يوحنا النقيوسي و الفتح الإسلامي لمصر : قراءة نقدية لكتاب تاريخ العالم القديم

Abstract EN

Nobody can deny the significant role of Islamic history in inculcating a greater understanding of the nature of the Muslim religion and in clarifying past events and biographies that respond to the numerous critical questions and the false and malicious accusations against Islam and Muslims, especially in this tense global context that is witnessing a growing anti-religious culture and rhetoric and vilification of religions that are being considered as a threat to the materialistic and globalized world.

The Chronicle of John, Bishop of NikiÛ is so unique not only in the field of general history but also regarding its immense worth and value that touches upon the very core of the Muslim religion and thanks to its writer who was a Coptic Christian and one of the prominent Egyptian intellects who were contemporaries of both Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and the Orthodox Caliphs and who witnessed the end-to-end Muslim conquest of Egypt.

In his Chronicle with its one hundred and twenty-two chapters, John, the Coptic Bishop of Nikiu, has put together accounts of the primitive events from Adam until the 7th century.

He also, as an eyewitness, elaborated and dwelt upon the events relating to the Muslim conquest of Egypt, which made his Chronicle so valuable and indispensable to any researcher concerned with that era, and especially if we take into consideration that the events relating to such a conquest were not recorded and documented in Islamic history books until the 8th century.

That is to say, this Chronicle has documented the events in time and place and was, chronologically speaking, two centuries ahead of the most ancient Islamic books and included in detail all the events relating to the Muslim conquest of Egypt.

However, John of Nikiu’s version of the events, and like most other outsider testimonies, did not come without tarnishing the image of Islam and Muslims through inventing numerous fabrications and slanders: In chapter 110, he mentioned the emergence of Islam in the land of “El Fayoum” and the failure of the Roman residents there and he stated