|
Battle Of Heliopolis
The Battle of Heliopolis or Ayn Shams was a decisive battle between Arab Muslim armies and Byzantine forces for the control of Egypt. Though there were several major skirmishes after this battle, it effectively decided the fate of the Byzantine rule in Egypt, and opened the door for the Muslim conquest of the Byzantine Exarchate of Africa. Background to the Islamic conquests At the time of the death of Muhammad on 8 June 632, Islam had effectively unified the entire Arabian peninsula. Within the next twelve years, under the rule of the first two Caliphs an Islamic empire arose that annexed all of what used to be the Sassanid Empire, and most of the eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire. The Muslim Caliphate continued to expand until by the turn of the 8th-century, it stretched from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to Central Asia in the east. Under the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, force was used to prevent unrest and rebellion from causing the collapse of the new Islamic sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muslim Conquest Of Egypt
The Muslim conquest of Egypt, led by the army of 'Amr ibn al-'As, took place between 639 and 646 AD and was overseen by the Rashidun Caliphate. It ended the seven-century-long period of Roman reign over Egypt that began in 30 BC. Byzantine rule in the country had been shaken, as Egypt had been conquered and occupied for a decade by the Sasanian Empire in 618–629, before being recovered by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius. The caliphate took advantage of Byzantines' exhaustion and captured Egypt ten years after its reconquest by Heraclius. During the mid-630s, the Romans had already lost the Levant and its Ghassanid allies in Arabia to the Caliphate. The loss of the prosperous province of Egypt and the defeat of the Byzantine armies severely weakened the empire, resulting in further territorial losses in the centuries to come. Background With the death of Muhammad in 632 AD, the Muslim world began a period of rapid expansion. Under the rule of the first caliphs, the Rashidu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umar
ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ( ar, عمر بن الخطاب, also spelled Omar, ) was the second Rashidun caliph, ruling from August 634 until his assassination in 644. He succeeded Abu Bakr () as the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate on 23 August 634. Umar was a senior companion and father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He was also an expert Muslim jurist known for his pious and just nature, which earned him the epithet ''al-Fārūq'' ("the one who distinguishes (between right and wrong)"). Umar initially opposed Muhammad, his distant Qurayshite kinsman and later son-in-law. Following his conversion to Islam in 616, he became the first Muslim to openly pray at the Kaaba. Umar participated in almost all battles and expeditions under Muhammad, who bestowed the title ''al-Fārūq'' ('the Distinguisher') upon Umar, for his judgements. After Muhammad's death in June 632, Umar pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr () as the first caliph and served as the closest advis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria grew rapidly and became a major centre of Hellenic civilisation, eventually replacing Memphis, in present-day Greater Cairo, as Egypt's capital. During the Hellenistic period, it was home to the Lighthouse of Alexandria, which ranked among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, as well as the storied Library of Alexandria. Today, the library is reincarnated in the disc-shaped, ultramodern Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Its 15th-century seafront Qaitbay Citadel is now a museum. Called the "Bride of the Mediterranean" by locals, Alexandria is a popular tourist destination and an important industrial centre due to its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez. The city extends about along the northern coast of Egypt, and is the largest city ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umayyad Caliphate
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty ( ar, ٱلْأُمَوِيُّون, ''al-ʾUmawīyūn'', or , ''Banū ʾUmayyah'', "Sons of Umayyah"). Uthman ibn Affan (r. 644–656), the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a member of the clan. The family established dynastic, hereditary rule with Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, long-time governor of Greater Syria, who became the sixth caliph after the end of the First Fitna in 661. After Mu'awiyah's death in 680, conflicts over the succession resulted in the Second Fitna, and power eventually fell into the hands of Marwan I from another branch of the clan. Greater Syria remained the Umayyads' main power base thereafter, with Damascus serving as their capital. The Umayyads continued the Muslim conquests, incorpo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copts
Copts ( cop, ⲛⲓⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ ; ar, الْقِبْط ) are a Christian ethnoreligious group indigenous to North Africa who have primarily inhabited the area of modern Egypt and Sudan since antiquity. Most ethnic Copts are Coptic Oriental Orthodox Christians. They are the largest Christian denomination in Egypt and the Middle East, as well as in Sudan and Libya. Copts have historically spoken the Coptic language, a direct descendant of the Demotic Egyptian that was spoken in late antiquity. Originally referring to all Egyptians at first, the term ''Copt'' became synonymous with native Christians in light of Egypt's Islamization and Arabization after the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the 7th century. Copts in Egypt account for roughly 5–20 percent of the Egyptian population, although the exact percentage is unknown; Copts in Sudan account for 1 percent of the Sudanese population while Copts in Libya similarly account for 1 percent of the Libyan po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monophysite
Monophysitism ( or ) or monophysism () is a Christological term derived from the Greek (, "alone, solitary") and (, a word that has many meanings but in this context means "nature"). It is defined as "a doctrine that in the person of the incarnated Word (that is, in Jesus Christ) there was only one nature—the divine". Background The First Council of Nicaea (325) declared that Christ was divine (homoousios, consubstantial, of one being or essence, with the Father) and human (was incarnate and became man). In the fifth century a heated controversy arose between the sees and theological schools of Antioch and Alexandria about how divinity and humanity existed in Christ, the former stressing the humanity, the latter the divinity of Christ. Cyril of Alexandria succeeded in having Nestorius, a prominent exponent of the Antiochian school, condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431, and insisted on the formula "one ''physis'' of the incarnate Word", claiming that any formul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saracen
