The destruction of Alexandria: religious imagery and local identity in early Islamic Egypt

Abstract

Study of the image of Alexandria in Muslim literature written in the first four Islamic centuries. The chapter focuses on a theme that is particularly popular in that literature: Alexandria's destruction. It argues that the belief in the city's destruction (in the past, present or future) lay at the foundation of the religious significance Muslims, especially Egyptians, ascribed to the city and contributed to the legitimisation of a hybrid Egyptian-Muslim identity.