Under the various caliph in Egypt's history there was alot of migration into Northern Egypt and parts of Middle Egypt that goes unaccounted for.

Al-Fustat was established by Amr Ibn Alas and different Arab tribes were settled in these area. At first Caliph Umar banned the Arabs from settling on land,but in later periods such a ban was lifted when Caliph Hisham under the Umayyad settled many Arabs in the Delta region particularly the eastern Delta region. Most of these tribes were Northern Arabian tribal groups,and some were Yemani Arabs.

In Later times during the Abbasid and Fatimid, various Arab tribes were also settled in parts of Middle Egypt[the area between Cairo and Sohag. Both being the Kenz and Hilal tribes. Also with a tribe called the Tayy who were rewarded with tracts of land for service under Salah-a-Din.

Here are the references to the following:

Arab colonization began with the conquest ,and was encouraged by the
Ummayyad Caliphs,notably by Hisham[reigned 724-43],who in 727
authorized the planned migration and settlement of several thousand
Arabs of the Yemenite tribe of Qays in the Nile Valley. During the
eight century and ninth century large numbers of Arab
tribesmen,mainly of Yemenite origin,migrate to Egypt,where many of
them settled on land.

page 457

Harris, J R, ed. (1971) The legacy of Egypt. Oxford

Caliph al-Mu'tasin inaugrated his rule by dispatching a order to his govenor in Egypt to stirke off the names of all Arabs from the register of pensions and to stop paying their salaries.[85]

This was indeed a turning point in the hsitory of the Arabs in Egypt. In short, their service as fighters was no longer needed; they were replaced by Turkish military slaves or Mamluks[owned]. Al-Mu'Tasim recruited large numbers for his personal bodyguard, and exmployed some to crush the Qaysite rebels in Egypt, three years before there was a need for the mass of the Khurasni troops, the cheif support of the ''Abbasid regine, were either Arabized or had established their own petty states within the Empire.

page 36

85.Ibn Taghri, Nujum,11,223

Following the lead of al-Mu'tasim the succeeding caliphs enlisted bands of Mamluks complete with their Turkish commanders. The new troops were ''expatriates with no local...... affiliations[and] therefore the more devoted to the central government''[86]
Commenting on al-Mu'tasim's decision, the author of al-khitat wrote'' Therefore vanished the kingdom of Arabs from Egypt, and its troops became Persians and Mawali from the region of al-Mutasim''[88]

Al-Mutasim's decision did not pass unchallenged Yahya[89] ibn al-Wazir al Jarawi, with five hundread Yemenites from the tribes of Lakhm and judham,''threw off''[9 [0]] the government's authority in order to protect their usurped rights to pensions.[91

Having lost this source income, some Arabs began to settled and intermix with the Egyptians, while others drifted further south.[92]

In Upper Egypt, far from the immediate control of central government the terrain was suitable for the Arabs to continue with their revolts, sometimes under the leadership of 'alid prtenders.[93]

Between 219-258/834-72,although the majority of the govenors continued to be Arabs, Egypt was given as a fief to a member of the 'Abbasid dyansty, or to a Turkish commander, who normally sent a representive to govern on hs behalf, and to send him the proceeds of the revenue.

However, it is evident that the natural flow of Arabs in to Egypt was not affeted by these changes and in time Egypt became ''a reservoir'' of Arab tribesmen.[94]

86.Lewis ,Arabs in History

88.Maqrizi,Khitat,II,44

89. Servus,I,pt. ii,248,calls him 'Abd al'Aziz'

90. This is an approximate translation of a'lanu al-'isyan ,literarily declared disobedience

91. Maqrizi,Khitat,II,44; Ibn taghri Birdi, Nujam,II,223

92.Maqrizi,Bayan,104-5

93. Poarticulary during the Tulunid period, see Balawi ,63,67,68. In 236 A.H., the caliph al-Mutawaakil ordered the removal of the 'alids from al-Fustat to Bagdad

94. Hassan Ahmad Mahmud,I,101

page 37

The frontier between Egypt and the Sudan was guarded on the Nile Valley at Bajrash south of the border where the govenor of al-Maris ,Sahib al Jaba, or ''the Lord of the Mountain'' as he is called in Arabic sources, prevented unauthorized people from entering Nubia;[45] but this check point could easily be avoided. However, north of Bajrash, Arabs of the Qahtan , the Rabia and Quraysh, who were living in Aswan, bought land from Nubians during the Umayyad and early 'Abbasid periods.

