History of Jihad against the Egyptian Coptic Christians (640-655)

Islam Watch 12 June 2012

The four centuries of ceaseless warfare between the Byzantine (Eastern-Roman) Empire and the Sassanid Persian Empire in the 6th and 7th centuries had weakened both empires. It was at this unfortunate juncture that the Muslim Arabs pounced on both empires in fourth decade of the 7th century (641 C.E.). After their conquest of the Byzantine provinces of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine (today’s Israel), they invaded Egypt in December 641 C.E.

Egypt was one of the precious crown jewels of the Eastern-Roman Empire. Egypt was the breadbasket of Rome first and of then Constantinople. It was a fertile land that produced and exported wheat, corn, wine, oil, textiles, glass, cosmetics, and medicinal and chemical products of the time. The population of Egypt made up of Christian Copts was estimated to have been about 9 millions at the time the Arab aggression in 641.

Egypt before the Islamic invasion was not an Arab country

Many of us are under a mistaken impression that Egyptians are Arabs. Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks led a group of Arabs was an Egyptian. So also was the Cairo born Yasser Arafat, who deceived the world by posing as a Palestinian. Both these scoundrels certainly considered themselves to be Arabs, as do the millions of Egyptians today. But little do they realize that apart from the few Arab invaders who traumatized Byzantine ruled Egypt in the 7th century, none of them are descendants of Bedouin Arabs.

They descend from the Pharaohs (Firaun) who built the classic Egyptian civilization along the Nile valley in beautiful cities like Luxor, Memphis, Karnak and Thebes. Their Pharaohs like Ramses, Nefertiti built awe-inspiring Pyramids, that reflected deep mysteries of the universe as many of the pyramids are built to depict star constellations of those days.

The religion of the ancient Egyptians was based on nature-worship, as was that of the pre-Islamic Arabs, the Greco-Romans, Hindus, Mesoamericans, etc.

Pre-Islamic rulers of Egypt after the Pharaohs

From the 6th century B.C.E. up to the 4th century B.C.E. Egypt was under Persian rule of the Achemenian (Hakkamanishiya) dynasty. The Persians were Zoroastrians, but they did not in any way interfere with the religious beliefs of the Egyptians.

In the 4th century the Persians were displaced in Egypt by the Greeks under Alexander, who built the city of Alexandria on the Nile Delta, to serve as a entry port for the Greeks who came sailing across the Mediterranean.

Even the Greek rule of the Ptolemys next three centuries did not interfere with the religious beliefs of the Egyptians. They continued worshipping their age-old deities, the Sun God, Ra or Amon Ra, Horus, the sky god, who had the head of a hawk, and body of a human and many others. In the 1st century C.E. despite the efforts of Greco-Egyptian rulers like Cleopatra, Egypt became part of the Roman Empire under Julius Ceaser. But even the Romans did not tamper with the religious beliefs of the Egyptians.

So after a procession of invaders the Persians, Greeks, Romans, the religion of the Egyptians remained unique and original. Only when the Roman emperor Constantine embraced Christianity in the 4th century did the people of Egypt as subjects of the Roman empire start converting to Christianity. And when the Arab Muslims invaded Egypt, the native Egyptian population was fully Christian, although the ancient religion has influenced Egyptian Christianity and many of the original rituals were being followed by the Egyptians.

The Egyptians considered themselves to be a Hamitic people, unlike the Arabs who are Semitic. The Hamitic people comprised the Egyptians, Nubians (Sudanese), Abyssinians (Ethiopians), Somalis and Masai (inhabitants of Kenya and Tanzania). The ancient civilization of Egypt is not referred to as the Arabian civilization of ancient Egypt, nor are the pharaohs referred to as Arab kings.

The Arab character was imposed on Egypt only after the Arabs overran Egypt in 641 C.E. It was the Arabs who gave the name Copt to the Egyptians. The word Copt is an English word taken from the Arabic word Gibt or Gypt (derived ultimately from Ka-Ptah). The Arabs after their conquest of Egypt in 641 A.D. called the indigenous population of Egypt as Gypt from the Greek word Egyptos or Egypt. The Greek word Egyptos came from the ancient Egyptian words Ha-Ka-Ptah or the house or temple of the spirit of God Ptah, one of the major ancient Egyptian Gods. The word Copt or Coptic simply means Egyptian, however the Muslim population of Egypt now mistakenly calls themselves Arabs. So in contemporary usage, the word Copt or Coptic has come to mean the Christian population of Egypt.

The Muslim gangster who first tormented the Egyptians

The Muslim gangster who first tormented the Egyptians was Amr bin Al-Aas who overran the Nile valley under the orders of another gangster, (the Caliph) Umar to spread Jihad in Egypt and convert the Kafir Egyptians to Islam. Amr bin Al-Aas who like Umar was also a first generation convert to Islam, had visited Egypt, before his clan, the Bani Sahm of the Quraish tibe had been forced to embrace Islam, when Mohammed-ibn-Abdallah overran Makkah (Mecca) in 630 C.E.

Like the other Quraish chiefs, Amr had bitterly opposed Islam in his early days. In fact he had commanded a Quraish contingent at the battle of Uhud in 630 A.D. and under the leadership of Khalid-ibn-Waleed and had defeated the Muslim gangsters led by Mohammed-ibn-Abdallah (the brigand who led the first band of criminals who became the first Muslims and he their prophet).

But after the fall of Mecca to the Muslims, Amr bin Al-Aas and Khalid-ibn-Waleed rode from Mecca to Madina and there both of them were forcibly converted to Islam. Their conversion was not voluntary, but once they saw that it made good practical sense to join the victorious Muslims, they too joined the band and not just survived but thrived by wholeheartedly using the same techniques of tormenting others looting and raping them and compelling all their victims to embrace Islam. Thereafter Amr like Khalid-ibn-Waleed took part in all the campaigns fought by the Muslim gangsters.

Taqiyya which means deception in Arabic is the cornerstone of Muslim relations with Kafirs (non-Muslims). Muslims are encouraged to deceive Kafirs all along. The technique Taqiyya was consistently used in warfare by Muslims and it was this which gave them victory over non-Muslims in addition to their schizophrenic savagery. (...)