For Ramses99 and the history that they do not teach you in Egypt part deux!
Reader comment on item: Muslims in the West: Can Conflict Be Averted?
in response to reader comment: ... dhimmi and his likes

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Jan 26, 2007 at 19:49

My dear ramses99 let me start by saying that your command of history is a mix of fantasy mixed with more fantasy.

Now you tell us ya ayuha al-faylasoof al-kabeer why did the Arabs invade Egypt in 632CE?

The Islamic tradtion that was written in the 3rd century of Islam tells us that the Arabs invaded Egypt in-order to spread islam. But this claim is just bogus. It was all about booty plain and simple. It is funny that Copts that converted to islam had to be mawali (the ultimate punishment) first and had to continue to pay the jizya tax like everyone else

But this is not what really happened. I challenge you to prove to me that in 632CE there was indeed islam the way we have it now and I challenge you to produce an extant 632CE copy of the Qur'an which is an exact replica of the 1924 Cairo edition of the Qur'an. Let me help you you cannot. And more likely than not Islam is indeed the product of the great civilizations of the Levants and Mesopotamia and Iran than being a product of the ignorant Arabs.

Notice that the islamic historical tradition is very late and it is tendentious as would be expected. We do not have any genre of tarikh that is _extant_ before the 3rd century of islam. Imagine that you or I are trying to recontruct let us say the life of Muhammad Ali without anymore than bogus oral transmission over a very long period ot time. And you know what? Tabari's history of the arab invasion of Egypt as would be expected is very flawed. It has internal as well as external inconsistencies. The dates he provides do not macth and do not make sense. He cannot locate the city of On (Heliopolis in Greek and On in Coptic and Ayn Shams is Arabic) he is not sure if it is on the west or the east side of the Nile. As for the very ancient city of Masr he is not sure what to make out of it. (the city of Masr was located just south of Hisn Babilyoon and I understand that it can be reached from down town Cairo on the Metro that heads to Hilwan and the stop is Mari Guirges (sp?) this is a very old city and I suspect that Egypt was called by semites MSR (Mitzrim in hebrew Msr in Syriac and Misr in Arabic) or some form of it due to the fact that it was the first city that you encounter when you travel from the Levants to the Nile valley.

Tabari also claims that 3Amr ibn al-3As invaded al-Fayyum before he was able to capture Hisn Babilyoon which does not make sense. And then we have the infamous al-Muqawqas which he never identifies because he had no clue. And then we have the topos of 4000 where we are told that 4000 Arabs invaded Egypt! The number 4000 in old Arabic literature meant: too many which means that Tabari had no clue how many arabs indeed participated in the invasion of Egypt. What was also most amazing is the fact that Tabari called Egypt bilad al-Qibt and the Egytpains al-Aqbat and not Misr and masriyun which are the Quranic names of Egypt and of Egyptians.

And we are only left with one fact: The Arabs invaded Egypt in 641CE or 642CE and for the rest: only Allahu A3lam.

What adds insult to injury is that later Arab historians used the same wrong information written by earlier historians including the false claim that 3Amr ibn al-3As is the one who really destoryed the library of Alexandria. It was orientalists my dear ramses99 that proved that such claim by Arab historians is just bogus.

Another myth was that the Copts welcomed the Arabs which is far from the truth as you shall see.

In the past 100 years historians were able to sort out what really happened in 642CE through the help of the thousands of papyri in both Greek and Copic that were preserved thanks to the dry climate of Egypt and were discovered in places like the town of Oxyrrynchus which was located on Bahr Yusuf in Upper Egypt, the town of Jama in the area of the valley of the Kings and the many papyri in the monastaries of Upper Egypt. Another great discovery for later periods was the Geniza records that were discovered in old Cairo. And historians have been able to examine the literary sources external to the islamic tradtion that helped to reconsrtuct the life in Egypt in the late antique period (which is the period from about the 1st century CE until the fall of the Umayyads in 750CE).

Most significant was the discovery of the diary of John of Nikui (aka Yuhana of Pishati. The city of Nikui/Pishati was a major town that was not very far from today's city of Tanta) John wrote a diary that was found about 100 years ago and he chronicles the period beteeen 640CE and 690CE (it is available on the web) and he provides us with a very different picture about the Arab invasion first hand and the cruelty of the Arabs and the fact that the poeple of Egypt _did not wlecome_ the Arabs as we are told. What also emerges is the following:

1. Egyptians appreciated Hellenism as the Greeks had the "live and let live attitude" and if you as an Egyptian wanted to enjoy what Hellenism provided which was indeed great you either moved to Alexandria or to the capitals of the Nomes (the districts of Egypt). And the majority of Egyptians spoke their language and lived their lives free from the Greeks if they wish not to be part of hellensim. And now modern historians of the period reject the idea that Egyptians had any hate for Hellenism or that they welcomed the Arab invaders.

As for the arabs they had no reason to go back to al-Hijaz and they sure stayed and came to the front doors of your ancestors to collect their Jizya. Education and or culture was the last on their minds.

2. The split between the Copts and the Greeks was a theological split that had no significance to the ordinary Egyptian. And in 642CE Egypt had two Churches: The Melkites (The Imperial Church and melkites is from Syriac MLK of king) and the Pope for such chruch was: Cyrus (more late) and the Monophysite chruch which is today's Coptic Chruch and the pope then was Simon. The chances are that Simon was more interested in gaining the support of the arabs in his theological split with the melkites and no more but this was veiwed by the Arab historians 300 years later as evidence that the Coptic pope welcomed the arabs which he did not.

3. al-Muqawqas is Cyrus who was of Greek origin and he is the one who surrendered Egypt to the Arabs.

4. The story of Mariya al-Qibtiya is bogus. The islamic tradtion tells us that Abul Qasim aka Muhammad sent a letter to al-Muqawqas in 628CE and that Cyrus sent maria to muhammad. But the turth is Cyrus was not in Egypt during the Persian invasion of Egypt (from 616CE until 629CE) and he was to return to Egypt in 631CE so there is no way that he recieved such bogus letter from Muhammad. What is also most amazing about this funny little story is the fact that the tafseer of Q66 where there is no mention of the name of maria ranges from this strange story (see Ibn Ishaq and Tabari) to Ibn Kathir where we are told that Q66 comes form the story of Muhammad eating some 3Asl Nahl that was bad. So it is either that Tabari and Ibn Ishaq were correct and there was indeed a person by the name of Maria al-Qibtiya or that Ibn Kathir was correct and in this case there was no Maria al-Qibtiya and her son Ibrahim!

But the final nail in the coffin in such bogus story is: no one recognized the invading Arabs in Egypt or Alexandria and linked it to Maria or anyone else. I believe that the silence of the sources here is very significant.

So much for the story of maria al-Qibtiya and so much for bogus Quranic tafseer.

5. The library of Alexandria was destroyed long time before the arrival of the Arabs but that did not stop the poor arab historians from claiming that the Arabs were the ones who destroyed it.

So you see my dear ramses99, the Arab invasion and the destruction of the great empires of the late antique period by the Arab barbarians is a major crime against humanity.

Did it ever cross your mind why do Egyprians still call the city of cairo not al-Qahira but by its ancient name: Masr? Masr al-Qadima, masr and masr al-Gedida? I guess old civilizations are not conjured away not by islam or by Arabian imperialsim.

As for you, shame on you for bashing Chritianity when you are living and working with Catholics.'

But again you are the ultimate victim of Arabian imperialism. Shame....

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