ead of the
vast Mohammedan empire, which then stretched from Seville to Samarkand,
whose capital was first Damascus and afterwards Baghdad.

For over 200 years (till 868) Egypt was a mere province of this huge
caliphate, and was governed, like other provinces, with a sole view to
revenue. "Milk till the udder be dry and let blood to the last drop" was
a caliph's instructions to a governor of Egypt. As these governors were
constantly changed--there were sixty-seven in 118 years under the
Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad--and as a governor's main object was to "make
hay while the sun shines," the process of milking the Egyptian cow was
often accelerated by illegal extortion, and the governor's harvest was
reaped before it was due. Illegality was, however, checked to some
extent by the generally wise and just influence of the chief justice, or
kadi, whose probity often formed the best feature of the Arab government
in Egypt.

Nor did the caliphs extort taxes without giving something in return. The
development of irrigation works was always a main consideration with the
early Mohammedan rules, from Spain to India, and in Egypt, where
irrigation is the country's very life, it was specially cared for, with
a corresponding increase in the yield. Moreover, the governors usually
held to the agreement that the Christians should have liberty of
conscience, and protected them from the Moslem soldiery. As time went
on, this toleration abated, partly because the Moslems had gradually
become the predominant population. At the beginning the caliphs had
taken anxious precautions against the colonising of Egypt; they held it
by an army, but they were insistent that the army should not take root,
but be always free to join the caliph's standard. But it was inevitable
that the Arabs should settle in so fertile and pleasant a land. Each
governor brought a small army as his escort, and these Arab troops
naturally intermarried with Egyptian women, who were constitutionally
inclined to such alliances. A few Arab tribes also settled in Egypt.

This gradual and undesigned Arabising of the country would lead to
oppression of the Christians, to the "squeezing" of wealthy natives, and
occasionally to the institution of humiliating distinctions of dress and
other vexations, and even to the spoiling of Coptic churches. Then
sometimes the Copts, as the Egyptian Christians are called, would rebel.
Their last and greatest rebellion, which occurred in the De