The Founding of al-Fusṭāṭ and Early Islamic Cities of Egypt
The Founding of al-Fusṭāṭ and Early Islamic Cities of Egypt
The Naming of al-Fusṭāṭ
al-Fusṭāṭ itself, just as the name “the City” had previously been applied to Yathrib. The city is mentioned in the Holy Qur’an several times, as in: “What is the matter with the people of the city and those around them of the bedouins that they should remain behind from the Messenger of God?”¹
In the light of the accounts of the early Arab authors and the researches of modern scholars, it has become possible to determine the site of al-Fusṭāṭ as far as is feasible, and to form some idea of its planning and the extent of its building.
Scholars Who Wrote About al-Fusṭāṭ
Among the most famous Arab authors who wrote about al-Fusṭāṭ are Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam in Futūḥ Miṣr wa-Akhbāruhā, Ibn Duqmāq in al-Intiṣār li-Wāsiṭat ʿIqd al-Amṣār, Ibn Saʿīd al-Andalusī in al-Mughrib, al-Qalqashandī in Ṣubḥ al-Aʿshā, and al-Maqrīzī in al-Khiṭaṭ.
As for modern scholars, the most important of them are ʿAlī Bahjat and Gabriel (Kitāb Ḥafriyyāt al-Fusṭāṭ), Casanova (Ṭūbūghrāfiyat al-Fusṭāṭ), Fred Shāfiʿī (ʿImārat Miṣr al-ʿArabiyya), and Jamāl al-Dīn al-Shayyāl (Tārīkh Miṣr al-Islāmiyya).
| Scholar | Work |
|---|---|
| Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam | Futūḥ Miṣr wa-Akhbāruhā |
| Ibn Duqmāq | al-Intiṣār li-Wāsiṭat ʿIqd al-Amṣār |
| Ibn Saʿīd al-Andalusī | al-Mughrib |
| al-Qalqashandī | Ṣubḥ al-Aʿshā |
| al-Maqrīzī | al-Khiṭaṭ |
| ʿAlī Bahjat and Gabriel | Kitāb Ḥafriyyāt al-Fusṭāṭ |
| Casanova | Ṭūbūghrāfiyat al-Fusṭāṭ |
| Fred Shāfiʿī | ʿImārat Miṣr al-ʿArabiyya |
| Jamāl al-Dīn al-Shayyāl | Tārīkh Miṣr al-Islāmiyya |
The Distribution of Khiṭaṭ
Just as the Arabs had done when founding Basra and Kufa, ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ began by building a mosque and erected a house for himself beside it. He then entrusted the process of distributing the khiṭaṭ among the groups of tribes to four men of the Arabs: they were Muʿāwiya ibn Ḥudayj al-Tujībī, Ḥuwayl ibn Nāshira al-Maʿāfirī, Sharīk ibn Sumayy al-Ghuṭayfī, and ʿAmr ibn Qahzam al-Khawlānī. They distributed the lands around the mosque among the groups of the tribes. These men marked out the khiṭaṭ, and the houses and mosques were built, and these khiṭaṭ were named after the tribes or the groups that settled them, such as the khiṭṭa of Tujīb, the khiṭṭa of Mahra, the khiṭṭa of Lakhm, and others.
It becomes clear from the names of some of the khiṭaṭ that non-Arab troops participated in the conquest of Egypt. Among these, for example, is the khiṭṭa of the Persians, who were remnants of the troops of Bāzān, the governor of Kisra, king of the Persians over Yemen; and the khiṭṭa of the Ḥamrāwāt, so named because some of the Byzantines who were red in colour participated in it. Among them were the Banū Nabih and the Banū al-Azraq. About four hundred men of the Banū al-Azraq were present at the conquest, and with them settled the Banū Yashkur. Mount Yashkur was later named after them, and the Mosque of Ibn Ṭūlūn was later built upon it.
