Abd al-Aziz ibn Marwan

During the early years of his reign, Abd al-Aziz resided chiefly at Fustat, leaving it only for two visits to the caliphal court at Damascus and four more to Alexandria.[8] Fustat was the capital of the province, established in the 640s by the Arab conqueror and first governor of Islamic Egypt, Amr ibn al-As. Abd al-Aziz was a major patron of architecture and his rule marked the heyday of Umayyad-era building works in the city.[9] Several houses, palaces, roofed markets and fountains were built under his direction.[9]

Abd al-Aziz completely rebuilt and expanded the Mosque of Amr, Fustat's congregational mosque.[9] To its west, in 686/87,[10] he erected the Dar al-Mudhahabba (the Gilded Palace).[2] The residential complex was also known in the contemporary Arabic sources as al-Madina (the City), giving an indication of its size, which may have been 4–5 hectares (9.9–12.4 acres) including gardens and at least two stories.[10] It overlooked the Nile and likely included the house and lot of the high-ranking official Kharija ibn Hudhafa (d. 661), which Marwan purchased from Kharija's son for 10,000 gold dinars.[11] According to the historian Wladyslaw Kubiak, the Dar al-Bayda (the White Palace) built by Marwan in Fustat may have been viewed by Abd al-Aziz as below his stature and the new palace became the official residence of Egypt's Marwanids (descendants of Caliph Marwan).[10] He built a bath in the city called after his son Zabban, upon whom it was bestowed, which became the subject of a celebrated verse:

Whoever has in his soul a place for white, let him have that white in the Bath of Zabban
It has no breath, no eyelashes, however, it is an idol in the creation of man.[12]

At least four roofed markets, each specializing in a type of merchandise, were built during Abd al-Aziz's reign.[13] In August/September 688, he also built the Qantara bridge over the Khalij Amir al-Mu'minin (Canal of the Commander of the Faithful), which passed through Fustat and connected Heliopolis (Ayn Shams) to the Nile.[14] The bridge, located in the Hamra al-Quswa neighborhood, was likely meant to serve a major circulatory road in Fustat and its remains were still visible in the 12th century or later.[15] It was one of a number of bridges constructed in the city by Abd al-Aziz.[16]

When the plague struck Fustat in 689 or 690,[8][2] Abd al-Aziz moved his residence and seat of government about 20 kilometers (12 mi) south of the city and founded Hulwan.[2][17] According to the 15th-century Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi, Abd al-Aziz had relocated due to flooding in Fustat in 690 and chose the site of Hulwan for his new capital because its elevation, 35 meters (115 ft) above the banks of the Nile, was higher than the river's flood line.[17] The foundation of Hulwan began a custom of establishing "satellite residence town[s]", which was "repeated countless times by later rulers in various regions of the Islamic world", according to Kubiak.[18]

Abd al-Aziz constructed in Hulwan a mosque, a number of churches (see below) and palaces, and planted there vineyards and palm trees.[17] He erected a nilometer in the new city, although it was replaced by the nilometer built on the Nile river island of al-Rawda in 715.[17] Hulwan was well known for the glass pavilions patronized by the governor and an artificial lake fed by an aqueduct.[19] The city's prosperity under Abd al-Aziz was praised by the poet Ubayd Allah ibn Qays al-Ruqayyat.[17]

Abd al-Aziz proved a capable governor,[20] and his rule was a period of peace and prosperity, marked by his conciliatory and co-operative attitude towards the leaders of the local Arab settlers (the jund): throughout his tenure, Abd al-Aziz relied on them rather than the Syrians, who elsewhere were the main pillar of the Umayyad regime.[21]

Abd al-Aziz was known for his generosity. The 10th-century Egyptian historian al-Kindi quotes a report that he arranged for one thousand bowls of food to be set up around his palace and had another one hundred bowls supplied to the tribal settlers of Fustat, both on a daily basis.[22] These bowls are also mentioned in a well-known eulogy by Ibn Qays al-Ruqayyat:

