Political Identity versus Religious Distinction? The Case of Egypt in the Later Roman Empire (original) (raw)
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The paper explores the complex interplay between political identity and religious distinction in Egypt during the Later Roman Empire, particularly in the context of the Arab conquest. It discusses the socio-political dynamics that contributed to the rapid conquest of Egypt, emphasizing sectarian strife and internal conflicts among the Byzantine leaders and local religious authorities. The study analyzes historical accounts and suggests that these factors, alongside military disadvantages, played pivotal roles in the loss of Egypt to the Arabs.
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Published in: Walter Pohl, Clemens Gantner, Richard E. Payne (ed.), Visions of Community in the Post-Roman World: The West, Byzantium and the Islamic World, 300-1100. Farnham; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012. Pp. viii, 575. ISBN 9781409427094. pp. 81-100.
Many modern studies of the Arab conquest of Egypt claim that in the sixth and seventh centuries the country was divided by religious-dogmatic strife. A polarization between Chalcedonian Rhomaioi and Monophysite Copts had led to a "national" away-from-the empire movement, and the Copts finally welcomed or even helped the Arab conquerors. However, a survey of the papyrological evidence shows no sign of religious controversies outside Alexandria in the Egyptian Chora. “The Coptic stab in the back legend”, tellingly absent from contemporary Byzantine sources, belongs to the ninth and tenth century historiography, when in the substantially different political situation of the Abbasside rule it was convenient for both Arabic and Coptic intellectuals to emphasize a supportive role of the Egyptian populace and a Monophysite patriarch during the Arab attack. Religious dispute and denominational strife had not alienated Egypt from the Empire and had not questioned the political identity of the Rhomaioi at the Nile on the eve of the Arab conquest.
Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean World: From Constantinople to Baghdad, 500-1000 CE
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022
During the period 500-1000 CE Egypt was successively part of the Byzantine, Sasanian and Islamic empires. All kinds of events, developments and processes occurred that would greatly affect its history and that of the eastern Mediterranean in general. This is the first volume to map Egypt’s position in the Mediterranean during this period. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines, the individual chapters detail its connections with imperial and scholarly centres, its role in cross-regional trade networks, and its participation in Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultural developments, including their impact on its own literary and material production. With unparalleled detail, the book tracks the mechanisms and structures through which Egypt connected politically, economically and culturally to the world surrounding it.
Between Byzantine and Muslim Egypt. Mobilizing Economic Resources for an Embyronic Empire
Journal of Ancient Civilizations, 2020
Building an Empire involves more than just the occupation of foreign territory. It needs an economic strategy to sustainably exploit the resources of a country and to keep resistance among the inhabitants to a minimum. The paper aims at exploring how, after the conquest of Egypt in 642, Muslims mobilized economic resources, to what extent they integrated former Byzantine levy systems, and what incentives they created in order to guarantee the economy’s continued productivity.
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