Muslim invasion of Egypt in the context of Sasanian conquest of Egypt


Muslim invasion of Egypt in the context of Sasanian conquest of Egypt

⭐ Core Definition: Muslim invasion of Egypt

The Arab conquest of Egypt, led by the army of Amr ibn al-As, under the Rashidun Caliphate took place between 639 and 642 AD. It ended the Roman period in Egypt which began in 30 BC and lasted for seven centuries, and more broadly, the Greco-Roman period which lasted for about a millennium.

Prior to the conquest, Byzantine rule in the country had been shaken, as Egypt had been conquered and occupied by the Sasanian Empire for a decade between 618–629, before being reconquered by the Byzantines under emperor Heraclius. The Caliphate took advantage of Byzantines' exhaustion to invade Egypt.

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Muslim invasion of Egypt in the context of Byzantine Anatolia

Byzantine Anatolia refers to the peninsula of Anatolia (located in present-day Turkey) during the rule of the Byzantine Empire. Anatolia was of vital importance to the empire following the Muslim invasion of Syria and Egypt during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in the years 634–645 AD. Over the next two hundred and fifty years, the region suffered constant raids by Arab Muslim forces raiding mainly from the cities of Antioch, Tarsus, and Aleppo near the Anatolian borders. However, the Byzantine Empire maintained control over the Anatolian peninsula until the High Middle Ages (years 1080s), when imperial authority in the area began to collapse.

The Byzantine Empire re-established control over parts of Anatolia during the First Crusade, and following the sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade, Anatolia became the heartland of the successor states of the Empire of Nicaea and Empire of Trebizond. Following the retaking of Constantinople in 1261, the region gradually passed out of Byzantine control and into the hands of the Ottoman Turks as the empire gradually crumbled. The last Byzantine fortress of Philadelphia fell in 1399, and the last Byzantine presence in the area at Trapezus ended in 1461 with the fall of Trebizond.

View the full Wikipedia page for Byzantine Anatolia
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