The greatest and widest of the khiṭaṭ was the khiṭṭa of the People of the Banner. They were a group of Quraysh, the Anṣār, and other tribes. There was not enough of them in number for each to have a separate khiṭṭa, because ʿAmr was niggardly towards them and did not assign a banner to anyone, so they became known as the People of the Banner.
The people of the khiṭaṭ began to build the houses and the mosques that extended around the mosque towards the east, the north, and the south.
Among these khiṭaṭ were houses of a group of the Companions who took part in the conquest of Egypt, such as the house of ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, the house of al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām, and likewise the house of Yaʿqūb the Copt and the house of Jabr the Copt. These two had been the companions of the lady Māriya the Copt to Medina when al-Muqawqis presented her to the Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace).
The Boundaries of al-Fusṭāṭ
The khiṭaṭ of al-Fusṭāṭ were bounded on the west by the course of the Nile, which at that time ran close to the western side of the fortress of Babylon, then to the Mosque of ʿAmr, where it passed immediately to its west and then turned towards the present site of the shrine of Sayyida Zaynab. It was bounded on the east by ʿAyn al-Ṣīra, on the south-east by the slope overlooking Birkat al-Ḥabash at Dayr al-Salām today, and on the north by Mount Yashkur, on which the Mosque of Ibn Ṭūlūn was later built. That is to say, al-Fusṭāṭ occupied an area whose length from north to south was about five thousand metres, and whose width from east to west was about one thousand metres.¹
In view of the fact that this area was much wider than could be limited to the troops of ʿAmr, whose number according to some accounts was twelve thousand soldiers only, some scholars try to conclude from this that the houses of these khiṭaṭ were of a high degree of spaciousness, that some of them were isolated from others and did not adjoin each other except near the mosque only, and that the farther a house was from the mosque the greater its isolation became. It is more probable that the khiṭaṭ included this large area so as to accommodate also the dwellings of the original Copts who were living there before that, and those of them who later came to carry out the work of crafts and trade with the Arabs. The historians have mentioned that there were at the site of al-Fusṭāṭ a number of churches and monasteries for the Christians, and it is not unlikely that churches were established in several areas empty of inhabitants.
The Mosque of ʿAmr
The Mosque of ʿAmr, when it was founded, stood on the eastern bank of the Nile in an area that had trees and vines, and it occupied an area twenty-five metres in length and fifteen metres in width.²
It is said that eighty men of the Companions took part in determining its qibla, and some say eighty only. Nevertheless, it is said that this qibla later deviated towards the east more than it should have. Its qibla was determined by a column standing against the wall of the front, and it had two doors on each of its sides except the wall of the qibla.
Among them were two doors facing the house of ʿAmr on the eastern side of the mosque, and its length was equal to the length of the mosque from its qibla to its sea side. Between the mosque and the house of ʿAmr was a road about three and a half metres wide. ʿAmr drew inspiration for the planning of the mosque and the house and the relationship between them from the Mosque of the Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace) and his house in Medina. It is said that when ʿAmr finished building it he took a minbar from which to deliver the sermon, but the Caliph ʿUmar ordered him to break it and wrote to him: “It is enough for you that you stand and the Muslims sit beneath your feet.”
Many buildings followed one another upon the Mosque of ʿAmr until nothing remained of the original mosque that ʿAmr built except the patch of ground upon which it was constructed. This patch is found in the riwāq of the qibla in the northern half of the mosque, that is, to the left of the one standing in front of the middle miḥrāb and facing towards the qibla.¹
In the beginning the houses of al-Fusṭāṭ surrounded the Mosque of ʿAmr on three sides only, because the Nile ran immediately to its west, as we have already mentioned. The area lying between it and the Nile then gradually expanded.
