The conquest of Damietta and Tinnis as told in the Futuh al-Sham ascribed to al-Waqidi

The second volume of the Futuh al-Sham ascribed to al-Waqidi contains two sections, "the conquest of the city of Damietta and its environs" and "the conquest of the island of Tinnis", telling how Damietta and Tinnis passed to the Muslims during the conquest of Egypt. The story is the book's own, with its own chains of narrators, and is full of visions, wonders and debates; it is presented here as the book's account, bearing in mind the dispute over the book's attribution to al-Waqidi. ^{2 3}

After the conquest of Alexandria, in the book's telling, the people of Rosetta, Fuwwa, al-Mahalla, Damira, Samannud, Jirja, Damanhur, Abyar and al-Buhayra came to Amr ibn al-As and made peace with him for their lands. ²

Amr sent al-Miqdad ibn al-Aswad al-Kindi with forty horsemen, among them Dirar, to al-Burullus and then Damietta. The town was held by al-Bamrak, uncle of the king al-Muqawqis, with twelve thousand men, and he laughed at how few they were. His eldest son, "Hurayr", came out to fight and Dirar killed him. ⁴ A sage advised al-Bamrak to make peace with the Muslims, praising their faithfulness to their word; al-Bamrak had him beheaded, and the sage pronounced the profession of faith before he died. The sage's son, whose house adjoined the wall, cut a breach through it and went out to the Companions; Dirar wanted to kill him, suspecting a trick, but al-Miqdad stopped him because of a dream he had seen. They entered through the breach by night, and the sage's eighty cousins embraced Islam and shut the gates on those who had gone out of the town. ^{4 5}

The book relates that Shata, al-Bamrak's pious son who loved to hear stories of the Prophet ﷺ, saw a light over the Muslim army and domes hanging in the air; he fell from his horse, then pronounced the profession of faith, and a thousand of his men and servants followed him. His father then said, "By God, my son Shata did this only because he saw the truth," and accepted Islam, as did the officers of his state. ^{5 3} Al-Miqdad turned the breach into a gate he called "the Orphan's Gate", after the sage's son, and left Yazid ibn Amir among them to teach them the laws of Islam. ³

Al-Bamrak proposed writing to Abu Thawb, lord of Tinnis, and Shata went to him as envoy with Yazid ibn Amir. The book describes Abu Thawb as a man of al-Arish whom the king had made governor of the island, haughty and dismissive towards them, and gives a long debate between him and Yazid. ^{3 6 7} Abu Thawb then gathered forces outside Tinnis from the Copts and Christian Arabs — twenty thousand foot and five hundred horse, by the book's count. Yazid wrote to Amr, who sent Hilal ibn Aws ibn Safwan with a thousand horse "in the first ten days of Sha'ban in the year 20 of the Hijra". ⁸

Shata went out against Abu Thawb and killed twelve horsemen in single combat; then Abu Thawb came out against him in person and pierced his chest with his lance, and he fell. Al-Bamrak and his men were driven back to the gates of Damietta, but Hilal ibn Aws reached them, Yazid ibn Amir met Abu Thawb and took him prisoner, and his men surrendered. ^{9 10} Shata was buried in his clothes where he fell, and the book says he was killed "on the night of mid-Sha'ban, so that night was made a season for him every year", when people visited his grave. ¹⁰ Abu Thawb was offered Islam and accepted it; some of the prisoners accepted Islam and others kept their religion and were assessed for the jizya, and Abu Thawb sent a fifth of his and his people's wealth to Amr. ^{10 11}

The book continues with the conquest of al-Farama, al-Baqqara and al-Qasr al-Mashid, and then with the conquests of Diyar Bakr and the land of Rabi'a. ¹¹

This account belongs to the Futuh al-Sham in particular, and contains names, such as al-Bamrak and Abu Thawb, that are not known from the other sources the museum holds at present. For the conquest of Egypt in other sources, see the conquest of Egypt.