1 Amélineau, p. 3; Caetani, vol. iv. p. 81 sq. Justinian is said to have had 200,000 Copts put to death in the city of Alexandria, and the persecutions of his successors drove many to take refuge in the desert. (Wansleben: The Present State of Egypt, p. 11.) (London, 1678.) ↑
3 John, Jacobite bishop of Nikiu (second half of seventh century), p. 584. Caetani, vol. iv. pp. 515–16. ↑
4 Bell, p. xxxvii. But the exactions and hardships that, according to Maqrīzī, the Copts had to endure about seventy years after the conquest hardly allow us to extend this period so far as Von Ranke does: “Von Aegypten weiss man durch die bestimmtesten Zeugnisse, dass sich die Einwohner in den nächsten Jahrhunderten unter der arabischen Herrschaft in einem erträglichen Zustand befunden haben.” (Weltgeschichte, vol. v. p. 153, 4th ed.) ↑
6 Id. p. 585. “Or beaucoup des Égyptiens, qui étaient de faux chrétiens, renièrent la sainte religion orthodoxe et le baptême qui donne la vie, embrassèrent la religion des Musulmans, les ennemis de Dieu, et acceptèrent la détestable doctrine de ce monstre, c’est-à-dire de Mahomet; ils partagèrent l’égarement de ces idolâtres et prirent les armes contre les chrétiens.” ↑
7 Qurra b. Sharīk (governor of Egypt from 709 to 714), or his predecessor, appears to have insisted on the converts continuing to pay jizyah. (Becker, Papyri Schott-Reinhardt, p. 18.) ↑
12 “Sans aucun doute il y eut dans la multiplicité des martyrs une sorte de résistance nationale contre les gouverneurs étrangers.” (Amélineau, p. 58.) ↑
16 Abū Ṣāliḥ gives an account of some monks who embraced the faith of the Prophet, and these are probably representative of a larger number of whom the historian has left no record, as lacking the peculiar circumstances of loss to the monastery or of recantation that made such instances of interest to him (pp. 128, 142). ↑
18 Lüttke (1), vol. i. pp. 30, 35. Dr. Andrew Watson writes: “No year has passed during my residence of forty-four years in the Nile valley without my hearing of several instances of defection. The causes are, chiefly, the hope of worldly gain of various kinds, severe and continued persecution, exposure to the cruelty and rapacity of Moslem neighbours, and personal indignities as well as political disabilities of various kinds.” (Islam in Egypt: Mohammedan World, p. 24.) ↑
19 Severus, pp. 122, 126, 143. One of the very first occasions on which they had to complain of excessive taxation was when Menas, the Christian prefect of Lower Egypt, extorted from the city of Alexandria 32,057 pieces of gold, instead of 22,000 which ʻAmr had fixed as the amount to be levied. (John of Nikiu, p. 585.) Renaudot (p. 168) says that after the restoration of the Orthodox hierarchy, about seventy years after the Muhammadan conquest, the Copts suffered as much at its hands as at the hands of the Muhammadans themselves. ↑
20 Maqrīzī mentions five other risings of the Copts that had to be crushed by force of arms, within the first century of the Arab domination. (Maqrīzī (2), pp. 76–82.) ↑
27 Wansleben, p. 30. Wansleben mentions another instance (under different circumstances) of the decay of the Coptic Church, in the island of Cyprus, which was formerly under the jurisdiction of the Coptic Patriarch: here they were so persecuted by the Orthodox clergy, who enjoyed the protection of the Byzantine emperors, that the Patriarch could not induce priests to go there, and consequently all the Copts on the island either accepted Islam or the Council of Chalcedon, and their churches were all shut up. (Id. p. 31.) ↑
30 Relation du voyage du Sayd ou de la Thebayde fait en 1668, par les PP. Protais et Charles-François d’Orleans, Capuchins Missionaires, p. 3. (Thevenot, vol. ii.) ↑
41 Slatin Pasha records a tradition current among the Danagla Arabs that this town was founded by their ancestor, Dangal, who called it after his own name. (This however is impossible, inasmuch as Dongola was in existence in ancient Egyptian times, and is mentioned on the monuments. See Vivien de Saint-Martin, vol. ii. p. 85.) According to their tradition, this Dangal, though a slave, rose to be ruler of Nubia, but paid tribute to Bahnesa, the Coptic bishop of the entire district lying between the present Sarras and Debba. (Fire and Sword in the Sudan, p. 13.) (London, 1896.) ↑
46 Lord Stanley of Alderley in his translation of Alvarez’ Narrative from the original Portuguese, gives the answer of the king as follows: “He said to them that he had his Abima from the country of the Moors, that is to say from the Patriarch of Alexandria; … how then could he give priests and friars since another gave them” (p. 352). (London, 1881.) ↑
47 Viaggio nella Ethiopia al Prete Ianni fatto par Don Francesco Alvarez Portughese (1520–1527). (Ramusio, tom. i. pp. 200, 250.) ↑
48 Wansleben, p. 30. For descriptions of the ruins that still remain, see Budge, vol. ii. p. 299 sqq., and G. S. Nileham, Churches in Lower Nubia. (Philadelphia, 1910.) ↑
