Amr ibn al-As ibn Wa'il al-Sahmi (664) was an Arab commander and companion of Muhammad who led the Muslim conquest of Egypt and served as its governor in 640–646 and 658–664. The son of a wealthy Qurayshite, Amr embraced Islam in and was assigned important roles in the nascent Muslim community by the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The first caliph Abu Bakr () appointed Amr as a commander of what became the conquest of Syria. He conquered most of Palestine, to which he was appointed governor, and helped lead the Arabs to decisive victories over the Byzantines at the battles of Ajnadayn and the Yarmuk in 634 and 636.
Amr launched the expedition that conquered Egypt on his own initiative in late 639, defeating the Byzantines in a string of victories ending with the surrender of Alexandria in 641 or 642. It was the swiftest of the early Muslim conquests. This was followed by westward advances by Amr as far as Tripoli in present-day Libya. In a treaty signed with the Byzantine governor Cyrus, Amr guaranteed the security of Egypt's population and imposed a poll tax on non-Muslim adult men. He maintained the Coptic-dominated bureaucracy and cordial ties with the Coptic patriarch Benjamin. He founded Fustat as the provincial capital with the mosque later called after him at its center. Amr ruled relatively independently, acquired significant wealth, and upheld the interests of the Arab conquerors who formed Fustat's garrison in relation to the central authorities in Medina. After gradually diluting Amr's authority, Caliph Uthman () dismissed him in 646 after accusations of incompetence from his successor Abd Allah ibn Sa'd.
After mutineers from Egypt assassinated Uthman, Amr distanced himself from their cause, despite previously instigating opposition against Uthman. In the ensuing First Fitna, Amr joined Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan against Caliph Ali () due to promises of the governorship of Egypt and its tax revenues. Amr served as Mu'awiya's representative in the abortive arbitration talks to end the war. Afterward, he wrested control of Egypt from Ali's loyalists, killing its governor Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr, and assumed the governorship instead. Mu'awiya kept him in his post after establishing the Umayyad Caliphate in 661 and Amr ruled the province until his death.
Early life and military career Amr ibn al-As was born in . His father, al-As ibn Wa'il, was a wealthy landowner from the Banu Sahm clan of the Quraysh tribe of Mecca. Following the death of al-As in , Amr inherited from him the lucrative estate and vineyards near Ta'if. Amr's mother was al-Nabigha bint Harmala from the Banu Jallan clan of the Anaza tribe. She had been taken captive and sold, in succession, to several members of the Quraysh, one of whom was Amr's father. As such, Amr had two maternal half-brothers, Amr ibn Atatha of the Banu Adi and Uqba ibn Nafi of the Banu Fihr, and a half-sister from the Banu Abd Shams. Amr is physically described in the traditional sources as being short with broad shoulders, having a large head with a wide forehead and wide mouth, long arms and a long beard.
There are conflicting reports about when Amr embraced Islam, with the most credible version placing it in 629/630, not long before the conquest of Mecca by Muhammad. According to this account, he converted alongside the Qurayshites Khalid ibn al-Walid and Uthman ibn Talha. According to Amr's own testimony, transmitted by his fourth-generation descendant Amr ibn Shu'ayb, he converted in Axum in the presence of King Armah (Najashi) and met Muhammad in Medina upon the latter's return from the Battle of Khaybar in 628. Amr conditioned his conversion on the forgiveness of his past sins and an "active part in affairs", according to a report cited by the historian Ibn Asakir (d. 1176).
Indeed, in October 629, Amr was tasked by Muhammad with leading the raid on Dhat al-Salasil, likely located in the northern Hejaz (western Arabia), a lucrative opportunity for Amr in view of the potential war spoils. The purpose of the raid is unclear, though the modern historian Fred Donner speculates that it was to "break up a gathering of hostile tribal groups" possibly backed by the Byzantine Empire. The historian Ibn Hisham (d. 833) holds that Amr rallied the nomadic Arabs in the region "to make war on [Byzantine] Syria". The tribal groups targeted in the raid included the Quda'a in general and the Bali specifically. Amr's paternal grandmother hailed from the Bali, and this may have motivated his appointment to the command by Muhammad as Amr was instructed to recruit tribesmen from the Bali and the other Quda'a tribes of Balqayn and Banu Udhra. Following the raid, a delegation of the Bali embraced Islam. Amr further consecrated ties with the tribe by marrying a Bali woman, with whom he had his son Muhammad.
Muhammad appointed Amr as the governor of Oman and he remained there until being informed of Muhammad's death in 632. Amr was personally chosen by Muhammad to deliver a letter calling the kings of Oman, the Julanda brothers Abd and Jayfa, to convert to Islam while being accompanied by Sa'id ibn Aws al-Ansari. Historian Al-Baladhuri reports that on their departure to Sohar, Muhammad said to them:
The death of Muhammad prompted several Arab tribes to defect from the nascent Medina-based Muslim polity in the Ridda wars. Muhammad's successor Caliph Abu Bakr () appointed Amr to rein in the apostate Quda'a tribes, and among those targeted were the Hejazi branches of the Bali. Amr's campaigns, which were supported by the commander Shurahbil ibn Hasana, succeeded in restoring Medina's authority as far as the northern frontier with Syria.