This development angered the Nubian king who saw in it a latent danger.

He claimed that ''his subjects and his slaves'',[96] 3who cultivated those lands as serfs, had unlawfully sold his domains to the Arabs.

The matter was raised with al-Ma'mun[97] on his visit to Egypt in 216/831 and he reffered it for settlement to the govenors of Aswan.

The Arab owners incited the Nubians to reject the king's claim and to deny that they were slaves.

The sale of land was confirmed , and the dispute was closed.

It is not clear from al-Mas'udi's account wheather the Arabs took permanent residence in al-Maris, or remained as absentee landlords at that times.

However, Ibn Sulaum, who visited the region in about 365/975, states that the Arabs behaved , in al-Maris, like landlords.[98]

The pressence of Arabs there is testified by the discovery at taffa of Muslim tomb stones with Arab inscriptions dated 217/832.[99] and others in Kalabsha dated 317/929.[10 [0]]

page 38

96. Mas'udi,Muruj,III,42-3

97. Ibn Sulaym says[Khitat,III,295-6] that it was al-Mu'tasim who was asked in A.H. 218. Although there is no differences in the settlement reached,al-Mas'udi's account is fuller

98.Maqrizi,Khitat,III,252-3

99. Monnerate de Villard ,Storia, 118; there is ,however, no reference to this inscription in Combe's work

100.Combe ,III,183

The Arab pene traition into al-Maris laid the foundation of the Kanz dyansty which was to play a significant role in the history of the Sudan two centuries later.

page 38

Meanwhile the Beja continued their ravages on Upper Egypt in their normal manner, despite the attempts of Hakim al-Nabighi to check them in 212/827. About 218/831,however, Caliph al-Mu'tasim send out 'Abdallh ibn al-Jahm.[101] who defeated them and made an agreement with the cheif,Kannun ibn 'abd al-Aziz. This agreement like that made by 'Ubayd Allan ibn al-Habhab with the beja, was a unilateral concession.

The rull text of the treaty is preserved in the account of Ibn Sulay as transcribed by al-maqrizi and a summary is given below:[102]

page 38

101. Ibn Hawqal [p.53] calls him 'Ubayd and relates that his attack on the Beja land took place in 332 A.H., in the reign of al-Mutawakkil, which is porbably wrong. Furthermore, his account is rather confused.

102. Maqrizi,Khitat,III,273-5. The following numerical divisions are not found in the original text.

Part of the pact with Beja:

[6] The Beja were to enter Egypt unarmed when they were trading or passing through, and were not to enter villages or towns . They were denied access to the region between al-Qasr and Qubban.

An agent of Kannun was to reside in Upper Egypt to ensure the enforcement of these conditions.

If any of these terms were violated , the treaty would be invalidated , and the Muslims would be free to fight the Beja.

page 39-40

It was during those campaigns that the Arabs were attracted by the pressence of gold and remains of gold mines in the eastern desert.

Some mines of gold and emerald were discovered in the ''Land oif the Mines'' between qus -wadi al 'Allaqi and the Red Sea.

Clause IV of the treaty of 216/831 denied the Beja acess to the region between al-Qasr and Qubban whose roads lead to Wadi al-'Allaqi, one of the main mining centres.[109]

The opening of the mines coincided with Arab resentment of al-Mu'tasim's policy and before long hundread of them swarmed tows the Sudan in what became a virtual ''Gold Rush''.

page 41

109.monneret de Villard,Storia,109-210

Moving from the west the Fatimids conquered Egypt in 358/969 with the help of Berber tribes.

Although the Fatimids claimed Arab decent they did not shower special favours on the Arabs and only on rare occasions was the military help of Arab tribes ever sought.

