One striking act of justice succeeded in winning for Amr the hearts of all.  Despite the terror inspired by the religious persecutions which Heraclius had carried on with so much energy, one man, the Koptic patriarch Benjamin, had bravely kept his faith intact.  He belonged to the Jacobite sect and abandoned none of its dogmas, and in their intolerance the all-powerful Melchites did not hesitate to choose him as their chief victim.  Benjamin was dispossessed of his patriarchal throne, his liberty and life were threatened, and he only succeeded in saving both by taking flight.  He lived thus forgotten in the various refuges that the desert monasteries afforded him, while Heraclius replaced him by an ardent supporter of the opinions favoured at court.  The whole of Egypt was then divided into two churches separated from each other by an implacable hatred.  At the head of the Melchites was the new patriarch, who was followed by a few priests and a small number of partisans who were more attached to him by fear than by faith.  The Jacobites, on the other hand, comprised the immense majority of the population, who looked upon the patriarch as an intruder chosen by the emperor.  The church still acknowledged as its real head Benjamin, the patriarch who had been for thirteen years a wanderer, and whose return was ardently desired.  This wish found public expression as soon as the downfall of the imperial power in Egypt permitted its free manifestation.  Amr listened to the supplications that were addressed to him, and, turning out the usurper in his turn, recalled Benjamin from his long exile and replaced him on the patriarchal throne.

But even here Amr’s protection of the Koptic religion did not end.  He opened the door of his Mussulman town, and allowed them to live in Fostat and to build churches there in the midst of the Mussulman soldiers, even when Islamism was still without a temple in the city, or a consecrated place worthy of the religion of the conquerors.

Amr at length resolved to build in his new capital a magnificent mosque in imitation of the one at Mecca.  Designs were speedily drawn up, the location of the new temple being, according to Arab authors, that of an ancient pyre consecrated by the Persians, and which had been in ruins since the time of the Ptolemies.

[Illustration:  333.jpg A MODERN KOPT]

The monuments of Memphis had often been pillaged by Greek and Roman emperors, and now they were once again despoiled to furnish the mosque of Amr with the beautiful colonnades of marble and porphyry which adorn the walls, and on which, the Arab historians assure us, the whole Koran was written in letters of gold.