Dictionary of Battles / From the Earliest Date to the Present Time

by Thomas Benfield Harbottle

Memphis (Moslem Conquest of Egypt).

In 638, Amron, lieutenant of the Caliph Omar, with 8,000 Moslems, invested the city, and after a siege of seven months, in the course of which the besiegers were nearly overwhelmed by the rising of the Nile, the place was taken by assault. On the site of the Moslem encampment were laid the foundations of Old Cairo.