In 397/1006, for example, the cheif of the Rabi'a in the neighboorhoods of Aswan, was rewarded with the title of Kanz al-Dawla on capturing Arab rebel Abu rakwa.[38]

However, during its long life the Fatimid dyansty rested on the support of foreign recruits--Berber,Turkish and Sudan troops.

page 47

[38] Maqrizi ,Bayan,46

The Turkification of the army initiated by al-Mutasim was probably the most important factor inducing the Arabs to migrate to the Sudan. The size of this movement was closely correlated with the degree of Turkification of the rulers and the army, which reached its zenith in the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods; but this is in advance of our present narrarive.

page 37

During this early,disturbed decaes of the third century of Islam, it seems that nomadic Arabns began to enter the Sudan in small parties which passed unnoticed and unrecorded by historians/ These nomads were attracted by the vast,rich pastures that they head from Arab traders.

page 37

The overthorw of the Umayyad dyansty in 132/750 marked the end of the ''Arab Kingdom''.

Since the Abbasid revolution[78] had been supported by disconected Arabs and ,Mawli,[79], the new regime tried to reconcile the different interests of the two fractions.

The caliph remained an Arab and paid respect to ''Arabdom'' but signs of change were apparent.

The prracetorian guards of the new regime were the Khurasanis , that is , a mixture of Arabs and Persians,but were no longer recruited purely from Arab warriors;indeed , the Arab warrior caste was stripped little by little of all its privilages;pensions were only paid to those in active service, and even they were ultimately replaced by Turkish slaves.

Sensing this change Arab tribemen began to settle down as cultivators, or to return to nomadic life,while some ,unable to accept the new situation ,drifted away into new lands.

The Mawali were no longer despised , and soon, as Mslim, Arabic citizens,[8 [0]] they were integrated with the Arab ''aristocrats''.

West of Persia the process of Arabization and Islamization reached such a degree that the term Arab almost lost its ethnic significance.

page 34

78.Kewis,Arabs,80,84,92-3 and ''Abbasids'',EI,2,I, 19-20

79. Broadly speaking the Mawali [singular Mawld] are non-Arab Muslims ; for a detailed definition see Lewis,Arab, 70 .

80.Ibid .,93

None the less,Nubian pilgrims were to be noticed in Palestine as late as the eighth/fourteenth century and ninth/fifteenth centuries. Ludolph von Suchen[c.715/1315] reports that the Nubians possesed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre , a chapel known as the Chapel of the Nubians.[185]

Soon,however, possession of it passed to the Armenians and a century later to the Georgians.[186]

Again in about 885/1480 Felix Fabari:saw Nubians holding services at the church of the Lord's Ascension in Galilee.[187].

page 127

The Banu Hilal and the Banu Salim were encouraged to come to Egypt for other reasons.

The Fatimids, like all other rulers of Egypt,sought to extend their supremacy over Syria; and in order to protect the land from the depredations of the Carmathians, they drove them back toward al-Bahrayan.

At the same time the Fatimid caliph al'Aziz[365/86/976-961 moved the Bani Hilal and the Banu Salim of Qays settling them in Upper Egypt and in the desert east of the Nile.[77]

Many of these tribesmen were persuaded to migrate again, this time inorder to put an end to the sepratist tendencies of the Fatimid govenor,al-Mu'izz ibn Badis, in north Africa.[20

Although large numbers of the tribesmen did infact migrate to settle in Baraq[21] and Tripolis ,considerable numbers remained behind , while others seem to have spread as far as 'Aydhab.[22] page 94-95

The original Fazara have no connection with the Juhayna. They were a north Arabian tribes, that is,Fazara ibn Dhubayan Ghatafan ibn Said in Qays 'Aylan,[166].

They were closely related to the 'Abs[167] with whom they lived in Wadi al-Qurna and in Najd,although none remained there by the time of Ibn Khaldun.[168]

In the year 469/1076-7 Badr al-Jamali drove some of the Fazara towards Barqa.[167] Indeed Ibn Sa'id [d. 673/1274] talks of them in Barqa and Tripolis.[179]

Wheras a century later they were mixed with the Berbers in Ifriqiya and Morocco.[171]

When al-Hamandani wrote in the first half of the Fazara were Upper Egypt, and others at Qalyub in the Delta.[172]

page 166

The eariest Arab accounts relate that the Beja were idolaters,[5 0] but it seems that those who lived in ports or along the Egyptian border professed Christianity.[51] However,although the Christian faith lingered on for few centuries, it had never taken root as it had in Bila-al-Nuba.

