Abukir

Abukir is a small town on the Mediterranean coast, about 15 miles east of Alexandria, on the railway that links Alexandria with Rosetta. It is known for the naval battles fought off its shore in 1798 and 1801, and it had a lake that was drained and cultivated after 1887.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.), signed S. Hillelson, notes that al-Idrisi was the earliest Arab geographer to describe Abukir's position, though earlier Arabic texts on ancient Egypt refer to a lighthouse built there, and European travellers mention towers used as landmarks. Eutychius tells of a relieving fleet sent from Tarsus to protect Egypt against the Fatimids. According to Ali Pasha Mubarak, European pirates raided Abukir on 27 Sha'ban 764 (11 June 1363) and carried off about sixty inhabitants, who were sold at Sidon. ¹

The town became famous in the period of Bonaparte's expedition: Nelson won his naval victory off Abukir on 1 August 1798, and the Turkish army was destroyed there on 25 July 1799. The English army landed there on 8 March 1801 to end the French occupation, and in March 1807 Abukir was again an English operational base, with an excellent anchorage. Amelineau wrongly thought he had found the name in the Jacobite Synaxary; the reference there is to a church in Old Cairo. Etienne Combe has studied the Alexandria-Rosetta route and the coastal lakes, which were called Maryut, Abukir and Atku from west to east. The only detailed Arabic account of the Abukir lake is in al-Qalqashandi's Subh, which describes its fish and the mullet that fed Alexandria, and its salt pans. A causeway separated it from Lake Maryut, along which the Mahmudiyya canal and the Cairo-Alexandria railway were built. Since 1887 the lake has been drained and the land cultivated. ¹