Includes bibliographical references (pages 383-405) and indexes.

Charting the course -- The conquest : event, text, and memory -- Christian elites : the dialect of duty and faith -- Religious conversion and social cohesion -- Language, identity, and assimilation -- The long eighth century : a cultural bridge -- Muslim elites, urban administration, and rural justice -- Metamorphosis of the Muslim community -- Ideologies and jurisdictions -- A church and community in transition -- Polemics and the construction of communal identities -- Webs of significance.

"The conquest of Egypt by Islamic armies under the command of Amr ibn al-As in the seventh century transformed medieval Egyptian society. Seeking to uncover the broader cultural changes of the period by drawing on a wide array of literary and documentary sources, Maged Mikhail stresses the cultural and institutional developments that punctuated the histories of Christians and Muslims in the province under early Islamic rule. From Byzantine to Islamic Egypt traces how the largely agrarian Egyptian society responded to the influx of Arabic and Islam, the means by which the Coptic Church constructed its sectarian identity, the Islamisation of the administrative classes and how these factors converged to create a new medieval society. The result is a fascinating and essential study for scholars of Byzantine and early Islamic Egypt."--Page 4 of cover.