The Baqt (652): Treaty Between Christian Nubia and Muslim Egypt

The Baqt was the agreement made in 651–652 between the Arab rulers of Egypt and the Christian Nubian kingdom of Makuria, after an Arab army failed to take the Nubian capital, Dongola. It established peace and a regular exchange of goods, including enslaved people sent from Nubia and grain and cloth sent from Egypt. Unusually for its time, it kept a Christian African kingdom independent next to the expanding Islamic world for some six hundred years.

Background: the Arab conquest of Egypt

Between 639 and 642 Arab armies under Amr ibn al-As conquered Byzantine Egypt for the Rashidun Caliphate, as described in the Muslim conquest of Egypt. South of Aswan lay Nubia, which had converted to Christianity in the previous century during the Christianisation of Nubia. By the 650s its northern kingdoms, Nobadia and Makuria, were drawing together under the king at Dongola.

An Arab force raided Nubia around 641–642 but met fierce resistance. Arabic historians later remembered the Nubian archers as rumat al-hadaq, the pupil-smiters, because they were said to shoot at the eyes of their enemies. Many raiders were reported to have lost an eye, and the expedition withdrew.

The siege of Dongola

In 651–652 Abdallah ibn Sa’d ibn Abi Sarh, the governor of Egypt, led a larger expedition up the Nile and besieged Dongola. Arabic sources say his troops used a mangonel, a stone-throwing machine, which damaged the town’s church. The Nubians fought back strongly, and neither side could win a decisive victory.

The Makurian king, named in Arabic sources as Qalidurut, came to terms. Abdallah ibn Sa’d was in any case far from his base, facing a determined enemy in difficult country. The settlement that followed became known as the baqt, a word most scholars derive from the Greek pakton or Latin pactum, meaning a pact.

The terms

No original copy of the agreement survives. The best-known text was recorded by the Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi in the 15th century, drawing on earlier writers, and other versions differ in detail. As usually reconstructed, the Baqt included:

• Peace: neither side would make war on the other.
• An annual exchange: Nubia would send 360 enslaved people each year to the Muslim treasury, with some versions adding 40 for the governor of Egypt.
• Goods from Egypt: in return, Egypt would send wheat, barley, cloth and other supplies; later accounts mention wine and horses.
• Travel and trade: Muslims could pass through Nubia as travellers or traders but not settle, and Nubians could do the same in Egypt.
• Protection: each side would protect the other’s subjects, return runaway slaves and refugees, and Makuria would maintain a mosque at Dongola for Muslim visitors.

Historians debate what kind of agreement this was. Some see the Nubian deliveries as tribute; others, notably Jay Spaulding, argue the Baqt was essentially a reciprocal trade arrangement between two states. What is clear is that Makuria paid no jizya, the poll tax imposed on conquered non-Muslims, and kept its own king, laws and church.

Why both sides accepted it

For the Arab leadership, Nubia offered little reward for a costly war. The Nile above Aswan is broken by rocky cataracts that make river transport difficult, the land along the banks is narrow, and the Nubian army had already shown it could inflict heavy losses. The caliphate’s main efforts in the 650s were directed elsewhere, towards Byzantium, Iran and North Africa, and the civil war that began with the murder of Caliph Uthman in 656 soon absorbed its energies.

For Makuria, the agreement removed the threat of further invasion and gave access to Egyptian grain, cloth and markets. It also allowed Nubian pilgrims, clergy and merchants to keep travelling to Egypt, where the patriarch of Alexandria, head of the Nubian church, lived under Muslim rule. Peace with Egypt therefore protected both the kingdom’s economy and its religious ties.

How we know: the sources

Almost everything known about the Baqt comes from Arabic writers working long after 652. The earliest surviving accounts come from Egyptian historians of the 9th century, such as Ibn Abd al-Hakam, and the fullest text from al-Maqrizi, who died in 1442. These authors wrote from the Egyptian point of view and sometimes projected the conditions of their own time back into the past.

No Nubian version of the agreement survives, although archaeologists have found Old Nubian, Greek and Coptic documents at sites such as Qasr Ibrim that show regular correspondence between Nubian officials and Egyptian authorities. A letter of 758 from the governor of Egypt to the king of Makuria, found at Qasr Ibrim, complains that the Nubians had failed to deliver what was due and had not returned runaway slaves, showing the Baqt in operation about a century after it was agreed.

How the Baqt worked in practice

The exchange of goods continued, with pauses, for centuries. In years of weakness or conflict the Nubians fell behind. Around 835 the Makurian king Zacharias sent his son Georgios on a long journey to Baghdad to discuss arrears with the Abbasid caliph al-Mu’tasim. Georgios was received with honour, the debt was reportedly cancelled, and some sources say the payment was afterwards required only every three years.

Relations were often good. Under the Fatimid caliphs of Egypt (969–1171), many of whose soldiers were Nubian, trade between the two countries flourished. At other times there was war: Nubian forces raided Upper Egypt in the 10th century, and Egyptian armies invaded northern Nubia in 1172–1173 under Saladin’s brother Turan Shah.

The Baqt and slavery

The Baqt formalised a trade in human beings. The enslaved people sent north were mostly captives taken by the Nubian state from peoples to its south, and many entered the households and armies of Egypt. This trade is an important part of the story and should not be softened. The Baqt shows how slavery was built into the diplomacy and economy of the medieval Nile valley, as it was in many societies of that era.

Decline and end

The arrangement weakened under the Mamluk sultans of Egypt, who demanded arrears and intervened in Makurian disputes over the throne. Sultan Baybars sent an army in 1276 that installed a rival claimant, and further Mamluk campaigns followed in the 1280s and 1290s. In 1317 the royal throne hall at Dongola was converted into a mosque, and in the early 1320s a Muslim prince, Kanz al-Dawla, became king. With that, the Baqt effectively ended.

Timeline

• 639–642: Arab armies conquer Egypt.
• c. 641–642: A first Arab raid into Nubia is driven back by Nubian archers.
• 651–652: Abdallah ibn Sa’d besieges Dongola; the Baqt is agreed with King Qalidurut.
• c. 835: Prince Georgios of Makuria travels to Baghdad to renegotiate the Baqt.
• 1172–1173: An Ayyubid army under Turan Shah raids northern Nubia.
• 1276: Mamluk Sultan Baybars intervenes in Makuria and installs a client king.
• 1317: The throne hall at Dongola is converted into a mosque.
• c. 1323: Kanz al-Dawla, a Muslim, becomes king of Makuria.

Why it matters

The Baqt was one of the longest-lasting agreements of the medieval world. It allowed a Christian kingdom to survive beside the Islamic caliphates for six centuries and shaped the trade, culture and diplomacy of the Nile valley. It is also a reminder that medieval peace between states could rest on the exchange of enslaved people.