The Arabic sources indicate that after he had been tasked with conquering Egypt, Caliph 'Umar changed his mind about the expedition, but he did so too late. Perhaps he was worried about how much power the general who captured Egypt would be able to wield. 'Amr's army was small and needed to seize equipment and animals from the countryside and captured fortresses to meet its logistical needs. Its progress was not fast, but it was methodical, and after a seven-month siege they captured the stronghold of Babylon (in Old Cairo), giving them effective control of the Delta.
Nikephoros' source on the conquest of Egypt, the 'History to 641', claims that Heraclonas (Heraclius' joint successor along with Constantine III) reinstated Cyrus as patriarch of Alexandria in 641. Whoever sent him, he arrived a few weeks after the accession of Constans II. In light of the severe threat posed to Anatolia and the ERE's heartlands, the court empowered Cyrus to surrender the province, at least for now. 'Amr came back to Alexandria in September with his army; Cyrus managed to convince the citizenry to raise the sum needed to pay the tribute and successfully requested permission for all the refugees living in Alexandria to return to their homes, which was granted. Then, in November, Cyrus signed a treaty on behalf of the Eastern Roman Empire promising all their troops would leave Egypt in the next eleven months, surrendering it to the Muslims. Four years later, Manuelos arrived in Alexandria with with an army and tried to retake Egypt, but they were unsuccessful.
So why did Cyrus surrender Egypt? Probably because 'Amr was already in effective control of the province and the old truce-tribute relationship was no longer tenable any more. The Empire had pressing security concerns closer to the capital and it would be several years before it would be able to send a force to try and reassert control.
Sources:
Booth, P. (2016). The last years of Cyrus, Patriarch of Alexandria (d. 642). Travaux et Mémoires, 20.
Kaegi, W. E., (1999). 'Egypt on the eve of the Muslim conquest'. In: The Cambridge History of Egypt, Vol. 1: Islamic Egypt, 640-1517, Carl F. Petry (Ed.). 34-61.
Sijpesteijn, P. M., (2007). 'The Arab Conquest of Egypt and the beginning of Muslim rule'. In: Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300-700, Robert S. Bagnall (Ed.). 437-459.