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Updated: May 17, 2025
This wish found public expression as soon as the downfall of the imperial power in Egypt permitted its free manifestation. Amr listened to the supplications that were addressed to him, and, turning out the usurper in his turn, recalled Benjamin from his long exile and replaced him on the patriarchal throne. But even here Amr's protection of the Koptic religion did not end.
After all these improvements in the internal administration, the governor turned his attention to the question of justice, which until that moment had been subject to the decision of financial agents, or of the soldiers of the Greek government. Amr now created permanent and regular tribunals composed of honourable, independent, and enlightened men, who enjoyed public respect and esteem.
In the early days of the conquest of Egypt the Khalif 'Omar wrote to his general and asked him what the sea was like, to which 'Amr made answer: "The Sea is a huge beast which silly folk ride like worms on logs;" whereupon, much distressed, the prudent Khalif gave orders that no Moslem should voyage on so unruly an element without his leave.
The patriarch set out for Baghdad, restored the favourite to health, and in reward received from the caliph an imperial diploma, which restored to the orthodox Christians or Melchites all those privileges of which they had been deprived by the Jacobite heretics since their union with the conqueror Amr ibn el-Asi."
Quoth I to myself, "This is another proof positive." Then I said to him, "And how couldst thou fall in love with one thou hast never seen?" He replied, "Know that I was sitting one day at the window, when, lo! there passed by a man, singing the following distich: "'Umm Amr', thy boons Allah repay! Give back my heart, be't where it may!"
The schoolmaster continued, "When I heard the man humming these words as he passed along the street, I said to myself, 'Except this Umm Amru were without equal in the world, the poets had not celebrated her in ode and canzon. So I fell in love with her; but two days after, the same man passed, singing the following couplet: "'Ass and Umm Amr' went their way, Nor she nor ass returned for aye.
The name of the Abbasside caliph was at once expunged from the Friday prayers at the old mosque of Amr at Fustat; the black Abbasside robes were proscribed, and the preacher, in pure white, recited the Khutba for the imam Moizz, emir el-muminin, and invoked blessings on his ancestors Ali and Fatima and all their holy family. The call to prayer from the minarets was adapted to Shiah taste.
Among the inhabitants of Alexandria whom Amr had so well received, says the monkish chronicler, was one John the Grammarian, a learned Greek, disciple of the Jacobite sect, who had been imprisoned by its persecutors. Since his disgrace, he had given himself up entirely to study, and was one of the most assiduous readers in the famous library.
The origin of Cairo dates back to the Muslim invasion in 640; the original Arab settlement was called Fustât, the "Town of the Tent," which is substantially the old Cairo of to-day. Here was erected almost at once the first mosque, that of Amr, sometimes called Amru.
To Amr dates back the first of those divans, chosen from the élite of the population, as sureties of the fairness of the cadis, which received appeals from first judgments to confirm them, or, in the case of wrongful decisions, to alter them. The decrees of the Arab judges had force only for those Mussulmans who formed a part of the occupying army.
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