[Illustration:  337a.jpg COIN OF ABU BEKR]

After more than twenty years of a prosperous government of Egypt, Abd el-Aziz ibn Merwan died at Fostat in the year 708 (a.h. 86) at the very time when, with many fresh plans for the future, he had completed the building of a large and magnificent palace called ed-Dar el-mudahaba (the golden house), and a quarter of the town called Suk el-hammam (the pigeon market).  The Caliph Abd el-Malik felt deeply the loss of this brother, whose qualities he highly appreciated and whom he had appointed as his successor.

He now named as his heir to the caliphate Walid, his eldest son, and replaced Abd el-Aziz in the government of Egypt with his second son, Abd Allah ibn Abd el-Malik.  The Kopts hoped to obtain from the new governor the repeal of the act that exacted yearly tribute from the clergy, but Abd Allah did not think it fair to grant this unjust discrimination against the poorer classes of the Egyptians.  Those monks who have written the history of the patriarchs have therefore painted Abd Allah in even blacker colours than they did his predecessor.  For the rest, Abd Allah only held the reins of government in Egypt until the death of his father, which occurred a few months later.

[Illustration:  337b.jpg COIN OF OTHMAN]

Suleiman succeeded his brother Walid I. The new caliph vigorously put into execution all the plans his brother had formed for the propagation of the religion of the Prophet.  In the first year of his reign he conquered Tabaristan and Georgia, and sent his brother Maslama to lay fresh siege to Constantinople.  On his accession to the throne Suleiman placed the government of Egypt in the hands of Assama ibn Yazid, with the title of agent-general of finances.

The Koptic clerical historians, according to their usual habit, portray this governor as still worse than his predecessors, but in this case the Mussulman authorities are in agreement in accusing him of the most iniquitous extortions and most barbarous massacres.  The gravest reproach they bring against him is that, calling all the monks together, he told them that not only did he intend to maintain the old regulations of Abd el-Aziz, by which they had to pay an annual tax of one dinar ($2.53), but also that they would be obliged to receive yearly from his agents an iron ring bearing their name and the date of the financial transaction, for which ring they were to make personal contribution.  He forced the wearing of this ring continually, and the hand found without this strange form of receipt was to be cut off.  Several monks who endeavoured to evade this strict order were pitilessly mutilated, while a number of them, rebelling against the payment of the tax, retired into convents, thinking they could safely defraud the treasury.  Assama, however, sent his soldiers to search these retreats, and all the monks found without rings were beheaded or put to death by the bastinado.