Al-Muqawqis (, ) is mentioned in Muslim history as a ruler of

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

who corresponded with

Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...

. He is widely identified with the last prefect of Egypt, Cyrus of Alexandria, who was the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria of the second era of Byzantine Egypt (628-642). An alternative view identifies al-Muqawqis with the governor of Sasanian Egypt, said to be a Greek man named "Kirolos, leader of the Copts", although the Sassanian governor at the time was the military leader named Shahrbaraz. When being presented with the letter of invitation to Islam by Muhammad, he said he couldn’t risk his kingdom, therefore not accepting Islam. He sent the messenger back with several gifts, including two women, and told his servants not to say anything.

Account by Muslim historians

Ibn Ishaq and other Muslim historians record that sometime between February 628 and 632, Muhammad sent epistles to the political heads of Medina's neighboring regions, both in the

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

and the

Near East The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...

, including to al-Muqawqis: Al-Tabari states that the delegation was sent in Dhu al-Hijja in the sixth hijri year (April or May 628). Ibn Sa'd states that the Muqawqis sent his gifts to Muhammad in 7 A.H. (after May 628). This is consistent with his assertion that Maria al-Qibtiyya bore Muhammad's son Ibrahim in late March or April 630, so Maria had arrived in Medina before July 629.

Letter of invitation to Islam

The epistle that Muhammad sent to al-Muqawqis, through his emissary Hatib ibn Abi Balta'ah, and his reply are both available. The epistle was signed with the seal of Muhammad. Al-Muqawqis ordered that the letter be placed in an ivory casket to be kept safely in the government treasury. The letter was found in an old Christian monastery among Coptic books in the town of Akhmim, Egypt and now resides in the Topkapi Palace Museum's Department of Holy Relics after the Ottoman sultan Abdülmecid I brought it to

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

. Al-Muqawqis is said to have replied with a letter that read: The two slave-girls mentioned are Maria al-Qibtiyya, whom Muhammad married, and her sister Sirin bint Shamun, whom Hassan ibn Thabit married. It is said that a recluse in the monastery pasted it on his Bible and from there a French Orientalist obtained it and sold it the Sultan for £300. The authenticity of the preserved sample and the elaborate accounts by medieval Islamic historians regarding the events surrounding the letter have also been questioned by modern historians.

Explanation of the name

The word ''muqawqis'' is the Arabized form of Coptic ⲡⲓⲕⲁⲩⲕⲟⲥ, meaning "the man from the Caucasus," an epithet among the

Copts Copts (; ) are a Christians, Christian ethnoreligious group, ethnoreligious group native to Northeast Africa who have primarily inhabited the area of modern Egypt since antiquity. They are, like the broader Egyptians, Egyptian population, des ...

for the Melchite patriarch Cyrus, who was seen as a corrupt and foreign usurper of Pope Benjamin I of Alexandria. The word was subsequently used by Arab writers for some other patriarchs in Alexandria such as George I of Alexandria (''Jurayj ibn Mīnā'' "Georgios son of Menas Parkabios"; alternatively, "Jurayj ibn Mattá").

Film and television depictions

* Al-Muqawqis was portrayed by Egyptian actor Salah Zulfikar in ''Muhammad, Messenger of Allah to the World'', TV series aired on Egyptian TV in 1993.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Muqawqis 7th-century Islam Muslim conquest of Egypt 7th-century Egyptian people Egyptian people of Greek descent