The Arab ConquestPolitical
The founding of Fustat
Having taken Egypt for the Caliphate, the general Amr ibn al-As establishes the garrison city of Fustat beside the old fortress of Babylon, the seed of future Cairo.
Rather than rule from Greek Alexandria, the Muslim conquerors built a new capital inland at Fustat, where Amr raised the first mosque in Africa, which still bears his name. Egypt became a province of the Rashidun and then Umayyad Caliphates, governed for the tribute of its grain and taxes. The Coptic majority kept their faith under the jizya poll-tax, but over the following centuries Arabic gradually replaced Coptic and Greek, and Islam slowly spread among the population.