The Destruction and the Founding of al-ʿAskar
In the period of the Umayyad governors, the development of al-Fusṭāṭ began to increase. Then the city was subjected to some acts of destruction at the end of the Umayyad period during the pursuit of the Abbasid armies of Marwān ibn Muḥammad, the last of the Umayyad caliphs, in the year 133 AH (750 AD). The destruction that the city suffered at the hands of the Umayyads was more severe than that which it suffered at the hands of the incoming Abbasids. That is because the Umayyads deliberately resorted to destruction as a means of delaying the Abbasid armies from the pursuit, or out of hatred that they should leave this building for the Abbasids to enjoy. As a result of these events the northern side of al-Fusṭāṭ was ruined up to the foot of Mount Yashkur and became empty of buildings.
The Abbasid victory in Egypt was completed at the hands of Ṣāliḥ ibn ʿAlī, the commander of their armies, who pursued Marwān ibn Muḥammad in Egypt, caught up with him and was able to kill him. Ṣāliḥ ibn ʿAlī settled as the first governor of Egypt on behalf of the new Abbasid caliphate. When the amīr Abū ʿAwn succeeded him in the governorship of Egypt in the year 135 AH (752 AD), he began the foundation of a new city on the northern side of al-Fusṭāṭ, which had become an empty waste. In view of the fact that this city was founded to house the Abbasid army, it was named al-ʿAskar. The limit of al-ʿAskar on the south was at Kawm al-Jāriḥ, on the north at Qanāṭir al-Sibāʿ, on the west at Qanṭarat al-Sadd, and on the east at the hills of al-Muqaṭṭam.
In al-ʿAskar a house of government was built in which the Abbasid governors resided, and al-Faḍl ibn Ṣāliḥ built a mosque in it in the year 169 AH (785 AD) that was not destined to last.
In the year 200 AH (816 AD), during the governorship of al-Sarī ibn al-Ḥakam, the people were allowed to build around al-ʿAskar, so building increased until it joined al-Fusṭāṭ and the great houses were erected.
Among the indications that the name “Miṣr” was also applied to this city at that time is the application of the name of the whole country to the capital, just as the name al-Shām is applied to Damascus. This designation is confirmed by the discovery in the excavations of al-Fusṭāṭ of a piece of glass dated to the year 163 AH (779 AD) on which it is inscribed that it was made in Miṣr,¹ just as we have a dinar dated to the year 199 AH (814 AD) on which it is inscribed that it was struck in Miṣr. We also have copper coins, the earliest of which goes back to the year 133 AH (750 AD), on which the name Miṣr is inscribed, all of them preserved among the collections of the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo.
Ibn Ṭūlūn and al-Qaṭāʾiʿ
Al-ʿAskar remained the capital of Egypt and the centre of the amirate, administration and police until the year 256 AH (870 AD), when Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn founded a new city, al-Qaṭāʾiʿ, which he took as capital and as headquarters for the army and the administration. Bakbāk, the master of the fiefs, had come to Egypt in the year 254 AH (868 AD) as a deputy for Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn, and he was the husband of the mother of Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn. It was the custom of the holders of fiefs of the provinces not to reside in them, but to stay at the centre of the caliphate in Sāmarrāʾ and to send their deputies to the provinces. When Bakbāk was killed, the fief of Egypt was granted to Yārjūkh. The father-in-law of Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn sent him as a deputy to govern Egypt, but he gave him a free hand in it until he said to him: “Hand over Egypt to yourself.” The governorship of Alexandria was also assigned to him, and Barqa was subject to him, and his authority extended over all the regions of the Egyptian country. Ibn Ṭūlūn did not remain long before he became independent in the rule of Egypt and then added the lands of al-Shām to it.²
Ibn Ṭūlūn established himself at first in al-ʿAskar and resided in the house of its government, and founded
Module Key Takeaways
- al-Fusṭāṭ was the first Islamic city in Egypt, founded by ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ with the mosque at its center and khiṭaṭ distributed among the tribes.
- The city's boundaries extended about 5 km north to south and 1 km east to west, with the Nile on the west and Mount Yashkur on the north.
- Al-ʿAskar was founded in 135 AH as the Abbasid administrative center, later followed by al-Qaṭāʾiʿ under Ibn Ṭūlūn in 256 AH.