page 10

259.Nearly more than fifty years before,Ibn Sa'id[pg.5 [0]] described the Beja as Muslims,Christians,and whorshipers of Idols

51.The manner in which Christianity was adopted by the Beja is not known. In the fifth century A.D. the Coptic monk Shenoute tried to convert some of them,cf. Gaballah,op.cit.,SNR,XL, 38. In A.D. 530 the Blemmyes temple of Isis at Philae was closed and dedicated to Christian worship, see Trimingham,Sudan,

Yosef Fodl Hassan

The Arabs and the Sudan:

After crossing the ''Land of the Mines'' the Arabs encountered 'Ali Baba, the Beja cheif , at the head of a large army.

He harassed Arabs without giving them open battle,hoping that they would surrender when their prvoisions was exhausted. However, the safe arrival of the food stuffs sent by sea compelled 'Ali-Baba to attack.

Before the charge,al-Qummi fastened all the bells in his camp to horses' necks, which ,coupled with the shouts and sounds of drums made a defening noise,scaring the refractory Beja camels and causing them to unseat their riders and flee in disorder.

This caused great havoc in the Beja army and brought about their defeat.[56] Defeated in battle,'Ali Baba was compelled to accompany al-qummi on a visit to the caliph at Bagdad from whom he receieved many gifts. 'Ali agreed to recommence payment of tribute and not to hinder the Arabs from working in the mines.[57]

In the same year al-Mutawwakkil appointed Sa'd al Itakhi to watch over the Beja and the pilgrim route between Egypt and Mecca,possibly though the Red Sea ports.[58]

Sa'd deputed the task to al-Qummi, who there upon took residence at Aswan.[59]

The appointment of a comissioner to that region shows very clearly the importance of the mines for the caliphs, who saw to it that the govenor was appointed from Bagdad.

page 51

As a result of this peace many more Arabs gradually made their way towards the ''Land of the Mines''.

Both tribes and individuals participated in the migration, and even remote regions like Najd sent their own quota. The harsh rule of Mohammed ibn Yusuf al-Hasni al-Ukhay dr, who entered al-Yamam in 238/852-3,drove tribes from the Rabia and the Mudar in this direction.

They came iun several thousands.some of whom settled in al-hawf, but the majority were attracted to the mines.[60]

Describing Wadi al-Allaqi,,al-Ya'qubi says majorityof the inhabitants were Arabs from the Rabi'ab,Hanifa who came from al-Yamam with their families and children.[61]

The best documented example of individual arab activity in the land of the mines is the adventourous career of al-Umari.[62]

Abdallah ibn 'adb al-Hamid al 'Umari a desendant of the caliph of Umar, was born in Medina.

When he visited Egypt in 241/855 he was already a well educated man.

page 52

Al-Umari's defeat brought about a crisis amonmg his own followers,especially the Qay 'Aylan and the Syrian Arab tribe of Sa'd al-Ashira.

page 52

When al-Umari returned to the minning centres in 256/869 he found large numbers of Arabs there. These included clans from the Rabi'a ,the Juhayna and Syrian Arabs.

The Rabi'a sided with the Beja in whose country they settled and began to intermarry .

page 55

In the early decades of the fourth/tenth century a branch of the Rabi'a settled in the desert of Upper Egypt.

page 59

Yusef Fodl Hassan

The Judham Arabs ,[148] a branch of Kahlan, the south Arabian tribe, was one of the first tribes that accompanied 'Amr ibn-al As and settled in the eastern Hawf in Lower Egypt.

