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Caliph.
Next he advanced on Babylon (Old Cairo), where the imperial garrison was
concentrated. A battle at Heliopolis in August 640 forced the Romans to retire
to the citadel of Babylon, which held out till April 641. Meanwhile the Arabs
took over Upper Egypt. On the fall of Babylon, ‘Amr marched through the Fayyum,
its governor and garrison fleeing before him, to Alexandria. Cyrus had already
been recalled to Constantinople on the justified suspicion of having entered
into a treasonable pact with ‘Amr. But Heraclius died in February, and his
widow, the Empress-Regent Martina, was too insecure herself in Constantinople
to defend Egypt. Cyrus was sent back to Egypt to make what terms he could. In
November he went to ‘Amr at Babylon and signed the capitulation of Alexandria.
But meanwhile Martina had fallen and the new government repudiated Cyrus and
his treaty. ‘Amr had already broken his part in it by invading the Pentapolis
and Tripolitania. It seemed, however, impossible to maintain Alexandria, with
all the rest of Egypt now in Arab hands. The city capitulated in November 642.
But all hope was not yet lost. In 644 news came of ‘Amr’s disgrace and recall
to Medina. A new army was sent by sea from Constantinople, which easily
reoccupied Alexandria, early in 645, and which then marched on Fostat, the
capital that ‘Amr had founded near Babylon. ‘Amr returned to Egypt and routed
the imperial forces near Fostat. Their general, the Armenian Manuel, fell back
on Alexandria. Struck by the utter indifference of the Christian population
towards this attempt to recover the land for Christianity, he made no effort to
defend the city but re-embarked for Constantinople. The Coptic Patriarch
Benjamin restored Alexandria to the hands of ‘Amr.
    Egypt was lost for ever. By the year 700 Roman
Africa was in the hands of the Arabs. Eleven years later they occupied Spain. In
the year 717 their empire stretched from the Pyrenees to central India and
their warriors were hammering at the walls of Constantinople.
     
     
    CHAPTER II
    THE REIGN OF
ANTICHRIST
     
    ‘In our watching
we have watched for a nation that could not save us.’ LAMENTATIONS
IV, 17
     
    The Christians of the East accepted with a good
grace the dominion of their infidel masters. They could not well do otherwise.
There was small likelihood now that Byzantium would rise again, as in the days
of the Persians, to rescue the holy places. The Arabs, wiser than the Persians,
soon built a fleet, based on Alexandria, that wrested from the Byzantines their
most valuable asset, the command of the seas. On land they were to retain the
offensive for nearly three centuries. It seemed pointless to hope for rescue
from the princes of Christendom.
    Nor would such rescue have been welcomed by the
heretic sects. To them the change of rulers had brought relief and pleasure.
The Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch, Michael the Syrian, writing five centuries
later, in the days of the Latin kingdoms, reflected the old tradition of his
people when he told that ‘the God of vengeance, who alone is the Almighty . . .
raised from the south the children of Ishmael to deliver us by them from the
hands of the Romans’. This deliverance, he added, ‘was no light advantage for
us’. The Nestorians echoed these sentiments. ‘The hearts of the Christians’,
wrote an anonymous Nestorian chronicler, ‘rejoiced at the domination of the
Arabs — may God strengthen it and prosper it!’ The Copts of Egypt were a little
more critical; but their animosity was directed more against the cruel
conqueror ‘Amr, and his treachery and exactions, than against his people and
religion. Even the Orthodox, finding themselves spared the persecution that
they had feared and paying taxes that, in spite of the jizya demanded
from the Christians, were far lower than in Byzantine times, showed small
inclination to question their destiny. A few mountain tribes, Mardaites of the
Lebanon and the Taurus, still kept up