Egypt History

Egypt has the oldest continuously existing civilization in the world. Most scholars believe that the Egyptian kingdom was first unified in about 3100 BC. Egypt maintained its independence and unity for many centuries thereafter. It suffered disunity now and then and experienced brief periods of foreign domination—by the Semitic Hyksos in the 17th and 16th centuries BC, the Assyrians in the 7th century BC, and the Persians in the 6th and 5th centuries BC—before the arrival of Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great in 332 BC. Alexander made Egypt a part of his vast empire.

Alexander's empire broke up after his death in 323 BC. One of his generals, Ptolemy, became ruler of Egypt, and in 305 BC he assumed the title of king. Ptolemy founded the Ptolemaic dynasty. Under these rulers, Egypt became a center of the Hellenistic world—that is, the vast region, encompassing the eastern Mediterranean basin and the Middle East, in which Greek culture and learning were preeminent from Alexander's conquest until the 1st century BC. Although the Ptolemies preserved many native traditions, they remained unpopular because they kept Egyptians from important governmental posts. The Romans conquered Egypt in 30 BC, ruling it as a province of their empire for the next several centuries. One of the first countries to be exposed to Christianity, Egypt became predominantly Christian by the end of the 3rd century AD.

In 395, when the Roman Empire was divided, Egypt was included in the Eastern Roman Empire, later called the Byzantine Empire. By the 5th century a bitter religious dispute over the nature of Christ, involving a doctrine known as Monophysitism, had developed in the Eastern church. This dispute pitted the Coptic Church, Egypt's indigenous Christian body, and other Middle Eastern Christians against the Byzantine rulers. The conflict weakened Byzantine rule in Egypt and helped open the way to the conquest of Egypt by an Arab army in 641. Many Egyptians welcomed the Arab conquerors as liberators from foreign taxation and religious persecution.

For a detailed history of Egypt up to the Roman conquest in 30 BC, see Ancient Egypt.

A. Egypt Under the Caliphate

The Arab conquerors brought Islam to Egypt. The country became part of the vast Islamic realm known as the caliphate. The conquerors established their military and administrative headquarters, which they named Al Fustat, in what had been a Roman fortress called Babylon. Al Fustat was situated on the east bank of the Nile south of the delta. Most Egyptians did not at first feel the effects of Arab rule. The predominantly rural population continued to farm the land, practicing Coptic Christianity and speaking the Coptic version of the ancient Egyptian language.

Over the course of many centuries, the majority of the Egyptians gradually embraced Islam and adopted the Arabic language. These changes were due in part to the immigration of some Arab tribes and intermarriage between Egyptians and Arabs. Some Egyptians converted to Islam out of genuine religious conviction, but others did so to secure political or social advancement.

The first great dynasty of caliphs (leaders of the Islamic realm), the Umayyads, ruled Egypt as a province between 661 and 750. They were based in Damascus (in present-day Syria). Their successors, the Abbasids, ruled from their new capital, Baghdad (in present-day Iraq). The Abbasids controlled Egypt from 750 to 868. They imposed heavy taxes on non-Muslims, causing peasant uprisings. The unity of the Islamic world began to erode in the mid-9th century, and Egypt fell under a succession of autonomous foreign dynasties. Two of these dynasties, the Tulunids (868-905) and the Ikhshidids (934-969), improved agricultural techniques, curbed taxes, and reformed governmental administration.

The next rulers, the Fatimids (969-1171), had established an independent rival caliphate in North Africa in the early 10th century. The Fatimid rulers, originally from Tunisia, claimed the caliphate for themselves on the basis of descent from Fatima, daughter of the prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam. They practiced Shia Islam, a minority sect in the faith, in opposition to the Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad, who were majority Sunni Muslims.

Despite the dispute over the caliphate, the first century of Fatimid rule over Egypt was marked by religious toleration, economic prosperity, and relative political freedom. It was probably during Fatimid rule that the majority of the Egyptians became Muslims, although they embraced Sunni rather than Shia Islam. The Fatimids extended Al Fustat northward, creating a major commercial and political metropolis that they renamed al-Qahira, or Cairo. Untroubled by foreign invaders or conquerors, Cairo soon surpassed other Islamic cities such as Baghdad and Damascus in wealth and population.

During the First Crusade (1096-1099), a military campaign by Western European Christians to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslims (see Crusades), Egypt faced a possible invasion. Although the Crusaders captured Jerusalem from a small Fatimid garrison in 1099, they did not invade Egypt. The Fatimids formed diplomatic and commercial ties with the newly established Crusader state known as the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, with other Crusader states along the Mediterranean coast of the Middle East, and with the various kingdoms and principalities of Christian Europe. Fatimid power declined in the 12th century, and in 1171 Kurdish military adventurer Saladin overthrew the dynasty.

Saladin restored the official status of Sunni Islam and the formal authority of the Abbasid caliphate in Egypt. Soon afterward, he united Egypt with Syria. In 1187 he led the Islamic reconquest of Jerusalem. Saladin's descendants, the Ayyubids, ruled Egypt, as well as parts of Syria and Yemen, until 1250. Ayyubid relations with the Crusader states varied; some rulers encouraged European Christians to settle in Palestine and even leased Jerusalem to the Crusaders for a short time. However, Egypt's Nile Delta suffered Crusader attacks from 1218 to 1221 and from 1249 to 1250. The latter invasion, during the Third Crusade, led to the overthrow of the Ayyubid dynasty by the Mamluks (also spelled Mamelukes), who regarded the Ayyubid rulers as weak and corrupt. The Mamluks were slaves from Central Asia and Caucasia whom the Ayyubids used as soldiers.

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Contributed By:

• Arthur Goldschmidt, M.A., Ph.D. Professor of Middle East History, Pennsylvania State University. Author of A Concise History of the Middle East and other books.
• Douglas L. Johnson, B.A., M.A., Ph.D. Professor of Geography, Clark University. Coauthor of Land Degradation: Creation and Destruction and other books.
• Joel Beinin, A.B., A.M., A.M.L.S., Ph.D. Professor of Middle East History, Stanford University. Author of The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry, Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam, and the Egyptian Working Class, 1882-1954, and other books.
• Roger Owen, B.A., M.A., Ph.D. A. J. Meyer Professor of Middle East History, Harvard University. Author of State, Power, and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East and other books.

a part from: "Egypt," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001 http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2000 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved., for the complete article, please visit Encarta!