Futuh Misr wa-l-Maghrib (The Conquest of Egypt and the Maghrib)

Futuh Misr wa-l-Maghrib is the book of the Egyptian historian Ibn Abd al-Hakam (d. 257 AH). Its editor, Abd al-Mun'im Amir, counts it among the most important early Arabic sources for the conquest of Egypt. It goes beyond Egypt, following the conquests of North Africa under Amr ibn al-As and the governors and commanders after him. ¹

The author opens with reports of Egypt before the conquest as religious storytelling imagined it and as the storytellers told it. ¹ He then gives the Prophet's letter to al-Muqawqis, the conquest and siege of Egypt and the fall of Alexandria, Amr's move to al-Fustat and its plots, Amr's dealings with Umar, and the conquests of the Maghrib and al-Andalus with the reports of the governors of Ifriqiya. ^{3 4 5}

Ibn Abd al-Hakam gives full chains of transmission in the manner of the hadith scholars, without discussing his sources. ⁶ Most of his transmitters are Egyptian, among them Uthman ibn Salih, Ibn Lahi'a, al-Layth ibn Sa'd and Yazid ibn Abi Habib. ⁶ The chapter on the plots seldom gives chains, because he drew it from what was common knowledge in al-Fustat and from what he had seen. ²

The editor relied on the Paris, British Museum and Leiden manuscripts and on the edition of the orientalist Torrey, which was based on the British Museum manuscript. ⁷