The Twentieth Year of the Hijra

Muḥammad b. Isḥāq stated that Egypt was conquered in this year. Al-Wāqidī said that both Egypt and Alexandria were conquered in this year. Abū Maʿshar claimed that Egypt was conquered in the twentieth year, while Alexandria was conquered in the twenty-fifth year. Sayf b. ʿUmar indicated that Egypt and Alexandria were conquered in the month of Rabīʿ al-Awwal of the sixteenth year of the Hijra. Abū Ḥasan b. al-Athīr, in his work "al-Kāmil fī'l-Tārīkh," also adopted this view when recounting how ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ sent food supplies from Egypt to Medina during the year of famine. However, Abū Ḥasan b. al-Athīr is excused for adopting this view. Allah knows best the truth. According to the statements of a group of sīra (biographical) scholars, after a siege lasting two years—or, according to another narration, one and a half years—the city of Tustar was also conquered in the twentieth year of the Hijra. Allah knows best the truth.