[15] Amélineau, pp. 53–4, 69–70. [↑]
[16] Abū Ṣāliḥ gives an account of some monks who embraced the faith of the Prophet, and these are probably representative of a larger number of whom the historian has left no record, as lacking the peculiar circumstances of loss to the monastery or of recantation that made such instances of interest to him (pp. 128, 142). [↑]
[18] Lüttke (1), vol. i. pp. 30, 35. Dr. Andrew Watson writes: “No year has passed during my residence of forty-four years in the Nile valley without my hearing of several instances of defection. The causes are, chiefly, the hope of worldly gain of various kinds, severe and continued persecution, exposure to the cruelty and rapacity of Moslem neighbours, and personal indignities as well as political disabilities of various kinds.” (Islam in Egypt: Mohammedan World, p. 24.) [↑]
[19] Severus, pp. 122, 126, 143. One of the very first occasions on which they had to complain of excessive taxation was when Menas, the Christian prefect of Lower Egypt, extorted from the city of Alexandria 32,057 pieces of gold, instead of 22,000 which ʻAmr had fixed as the amount to be levied. (John of Nikiu, p. 585.) Renaudot (p. 168) says that after the restoration of the Orthodox hierarchy, about seventy years after the Muhammadan conquest, the Copts suffered as much at its hands as at the hands of the Muhammadans themselves. [↑]
[20] Maqrīzī mentions five other risings of the Copts that had to be crushed by force of arms, within the first century of the Arab domination. (Maqrīzī (2), pp. 76–82.) [↑]
[21] Renaudot, pp. 189, 374, 430, 540. [↑]
[23] Id. pp. 432, 607. Nāṣir-i-K͟husrau: Safar-nāmah, ed. Schefer, pp. 155–6. [↑]