Salah al-Din al -Ayyubid enfeoffed the Tayy Arab warriors with the land belonging to the Judham,[149], some of whome were probably compelled to drift southwards.

page 164

Qalqashandi ,Qala'id,12B-13 A

Yusuf Fadal Hassan

Sudan and the Arabs

Indeed,groups of Arab milita,particulary from the tribes of Tayy' joined the Ayyubid army to fight the Crusades. For their support Salah al-Din rewarded them with rich lands of the Judham, many of whom had begun to drift away.[45]

page 99

Yusef Fodl Hassan

Sudan the Arabs

The nomadic Beja tribes inhabited the eastern desert extending from Qus to Masawwa'between the Red Sea and the Nile. They were accustomed to raid the settled inhabitants of Nubia and Upper Egypt[48] from about AD 250. Several times between AD 250 and 297 the Beja or Blemmyes[49] drove out the Roman garrison of Lower Nubia and seized Upper Egypt untill finally the Emperor Diocletian abandonded the Dodecaschoneus[Aswan to al-Mahrraqa region] to them and the Nobades. Their raids on Egypt continued to A.D. 450 when they were forced to sign peace for a hundread years with Rome. The end of their power came at the hands of Silko, who defeated them decisively in about AD 540 and drove them back to their poverty stricken desert.

The pressence of Semetic names in region of Masawwa testifies to the activities of the Sabeans[61] there about 400 B.C.[62] Soon,however, merchants were followed by immigrants

Owing to the poverty of its resources, the Arabian peninsula at times became over populated ; this leads to mass migrations across its limitis.[63]

In addition,periodic droughts induced nomads to drift away in small groups, to search for pastures, and some of them crossed the Sinai desert for Egypt.[64]

The Yemen itself soon fell under Axsumite rule. This era of decline was symbolized in Arab traditions by the breaking of the Ma'rib dam which, in its day,reflected the prosperity of the region. In short, wheather migration was in search of pasture, or in the pursuit of trade, many of these calamities must have accentuated the overflow of Arabs into Africa because it was from the desert that the Arabs appeared':[67]

Strabo[66 B.C. to A.D. 24] remarked that the eastern desert was inhabited by Arabs,some of whom carried merchandise on their camels between the Nile in Upper Egypt and the Red Sea ports.[68] The second century A.D. witnessed intensive commercial activities conducted by the Nabataeans[69] in the same area This is proved by the discovery of Nabatean inscriptions and also a Himyarite one.[70]

page 13

Egypt,too, was harassed by nomads who came through the Sinai desert, either from northern Nufud or from the Syrian desert, and increasingly after the first century AD; from the Hijaz and from south-western Arabia. Some of these tribes may have pushed further into the eastern desert[66] Indeed, ''The Greeks named the eastern desert Arabia

Some brought camels and begun to carry provisions to al-Qulzum, where they made a good profit. These good tidings brought five hundread nomadic families to the same area a year later they were followed by a similar number. The influx continued so that by 153/770 there were no less than 5,200 families in al-Hawf.[77] The sedentary occupations of these Arabs encouraged their intermixing with the Egyptians, and were in turn an important factor in the spread of Islam among the Egyptians. The Copts were by social and financial privilages to be converted to Islam and to adopt Arabic tongue.

page 34

There were forty thousand Arabs in al-Fustat and twenty thousand in Alexandria in the caliphate of Mu'awiya[40-60/661-80.[72] Fearing a tribal feud in Syria 'Umar 1 ordered the transfer of one third of the tribe of Baliyy to Egypt.[73] The flow of immigrants continued without restriction and was stimulated by the frequent changes of govenors, each of whom brought his own tribesmen or guards, who might have numbered as many as 6,000-10,000 or even 20,000.[74] There were no less than eighty three govenors between 'Amr ibn al-As[second office 38/658] and 'Anbasa ibn Ishaq al Dabbi in 242/856. Nearly all the Arab tribes were represented among the first arrivals,but the majority were probably Yemenites.[75] From the time of the govenorship of 'Abd al'Azizibn Marwan[66-85/685-704] there was a deliberate Umayyad policy to encourage qaysite migration[to Egypt] to balance the Yemenite tribes. In 109/727-8 Ubayd Allah ibn al-Habhab the Qaysite, took four hundread families.[76] from different clans of Qays, and settled them in the rich land of al-Hawf. They praticed agritculture and were exempted from land taxes.

page 34

By the advent of Islam, there were already contacts between the Arabs and the Sudan ,but these gained importance under Islam. Muslim Arabs followed the well-trodden path which had been used for centuries by migrants and traders alike.