upright 1.5, Late 15th-century German woodcut depicting Saracens Saracen ( ) was a term used in the early centuries, both in Greek and Latin writings, to refer to the people who lived in and near what was designated by the Romans as Arabia Petraea and Arabia Deserta. The term's meaning evolved during its history of usage. During the Early Middle Ages, the term came to be associated with the tribes of Arabia. The oldest known source mentioning "Saracens" in relation to Islam dates back to the 7th century, in the Greek-language Christian tract ''Doctrina Jacobi''. Among other major events, the tract discusses the Muslim conquest of the Levant, which occurred after the rise of the Rashidun Caliphate following the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The Roman-Catholic church and European Christian leaders used the term during the Middle Ages to refer to Muslims—usually Arabs, Turks, and Iranians. By the 12th century, "Saracen" had become synonymous with "Muslim" in Med ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faiyum
Faiyum ( ar, الفيوم ' , borrowed from cop, ̀Ⲫⲓⲟⲙ or Ⲫⲓⲱⲙ ' from egy, pꜣ ym "the Sea, Lake") is a city in Middle Egypt. Located southwest of Cairo, in the Faiyum Oasis, it is the capital of the modern Faiyum Governorate. Originally called Shedet in Egyptian, the Greeks called it in grc-koi, Κροκοδειλόπολις, Krokodilópolis, and later grc-byzantine, Ἀρσινόη, Arsinoë. It is one of Egypt's oldest cities due to its strategic location. Name and etymology Originally founded by the ancient Egyptians as Shedet, its current name in English is also spelled as Fayum, Faiyum or Al Faiyūm. Faiyum was also previously officially named Madīnet Al Faiyūm (Arabic for ''The City of Faiyum''). The name Faiyum (and its spelling variations) may also refer to the Faiyum Oasis, although it is commonly used by Egyptians today to refer to the city. The modern name of the city comes from Coptic / ' (whence the proper name '), meanin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Babylon Fortress
Babylon Fortress (; ) is an Ancient Roman fortress, built around 30 BC with the arrival of emperor Augustus in Egypt, on the eastern bank of the Nile Delta, located in the area known today as Coptic Cairo. It is situated in the former area of the Heliopolite Nome, upon the east bank of the Nile, at latitude 30°N, near the commencement of the Pharaonic Canal (also called Ptolemy's Canal and Trajan's Canal), from the Nile to the Red Sea. It was at the boundary between Lower and Middle Egypt, where the river craft paid tolls when ascending or descending the Nile. Diodorus ascribes the erection of the first fort to rebel Assyrian captives in the reign of Sesostris, and Ctesias dates it to the time of Semiramis; but Josephus, with greater probability, attributes its structure to some Babylonian followers of Cambyses, in 525 BC. The Romans built a new fortress nearer the river, with typically Roman red and white banded masonry. Within the fortress's enclosure are the Coptic M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bilbeis
Belbeis ( ar, بلبيس ; Bohairic cop, Ⲫⲉⲗⲃⲉⲥ/Ⲫⲉⲗⲃⲏⲥ ' is an ancient fortress city on the eastern edge of the southern Nile delta in Egypt, the site of the Ancient city and former bishopric of Phelbes and a Latin Catholic titular see. The city is small in size but densely populated, with over 407,300 residents. It also houses the Egyptian Air Force Academy complex, which contains the town's largest public school in Al-Zafer. Coptic tradition says that Bilbeis was one of the stopping places of the Holy Family during the Flight into Egypt. History The city was important enough in the Roman province of Augustamnica Secunda to become a bishopric. Situated on a caravan and natural invasion route from the east, Belbeis was conquered in 640 by the Arabs. Amr ibn al-As besieged and took the city defended by a Byzantine general called al-Ardubun. According to a Muslim legend, Armanusa, the daughter of Muqawqis lived in Belbeis. In 727 some of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pelusium
Pelusium ( Ancient Egyptian: ; cop, /, romanized: , or , romanized: ; grc, Πηλουσιον, Pēlousion; la, Pēlūsium; Arabic: ; Egyptian Arabic: ) was an important city in the eastern extremes of Egypt's Nile Delta, 30 km to the southeast of the modern Port Said. It became a Roman provincial capital and Metropolitan archbishopric and remained a multiple Catholic titular see and an Eastern Orthodox active archdiocese. Location Pelusium lay between the seaboard and the marshes of the Nile Delta, about two-and-a-half miles from the sea. The port was choked by sand as early as the first century BC, and the coastline has now advanced far beyond its ancient limits that the city, even in the third century AD, was at least four miles from the Mediterranean. The principal product of the neighbouring lands was flax, and the ''linum Pelusiacum'' (Pliny's Natural History xix. 1. s. 3) was both abundant and of a very fine quality. Pelusium was also known for being an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aegyptus
In Greek mythology, Aegyptus or Ægyptus (; grc, Αἴγυπτος) was a legendary king of ancient Egypt. He was a descendant of the princess Io through his father Belus, and of the river-god Nilus as both the father of Achiroe, his mother and as a great, great grandfather on his father's side. Family Aegyptos was the son of King Belus of Egypt and Achiroe, a naiad daughter of Nile, or of Sida, eponym of Sidon. He was the twin brother of Danaus, king of Libya while Euripides adds two others, Cepheus, king of Ethiopia and Phineus, betrothed of Andromeda. He may be the same or different from another Aegyptus who was called the son of Zeus and Thebe. Tzetzes on Lycophron, ''Alexandra'' 1206 Aegyptus fathered fifty sons by different women: six of whom by a woman of royal blood called Argyphia; ten by an Arabian woman; seven by a Phoenician woman; three by Tyria; twelve by the naiad Caliadne; six by Gorgo and lastly another six by Hephaestine. According to Hippos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
