and other Muslim historians record that some time between February 628 and 632, Muhammad sent out letters to Arabian and non-Arabian leaders, including the Byzantine ruler, al-Muqawqis: Tabari states that the delegation was sent in Dhul-Hijja 6 A.H.. Ibn Saad states that the Muqawqis sent his gifts to Muhammad in 7 A.H.. This is consistent with his assertion that Mariya bore Muhammad's son Ibrahim in late March or April 630, so Mariya had arrived in Medina before July 629.
Letter of invitation to Islam
The letter that Muhammad sent to al-Muqawqis, through his emissary Hatib ibn Abi Balta'ah, and his reply are both available. The letter read: Al-Muqawqis ordered that the letter should be placed in an ivory casket, to be kept safely in the government treasury, and he sent the following reply: The two maids mentioned are Maria al-Qibtiyya and her sister Sirin. Muhammad's letter to Muqawqis was eventually preserved in the Christian monastery of Akhmim in Egypt. There a recluse pasted it on his Bible. The letter was written on a parchment. From there a Frenchorientalist obtained it and sold it to Sultan Abdülmecid of Turkey, for a consideration of £ 300. The Sultan had the letter fixed in a golden frame and had it preserved in the treasury of the royal palace, along with other sacred relics. Some Muslim scholars have affirmed that the letter was written by Abu Bakr. Contemporary analytical historiography doubts the precise content of the letter. Authenticity of the preserved samples and of the elaborate accounts by the medieval Islamic historians regarding the events surrounding the letter has also been questioned by modern historians.
According to another account, Al-Muqawqis also had a dialogue with Mughira ibn Shu'ba, before Mughira became a Muslim. Mughira said:
Explanation of the name
The name al-Muqawqis is explained as an Arabization of the Greek word Μεγαλειότατε, meaning "His Majesty", a title that was used as an enthronement in the Byzantine empire and its patriarchs. The word was subsequently used by Arabian writers for some other Christian Patriarchs in Alexandria. It is not clear, however, whether the epithet applied to all vicegerents of Egypt, including the one during the brief period of the Persian empire, Sassanid rule, or later during the Greco-Roman rule to the Patriarchs. Since the Sassanid Empire extended all the way to the Caucasus, it is possible that the Sassanid governor of Egypt was called Pikaukasos, and later on Arabians used the same epithet for succeeding governors of Egypt.
Identification
Al-Muqawqis is often identified with Cyrus, Patriarch of Alexandria, who administered Egypt on behalf of the Byzantine Empire. This widely held view is challenged as being based on untenable assumptions. Considering the historical facts, the opponents of the identification, point out that:
Cyrus did not succeed to the See of Alexandria until 630 AD, after Heraclius had recaptured Egypt. After the Persian invasion, "The Coptic patriarch Andronicus remained in the country, experiencing and witnessing suffering as a result of the occupation. His successor in 626, Benjamin I, remained in office well beyond the end of the occupation; during his time the Sassanians moderated their policy to a certain extent."
Adherents to this criticism state that al-Muqawqis was not a Patriarch but the Persian governor during the last days of the Persian occupation of Egypt. There must have been an abundance of Alexandrine women left after the massacre. "Severus b. al-Moqaffa...also reported that in Alexandria every man between the ages of eighteen and fifty years had been brutally massacred." So from among the captive women, it seems that the Muqawqis took two Coptic sisters and sent them to Muhammad as gifts, realizing that the Byzantines were gaining ground and would soon re-take Alexandria. One possible reason that the Sasanian governor was kind towards Muhammad is that it is alleged that Christian Arabs assisted in Persian victory over the Byzantines, and al-Muqawqis simply wanted to reward Muhammad whom he saw as one of the Arab kings. "According to a NestorianSyriac chronicle attributed to Elias, bishop of Merv, Alexandria was taken by treachery. The traitor was a Christian Arab who came from the Sassanian-controlled northeastern coast of Arabia."