70 Massaja, vol. ii. pp. 205–6. “Ognuno comprende che movente di queste conversioni essendo la sete di regnare, nel fatto non si riducevano che ad una formalità esterna, restando poi i nuovi convertiti veri mussulmani nei cuori e nei costumi. E perciò accadeva che, elevati alla dignità di Râs, si circondavano di mussulmani, dando ad essi la maggior parte degli impieghi e colmandoli di titoli, ricchezze e favori: e così l’Abissinia cristiana invasa e popolata da questa pessima razza, passò coll’andar del tempo sotto il giogo dell’islamismo.” (Id. p. 206.) ↑
84 Littmann, pp. 68–70. K. Cederquist: Islam and Christianity in Abyssinia, p. 154 (The Moslem World, vol. ii.). ↑
94 Neander (1), vol. v. pp. 254–5. J. E. T. Wiltsch: Hand-book of the geography and statistics of the Church, vol. i. pp. 433–4. (London, 1859.) J. Bournichon: L’Invasion musulmane en Afrique, pp. 32–3. (Tours, 1890.) ↑
96 “Deusen, una città antichissima edificata da Romani dove confina il regno di Buggia col diserto di Numidia.” (Id. p. 75, F.) ↑
98 “Tous ceux qui ne se convertirent pas à l’islamisme, ou qui (conservant leur foi) ne voulurent pas s’obliger à payer la capitation, durent prendre la fuite devant les armées musulmanes.” (Tijānī, p. 201.) ↑
100 “Afros passim ad ecclesiasticos ordines (procedentes) prætendentes nulla ratione suscipiat (Bonifacius), quia aliqui eorum Manichæi, aliqui rebaptizati sæpius sunt probati.” Epist. iv. (Migne: Patr. Lat., tom. lxxxix, p. 502.) ↑
102 Qayrwān or Cairoan, founded A.H. 50; Fez, founded A.H. 185; al-Mahdiyyah, founded A.H. 303; Masīlah, founded A.H. 315; Marocco, founded A.H. 424. (Abū’l-Fidā, tome ii. pp. 198, 186, 200, 191, 187.) ↑
104 A doubtful case of forced conversion is attributed to ʻAbd al-Muʼmin, who conquered Tunis in 1159. See De Mas Latrie (2), pp. 77–8. “Deux auteurs arabes, Ibn-al-Athir, contemporain, mais vivant à Damas au milieu de l’exaltation religieuse que provoquaient les victoires de Saladin, l’autre El-Tidjani, visitant l’Afrique orientale au quatorzième siècle, ont écrit que le sultan, maître de Tunis, força les chrétiens et les juifs établis dans cette ville à embrasser l’islamisme, et que les réfractaires furent impitoyablement massacrés. Nous doutons de la réalité de toutes ces mesures. Si l’arrêt fatal fut prononcé dans l’emportement du triomphe et pour satisfaire quelques exigences momentanées, il dut être éludé ou révoqué, tant il était contraire au principe de la liberté religieuse respecté jusque-là par tous les princes maugrebins. Ce qu’il y a de certain, c’est que les chrétiens et les juifs ne tardèrent pas à reparaître à Tunis et qu’on voit les chrétiens avant la fin du règne d’Abd-el-Moumen établis à Tunis et y jouissant comme par le passé de la liberté, de leurs établissements, de leur commerce et de leur religion.… ‘Accompagné ainsi par Dieu même dans sa marche, dit un ancien auteur maugrebin, il traversa victorieusement les terres du Zab et de l’Ifrikiah, conquérant le pays et les villes, accordant l’aman à ceux qui le demandaient et tuant les récalcitrants.’ Ces derniers mots confirment notre sentiment sur sa politique à l’égard des chrétiens qui acceptèrent l’arrêt fatal de la destinée.” ↑
106 S. Leonis IX. Papæ Epist. lxxxiii. (Migne: Patr. Lat., tom. cxliii. p. 728.) This letter deals with a quarrel for precedence between the bishops of Gummi and Carthage, and it is quite possible that the disordered condition of Africa at the time may have kept the African bishops ignorant of the condition of other sees besides their own and those immediately adjacent, and that accordingly the information supplied to the Pope represented the number of the bishops as being smaller than it really was. ↑
109 De Mas Latrie, p. 226. A number of Spanish Christians, whose ancestors had been deported to Morocco in 1122, were to be found there as late as 1386, when they were allowed to return to Seville through the good offices of the then sultan of Morocco. (Whishaw, pp. 31–4.) ↑
111 Compare the articles published by a Junta held at Madrid in 1566, for the reformation of the Moriscoes; one of which runs as follows: “That neither themselves, their women, nor any other persons should be permitted to wash or bathe themselves either at home or elsewhere; and that all their bathing houses should be pulled down and demolished.” (J. Morgan, vol. ii. p. 256.) ↑
113 Leo Africanus says that at the end of the fifteenth century all the mountaineers of Algeria and of Buggia, though Muhammadans, painted black crosses on their cheeks and palms of the hand (Ramusio, i. p. 61); similarly the Banū Mzab to the present day still keep up some religious observances corresponding to excommunication and confession (Oppel, p. 299), and some nomad tribes of the Sahara observe the practice of a kind of baptism and use the cross as a decoration for their stuffs and weapons. (De Mas Latrie (2), p. 8.) ↑