Around the same time came the turn of Egypt, long a
bastion of Christianity and home to great saints of the early
Church such as St. Anthony of Egypt, St. Athanasius, and
St. Cyril of Alexandria. Perhaps because there was so much
resistance, the invaders were especially brutal. Many native
Christians were killed; others were enslaved.[29] The same
pattern prevailed when the Muslims reached Cilicia and
Caesarea of Cappadocia in the year 650. In the same period,
Muslim forces carried out raids on Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete,
and Sicily, carrying off booty and thousands of slaves.[30]
These were mere preludes to the first great Muslim sieges
of what was then the grandest city of Eastern Christendom
and one of the greatest in the world: Constantinople. Muslim
armies laid siege in 668 (and for several years thereafter)
and again in 717. Both sieges failed, but they made it
abundantly clear that the house of Islam had no intention of
peacefully coexisting with Christendom.[31]
Did the motives for these initial conquests include a
theological element? Without a doubt: this was the Muslim
concept of jihad, or war against non Muslims. One Muslim
leader of that era put it this way: ‘‘The Great God says in the
Koran: ‘O true believers, when you encounter the
unbelievers, strike off their heads.’ The above command of
the Great God is a great command and must be respected
and followed.’’[32] He was referring to this verse of the
Koran: ‘‘When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield,
strike off their heads and, when you have laid them low,
bind your captives firmly’’ (Sura 47:4).
Muslims rapidly swept through Christian North Africa,