page 16

The Muslim destruction of Christian icons,[49] fiscal extoration, and the imprisonment of the Coptic Patriarch Anba Mikha'il by the govenor , lead to revolts among Copts. According to a Coptic source King Cyriacus of Nubia with an angry army of 100,000 horsemen and 100,000 camels marched against Egypt. The number of the Nubian attackers was probably greatly over-estimated. 'Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan ibn Musa ,[50], the govenor, hastily released the Patriarch and asked him to intervene and to stop the Nubian campaign. Cyriacus returned after laying waste to Upper Egypt and killing and capturing many Muslims.[51] Muslim sources say nothing about this campaign although Ibn al-Furat reffered to an inconclusive Arab attack on Nubia in the caliphate of Hisham ibn 'Abd al-Malik[105-25/ 724-43].[52]. The whole incident may have been no more than a raid.

page 29

49. Kindi, 71-2

50. According to Kindi [pg. 43] 'Abd al-Malik became govenor in Jumada 11, 132/Febuary 750,i.e. just before the fall of Umayyad

51. Severus,I,pt. ii,185

52. Ibn al-Furat ,VII, 45

page 29

All the following comes from Yusuf FadI Hassan's The Sudan and the Arabs.

More reference to Arabs in Egypt during the Middle Ages:

According to al-Kindi, the fisc acted to address two of these problems evident in the Qurra and other early documents-- the reliability of local agents and the shortage of labour. First, starting in 99/717 ,Coptic village officals--those individuals who apportioned the districts tax quoata and were also local tax collectors---was replaced by Muslims.[40]. The latest documentary attestation of a Christian provincial govenor is infact in 716-17[41]

Lower-level Christian officals continued to be documented well beyond the sixth/twelfth century. Second, in 109/727-8 the state began to relocated Arabs from Syria to the eastern Delta in Egypt.[42]

One could refer to this as forced tenture. The state forced tenture upon farmers, so that there would be crops to tax, while the farmers received subsistence and any surplus.[43] The success of these reforms-bringing in Arab administrators and Arab sharecroppers is highly questionable. Al-Kindi tells us that Copts in Upper Egypt wadged wars against tax officals[ummal], in 119/737 and in 121/739, he reports that relocated Arabs also revolted,refusing to pay tax.[44]

Copts revolted again in 150/767,expelling tax officals [ummal]. To recap briefly what we know about the agritcultural tax system prior to the apperance of the first offical leases or tax bills; assement was crude, rent is not mentioned; tax was levied and collected in kind[dariba] and in money[jizya]; local non-Arab residents acted as collectors,apportioners and guarantors of a district's tax quota; there was individual liability rather than communal to the fisc for taxes.

page 245

40. Nassar[1959],90,correcting the edition by Guest,69 where the Greek meizoteroi transliterated into Arabic was read by the editor as mawarith inheritances: Meizoteroi also acted as judical officals,Rouillard[1928] 55,156

41. Gascou and Worp[1982] 90
42. Nassar [1959],109 subanno

43. Abbot[1965],21-35 citing the same account recorded in al-Kindi and al-Maqrizi, writes about the establishment of this colony of qaysites as having been 'a remarkably sucessful agritcultural community centered in Bilbays and the surrounding districts [p.29].

44. Sawirus[PO 5,101], has a reference to these Arabs but he is unaware of their origins.

Agriculture in Egypt
From Pharaonic to Modern Times
edited by Alan K Bowman & Eugene Rogan

Reprinted 2001

Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press

ISBN 0-19-726183-3

Arabs in Middle Egypt during the 1400's:

In discussing the people, Nabulsi divides the population of Fayyum into Bedouins[Arabs] and settled folk,[24] the former being far mor numerous than the latter. The thirteenth-century Fayyum population was dominated by three lineages. First in importance were the Bani Kilab, a great tribe of northern Syria. Second were the Bani 'Ajlan. At a significant but distant third came the Lawatas, a North Africa Berber tribe.[25]

Virtually every Fayyum village was dominated by a branch of one of these three big tribes.[26] In general , the Bani Kilab dominated the central southern and western areas of the Fayyum, the Bani 'Ajlan in the east and north, while the Lawatas mostly dwelt in villages along the Lahun Gap[27]. They were all, of course, Muslims by religion, but Christians minorities in some villages are indicated by the villages being required to pay the poll-tax on Christians[al-jawali,e.g., 46,63, 68]

