Episode 39: Life of Umar ibn al-Khattab
Aftermath of the Plague in Sham:
When so many people died in Sham from the plague, it caused confusion regarding the laws of inheritance.
To solve these issues, Umar ibn al-Khattab went to Sham and distributed the inheritance of the people in the right way.
The Idea of Conquering Egypt:
While Umar ibn al-Khattab was still in Sham, Amr ibn al-A’as, the commander of the Muslim army in Syria, approached him with an idea he had.
Amr ibn al-A’as said to Umar: O Amir al-Mu’minin, I think we should expand our conquests into Egypt.
Umar ibn al-Khattab didn’t agree with this suggestion at first as the Muslim army had lost many soldiers in the plague so they had become depleted.
Umar thought that entering Egypt would pose different challenges that the Muslims were not prepared for.
Amr ibn al-A’as Tries to Convince Umar to Conquer Egypt:
Amr ibn al-A’as continued to try to get Umar ibn al-Khattab to change his mind.
Amr said: Egypt is currently colonised by the Byzantines. What they do in Egypt is they loot all of the resources and wealth of the Egyptians and use it all for their own benefit. If we allow Egypt to go unchecked and allow the Byzantines to continue their rule in Egypt, they will continue to become wealthier and they will use this to strengthen their economy. Also, they may use this to form a new army which will pose a threat for us. They may try to retake and recapture the lands we conquered from them in Sham.
Umar ibn al-Khattab Agrees to Conquer Egypt:
After listening to Amr ibn al-A’as, Umar ibn al-Khattab finally agreed with him and prepared an army of 4000 soldiers to go with Amr to conquer Egypt.
Messenger from Madinah:
When the Muslims reached close to the border of Egypt, they received news that a messenger was coming from Madinah.
When Amr ibn al-A’as heard about this message that was coming, he told his army: Speed up so that the messenger doesn’t catch up with us.
The Muslims replied: O Amr, this is a messenger from Amir al-Mu’minin. Shouldn’t we wait to see what the message is?
Amr ibn al-A’as replied: I know what I am doing, go faster.
Amr ibn al-A’as and his army started to go faster towards the border of Egypt. Eventually, the messenger caught up with the back of the army and told the Muslims: I need to get a message to Amr ibn al-A’as.
The people at the back of the army sent news to Amr who was at the front, notifying him that the messenger was here and that he had a message to deliver.
Amr ibn al-A’as started to make excuses to avoid meeting with the messenger and the Muslim army continued to keep moving forward, with the messenger from Madinah following them as well.
Amr ibn al-A’as kept asking the guides: Have we entered Egypt yet? The guides would reply: No, we haven’t entered yet.
Arrival in Egypt:
Finally, they got to the border of Egypt and crossed over and when they entered into Egypt, Amr ibn al-A’as was now relaxed and said: I can meet the messenger now.
The messenger met with Amr ibn al-A’as and said to him: I have a message for you from Amir al-Mu’minin.
The message said: If you have already entered Egypt, go ahead and continue the conquest, but if you haven’t entered Egypt yet, come back.
Reinforcements from Umar ibn al-Khattab:
Amr ibn al-A’as sent a message back to Umar ibn al-Khattab saying: O Amir al-Mu’minin, I have already entered Egypt so I’m going to continue just as you have ordered, but I’m going to need more support. I only have 4,000 men with me and I need more people.
The population of men in Egypt at that time was more than two million.
Umar ibn al-Khattab replied to this message: I am going to send four thousand more soldiers for you, and at the head of these four thousand are four men, each one of these four in and of himself is like one thousand men.
These four men were: Al-Miqdad ibn Aswad, Az-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, Maslamah ibn Mukhallad and Ubadah ibn al-Samit.
Umar ibn al-Khattab continued: I am sending you four thousand soldiers but it is actually like eight thousand, and you already have four thousand soldiers that I sent with you before, so it is like you have twelve thousand soldiers now.
Amr ibn al-A’as now had a good amount of support and went forward into Egypt.
Prophecy of the Prophet:.
