The Frontier Zone at the First Cataract before and at the Time of the Muslim Conquest (Fifth to Seventh Centuries)

doi:10.1017/9781009170031.004

Chapter 3 - The Frontier Zone at the First Cataract before and at the Time of the Muslim Conquest (Fifth to Seventh Centuries)

from Part I - Political and Administrative Connections

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 December 2022

Stefanie Schmidt

Edited by

Jelle Bruning ,

Janneke H. M. de Jong and

Petra M. Sijpesteijn

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Summary

A discussion of Egypt’s incorporation into the larger structures of an emerging Muslim empire should also touch upon the question when Egypt, from north to south, was entirely under Muslim dominion in the seventh century.1 Whereas the Muslim literary sources provide plenty of information about the conquest of the Nile Delta, and to some extent also that of Middle Egypt,2 our knowledge of the situation at the southern limes of the Byzantine empire, the last bastion to fall to the Muslims, is still very incomplete. How effective was the border defense in this strategic area – against enemies from both the south and the north? Was the Byzantine empire indeed not able to defend this part against aggressors? But why then, according to literary sources, could the Muslims only take Aswān in 652, a decade after the conquest of northern Egypt?

Type: Chapter
Information: Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean World
From Constantinople to Baghdad, 500-1000 CE
, pp. 73 - 102

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009170031.004 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

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