That is Laylā's son, Abd al-'Azīz: at Bābilyūn [Babylon Fortress]
his food bowls are full to overflowing.[23]

According to al-Kindi, Abd al-Aziz introduced an Islamic ritual in Egypt consisting of a sitting held in the mosques during afternoon prayers on the ninth day of Dhu al-Hijjah, the Day of Arafa.[24] Abd al-Aziz opposed a higher tax burden on indigenous Muslim converts. He had been called on by Abd al-Malik to follow the example of the caliph's governor of Iraq and the eastern Caliphate, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, who imposed the poll tax (jizya) on the inhabitants of his province even after their conversion to Islam. Instead, Abd al-Aziz took the advice of the qadi (chief Islamic judge) and treasurer of Egypt, Abd al-Rahman ibn Hubayra, and did not implement the measure.[25][26]

The medieval Egyptian historian Ibn Abd al-Hakam (d. 971) relates that Abd al-Aziz had a different copy of the Qur'an produced from the version of al-Hajjaj, which had been sent to him;[27] the revised version was said to have contained grammatical corrections and was inherited, in succession, by Abd al-Aziz's son Abu Bakr, and the latter's daughter Asma and son al-Hakam.[28] The Baghdad-based writer Abu Ubayd Allah al-Marzubani (d. 995) praised Abd al-Aziz for promoting the Arabic language; having caused misunderstandings by his own erroneous pronunciation of Arabic, Abd al-Aziz endeavored to learn the correct pronunciation and later made gifts to his petitioners dependent on their mastery of the Arabic language.[29]

According to the 10th-century Melkite Christian patriarch Eutychius of Alexandria, Abd al-Aziz permitted his Melkite servants to establish a small church in Hulwan dedicated to Saint George.[30] One of the governor's Jacobite secretaries, Athanasios, was also allowed the construction of a church in close proximity to the Babylon Fortress (Qasr al-Sham) in the vicinity of Fustat.[30]

Apart from personal favors to the Christians in his circle, Abd al-Aziz pursued a restrictive policy towards Egypt's indigenous Christian population. In 693/94, on one of his visits to Alexandria, he arrested the Christian leaders of the city and dispersed them across the country's villages and rural districts. He then obliged each district to pay taxes according to the yield of its fields and gardens.[31][32] Abd al-Aziz had his son al-Asbagh take a census of all the monks of the province, imposed on each of them a poll tax—from which they had previously been exempted—of one gold dinar, and forbade the recruitment of new monks.[33][34] He also closely monitored the elections of the Coptic patriarchs and obliged the patriarchs to take their seat in Hulwan.[35] The public display of Christian symbols was banned, and a Christian source reports that Abd al-Aziz had all the crosses in Egypt destroyed.[36]

Marwan had named Abd al-Aziz his second heir after Abd al-Malik. The latter, however, wanted his son al-Walid I (r. 705–715) to succeed him, and Abd al-Aziz was persuaded not to object to this change.[20] In the event, Abd al-Aziz died on 13 Jumada I AH 86/12 May 705 CE, four months before Abd al-Malik.[35] Abd al-Aziz was succeeded as governor by Abd al-Malik's son Abdallah, whose aim was to restore caliphal control over the province and, in the words of the historian Hugh N. Kennedy, "remove all traces of Abd al-Aziz's administration".[37]

By dint of his major architectural works in Fustat and Hulwan, roughly coinciding with the period of monumental Islamic architecture's earliest stages under the caliphs Abd al-Malik and al-Walid I, Kubiak calls Abd al-Aziz perhaps "the true father of Islamic architecture".[9] His patronage activities initiated a trend continued by later governors and caliphs.[38] Though he spent large sums in the course of his rule, Abd al-Aziz's personal lifestyle was austere.[2] At his death, he left the relatively small fortune of 7,000 gold dinars, according to his treasurer, and tattered clothing.[2] In an indication of his piety, he stated on his deathbed his wish to have been a mere cameleer roaming the Hejaz (western Arabia), a man of no consequence or a collection of dust.[39]

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