Governor of Palestine and role in the Syrian conquest Amr was one of four commanders dispatched by Abu Bakr to conquer Syria in 633. The focus of Amr's campaign was Palestine, to which he had been appointed governor by Abu Bakr before his departure. As a Qurayshite merchant Amr was likely already well-acquainted with the routes to Gaza, a principle terminal for Meccan caravans. He took the coastal route of the Hejaz, reaching Ayla, a Muslim possession since 630, before breaking west into the Negev desert or possibly the Sinai. He arrived near the villages of Dathin and Badan in Gaza's environs where he entered into talks with Gaza's Byzantine commander. After the negotiations broke down, Amr's men bested the Byzantines at the Battle of Dathin on 4 February 634 and set up headquarters at Ghamr al-Arabat in the middle of the Wadi Araba. Most accounts hold that Amr's army was 3,000-strong; the Muhajirun (emigrants from Mecca to Medina) and the Ansar (natives of Medina), who together formed the core of the earliest Muslim converts, dominated his forces according to al-Waqidi (d. 823), while the 9th-century historian Ibn A'tham holds that Amr's army consisted of 3,300 Qurayshite and allied horsemen, 1,700 horsemen from the Banu Sulaym and 200 from the Yemenite tribe of Madh'hij. The historian Philip Mayerson considers the troop figures to be "unquestionably exaggerated" but still representing the largest Arab fighting force to have ever been assembled in southern Palestine and the Sinai until then.
Amr conquered the area around Gaza by February or March 634 and proceeded to besiege Caesarea, the capital of Byzantine Palestine, in July. He soon after abandoned the siege upon the approach of a large Byzantine army. After being reinforced by the remainder of the Muslim armies in Syria, including the new arrivals commanded by Khalid ibn al-Walid, Amr, with overall command of the 20,000-strong Muslim forces, routed the Byzantine army at the Battle of Ajnadayn, the first major confrontation between the Muslims and Byzantium, in July–August 634. Amr occupied numerous towns in Palestine, including Bayt Jibrin, Yibna, Amwas, Lydda, Jaffa, Nablus and Sebastia. Most of these localities surrendered after little resistance due to the flight of Byzantine troops; consequently, there is scant information about them in the traditional accounts of the conquest. Abu Bakr's successor Umar () appointed or confirmed Amr as the commander and governor of the military district of Palestine.
The Muslims pursued the Byzantine army northward and besieged them at Pella for four months. Amr may have retained overall command of the Muslim armies until this point, though other accounts assign command to Khalid or Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah. In any case, the Muslims landed a heavy blow against the Byzantines in the ensuing Battle of Fahl in December 634 or January 635. Afterward, Amr and Shurahbil may have been sent to besiege Beisan, which capitulated after minor resistance. The Muslims proceeded to besiege Damascus, where the remnants of the Byzantine army from the battles of Ajnadayn and Fahl had gathered. Amr was positioned at the Bab Tuma gate, the Muslim commanders having each been assigned to block one of the city's entrances. By August–September 635, Damascus surrendered to the Muslims. Amr acquired several residences there.
In response to the series of defeats, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius () led a large army in person to confront the Muslims; its rout at the Battle of Yarmouk, in which Amr played a key role by confining the Byzantines between the banks of the Yarmouk River and the Yarmouk's ravine, in August–September 636, paved the way for the rest of Syria's conquest by the Muslims. Following Yarmouk, the Muslims attempted to capture Jerusalem, where Amr had previously sent an advance force. Abu Ubayda led the siege of Jerusalem, in which Amr participated, but the city only surrendered after Caliph Umar arrived in person to conclude a treaty with its defenders. Amr was one of the witnesses of the Treaty of Umar. From Jerusalem, Amr then proceeded to besiege and capture the city of Gaza.
First governorship of Egypt Conquest of Egypt
From his base in southern Palestine, Amr launched the conquest of Byzantine Egypt. He had established trading interests there before his conversion to Islam, making him aware of its importance in international trade. The traditional Muslim sources generally hold that Amr undertook the campaign with Caliph Umar's reluctant approval, though a number of accounts hold that he entered the region without Umar's authorization. At the head of 4,000 cavalries and with no siege engines, Amr arrived at the frontier town of al-Arish along the northern Sinai coastline on 12 December 639. He captured the strategic Mediterranean port city of Pelusium (al-Farama) following a month-long siege and moved against Bilbeis, which also fell after a month-long siege.
Amr halted his campaign before the fortified Byzantine stronghold of Babylon, at the head of the Nile Delta, and requested reinforcements from Umar. The latter dispatched Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, a leading Qurayshite companion of Muhammad, with a 4,000-strong force, which joined Amr's camp in June 640. Amr retained the supreme command of Arab forces in Egypt. In the following month, his army decisively defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Heliopolis. He captured Memphis soon after and besieged Babylon. During the siege, Amr entered truce negotiations with the Alexandria-based Byzantine governor Cyrus; Emperor Heraclius opposed the talks and recalled Cyrus to Constantinople. Though strong resistance was put up by Babylon's defenders, their morale was sapped after news of Heraclius' death in February 641. Amr made an agreement with the Byzantine garrison, allowing their peaceful withdrawal toward the provincial capital Alexandria on 9 April 641. Amr then sent his lieutenants to conquer different parts of the country. One of them, Kharija ibn Hudhafa, captured the Fayyum oasis, Oxyrhynchus (Bahnasa), Hermopolis (el-Ashmunein) and Akhmim, all in Middle Egypt, and an unspecified number of villages in Upper Egypt.