24. See esp. Chapter 5, 12-14

25. Ashtor[1976],206, cf. 187, 285, 366, n. 9

26. Salmon[1901b], 34-6 lists the tribes and their branches . One exception is the village of Abuksa[46], the majority of whose population were settled folk [hadarat], with an Arab minority from the Jawwab branch of the Bani Kilab. And there were others.

reference

Chapter 13
Fayyum Agriculture at the End of the Ayyubid Era: Nabulsi?s Survey, James G Keenan

Source:

Agriculture in Egypt
From Pharaonic to Modern Times
edited by Alan K Bowman & Eugene Rogan

Reprinted 2001

Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press

ISBN 0-19-726183-3

If Arabs have left Arabia to live in Egypt and all records of Arabs moving to Morocco, Iraq, Syria and Palestine is true. Can any one tell me where this huge numbers of Arabs came from, while Arabia had low population.

I think most of the Sudanese and Egyptians who call themselves Arabs, instead of emphasizing on being arabized are sticky wicky , in the same way those african americans who want to stick to AE. But at least we in Egypt and the Sudan speak and walk and sing and eat like Arabs. So you speak arabic, you have a kind of right to be called Arab

Amr, most of the Arabs that came into Egypt were Syrian bedouins or Yemani Arabs. These movements of Arabs are documented by contemporary Arabic historians like al-Kindi,Ibn Khaldan,and Al-Maqrizi.

During the Caliph there were large settlements of Arabs into the Delta and in parts of Middle Egypt.

Some Bedouin tribes were kicked out of Egypt by the Fatimid caliph and went into Libya and drove the Berbers into the mountains or southward.

This was called the Hilalan invasion.

Here is another reference to Arabs in Egypt during the Middle Ages:

The Arab conquest of Egypt in 640-42,was cocrrently ,the first major bedouin migrations to the Nile Valley. The conquering army was made up very largely of tribemen,apparentenly drawn indiscrimatley from most of the tribesmen of the Arabian Peninsula..

By 642,they are said to have numbered nearly 20,000[15].

This is the figure usually given as the size of the Moselem army which unsucessully invaded Nubia in 642[Chapter 14] [16].

How many of these immigrants settled down in Egypt after the conquest is impossible to say,but probabaly the majority did so.

During the next twqo centuries their numbers sweled through immigration. According to MacMichael,'The cheif occasions of the immigration were the arivals of the new govenors : each one came escorted by an aqrmy of anything up to 20,000 men,many of whom never returned to Syria or Arabia.

A portion of the hordes were Persian,Turkish and other tribes, but the majority here Arabs and would normally be members of the govenor's own tribe[17].

In addition to these regular increments numbers of the Qays Alan tribe were induced to settle Lower Egypt as a counter weight to the influcence of the creasingly rebellious Copts.

For from reinforcing the security of the control goverment,however,the tribesmen became a pereenial of rebellion.[18]

In the beginning most of the Arabs in Egypt did not go to join the nomad groups already resident in the Red Sea Hills and the Western Oases,for unlike bedouins they were not obliged to support themselves entirely or even primarily by pastorial activties They were installed as irregular garrison forces and the provinces of Lower and Middle Egypt,as other Arab groups were similarily installed in the conquest of Iraq and Syria.

this enabled them to graze such animals as they had along the margins and over harvested fields of the Nile Valley,with of without the consent of the Fellaheen.

More importdantly,to exact tribute from the Fellaheen themselkves.

The Arabs in Egypt,like many other nomad groups before and since,lived more as parasites than as pastoralists

. In order to mainstain their millitary effectiveness and mobility ,the Arabs in Egypt were forbidden to own land or engage in cultivation .[19]

This short sighted policy was ro prove diastrous for civil order.

The Arabs were not cut out by training or tradition for the military role which was assigned them once the wars or conquest were over; they were too unruly to serve as provincial garrisons and too undependable to serve as house hold troop.

At the same time the prohibition against holding land precluded their settling down to a useful life within the conquered provinces,and pratically condemed them to return to the predatory times,even had they wished to otherwise.

After the Abbsaid revolution of 750[20] the Arabs found their military role increasingly pre-empted by slave armies of Persian and Turkish origin.