The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said: if you ever have an army of 12,000 men, they will never be defeated due to low numbers. They may be defeated for other reasons, but as for their number, they will not be defeated.
Egypt Under Byzantine Rule:
The Egyptians and Byzantines were both Christians but belonged to different sects.
The Byzantines considered the Egyptians as inferior to them, so they mistreated and oppressed the Egyptians.
When the Byzantines came to Egypt, they made a deal with the Egyptians that they could keep their own ruler. However, the ruler would become a puppet to the Byzantine government.
The Egyptian ruler was labelled as Al-Muqawqis and a Byzantine governor was kept as well to make sure that Al-Muqawqis didn’t go against the Byzantine rule.
The Byzantine governor at this time was Artabun.
Amr ibn al-A’as defeated Artabun twice both in Palestine and Jerusalem and this was going to be the third time that Amr faced him.
Amr ibn al-A’as Meets the Christian Monks:
When Amr ibn al-A’as entered Egypt, Al-Muqawqis sent two Christian monks to inform him to take his army and leave Egypt.
Amr ibn al-A’as told them: Before we get into talks about fighting, let’s have a discussion first and see if we can come to an agreement.
Amr ibn al-A’as: you are religious people, so listen to what I have to say. Allah sent us a Prophet (Muhammad ﷺ), who clarified everything for us. Our religion is very clear. We even have rules of conquests and war. We don’t fight anyone until we first introduce them to Islam. If they accept Islam, then they become our brothers. Their lives are safe and their property is safe. If they don’t want to become Muslims, we give them an opportunity to surrender peacefully and relinquish control to the Muslims and they just have to pay the Jizyah. And if they pay the Jizyah, they can live peacefully and they are under the protection of the Muslims. And if you don’t accept either of these two options, then we will fight. We have been informed by our Prophet that we will conquer Egypt and he also commanded us to treat the people of Egypt well because we are related to them.
The two monks were surprised by this and asked: How are you Arabs related to us Egyptians? What is the relationship?
Amr ibn al-A’as replied: the great, great, great grandfather of our Prophet is Ismail, and the mother of Ismail was Hajar, and she was an Egyptian.
The two monks said: this is a very ancient relationship, but no one except a Prophet of Allah would uphold and respect such an old relationship.
They told Amr ibn al-A’as: do you know Hajar was actually the daughter of royalty, she was the daughter of the king of Egypt. But, the people revolted against the king of Egypt and took control of Egypt and Hajar became a slave.
Outcome of this Discussion:
After this conversation, the two monks said: Let us go back to Al-Muqawqis and we will convey what you have said to us and then he can make a decision.
Amr ibn al-A’as was very smart as he knew that sometimes people would ask for more time so they could make preparations. He knew that as more time went by, the Muslim army would weaken but the Byzantine and Egyptians would only get stronger day by day.
Amr ibn al-A’as said to the two monks: Someone like me, you cannot trick me so don’t even try to fool me. If you really need time, I will give you a little bit of time to go to Al-Muqawqis. I will only give you three days and you can discuss this with your Al-Muqawqis and we will go from there.
The Negotiation and Delay:
The Christian monks replied: three days is not enough time. We have to go all the way back and discuss it with him. Then, he has to make the decision and we have to come back to you. We need more than three days.
Amr ibn al-A’as said: I will give you one extra day. You have four days total, and that’s the maximum you get.
The monks agreed to this and they went back to the Al-Muqawqis (the Egyptian ruler) and informed him of the three options that Amr proposed to them.
Al-Muqawqis thought that the best option would be to surrender, as he knew that the Muslim army had recently defeated the Persian Empire, which was the strongest empire in the world at that time.
Al-Muqawqis also knew that the Muslims defeated the Byzantine forces in Sham and because of this, he wanted to surrender peacefully.
However, Artabun, the Byzantine governor who had more power than Al-Muqawqis, didn’t want to surrender and wanted to fight the Muslims.
Beginning of the Conquest of Egypt:
This is how the conquest of Egypt began under the command of Amr ibn al-A’as.