The long series of Arab revolts which further alienated the tribes from goverment which they had helped to create.

Finally in A.D. 834 ,'Caliph al-Mutasin inaugerated his rule by dispatching an order to his governor of Egypt to strike off the names of all Arabs from the register of pensions and stoip paying their salaries.

This was indeed a turning point in the history of Arabs in Egypt .

In short,their service as fighters was no longer needed:they were replaced by Turkish military slaves ..........[21] The disaplecement of Arabs reached its culmination in 868 when one of the Turkish govenors of Egypt,Ibn Tulan,renouched his allegiances to the Caliph and founded the first Egypt's Turkish dyansties.

Not suprisngly,many of the discontended and dispossed Arabs began drifting away from the Nile Valley and back to nomadic life of earlier times.

Some followed the Nile to the relatively freer region of Upper Egypt;others moved to Northern Africa,incidentially over running and Arabizing many of the Berber tribes;still others joined Beja in the eastern hills and along the Red Sea coast.

At the beginning of the ninth century most of the Beja who dwelt in the Red Sea Hills were still pagans,although, a few had adpted a nominal Christianityand others,particulary in the coastal districts,may already have embraced Islam[23].

The tribe soon continued to raid Upper Egypt when opportunity presented itself,and in 831 a punative campaign was under taken against them by Caliph al-Mutasim.

According to Yusuf Hassan,this was the decisive event in opening up the Red Sea Hills to Arab settlement

The Beja were defeated and were forced to sign a capitulation recognicing the caliph as their suzerain and paying an annual tribute. The agreement contained many of the same stipulation as did the baqt treaty with the Nubians,[25],but it was a unilateral capitulation which guaranteed nothing to the Beja in return for their submission. The tribesmen were forbidden to enter the village and towns of Egypt,but there was no provision,as in the case with Nubians,against the Egyptians or Arabs to entering and settling the country of the Beja.

According to Hassan,'By agreeing to pay tribute the beja were treated as a conquered people.

When Kannun[the principal Beja Cheif] recognized the Abbasaid overlordship and became a vassal,the victorious Arabs found an opportunity to extend their own influce ,at least on paper,as far south as Badi.

Arab gains were thus immence and the treaty acted as a spearhead which opened up the country to Arab influce .

Arabs were free to move about the area or to settle ;their commercial interests,religious freedom,and personal safety were all safeguarded by their agreement[26]

MacMichael adds that'The cheif result to Egypt was a cessation of the raids on her southern broder,and to the beja the acquisition of all tribal control by an Arab aristocracy.''[27]

551-554

W.Y. Adams

Nubia Corridor to Africa

Hilalians

In Cairo the Fatimid caliph reacted by inviting the Bani Hilal and Bani Salim, beduin tribes from Arabia known collectively as the Hilalians, to migrate to the Maghrib and punish his rebellious vassals, the Zirids. The

Arab nomads spread across the region, in the words of the historian Ibn Khaldun, like a "swarm of locusts," impoverishing it, destroying towns, and dramatically altering the face and culture of the countryside.

The Hilalian impact on Cyrenaica and Tripolitania was devastating in both economic and demographic terms. Tripoli was sacked, and what little remained of urban life in once-great cities like Cyrene was snuffed out, leaving only ruins. Over a long period of time, Arabs displaced Berbers (many of whom joined the Hilalians) from their traditional lands and converted farmland to pasturage. Land was neglected, and the steppe was allowed to intrude into the coastal plain.

The number of Hilalians who moved westward out of Egypt has been estimated as high as 200,000 families. The Bani Salim seem to have stopped in Libya, while the Bani Hilal continued across the Maghrib until they reached the Atlantic coast of Morocco and completed the Arabization of the region, imposing their social organization, values, and language on it. The process was particularly thorough in Cyrenaica, which is said to be more Arab than any place in the Arab world except for the interior of Arabia.

The Norman rulers of southern Italy took advantage of the Zirids' distress in North Africa to invade Sicily in 1060 and bring it back under Christian control. By 1150 the Normans held a string of ports and fortresses along the coast between Tunis and Tripoli, but their interests in North Africa were commercial rather than political, and no effort was made to extend the conquest inland.