Al-Arish

Al-Arish: the first stopping place of Amr ibn al-As on his march to Egypt in the year 19 AH, according to al-Baladhuri. ¹

He stayed there, then came to Farama. A letter from Umar reached him at a place near it, ordering him to return to his position if he had arrived short of Egypt; he had already crossed it. ¹

The place is connected with the conquest of Egypt.

Al-Arish, "the 'Arish of Egypt", is the Rhinokorura of the ancients, a town on the Mediterranean coast in a fertile oasis surrounded by sand, on the frontier between Palestine and Egypt. The name appears in the first centuries of the Christian era as Laris. On the usual view, which the anecdote of 'Amr ibn al-'As's expedition to Egypt presupposes, the town belonged to Egypt. According to al-Ya'qubi its inhabitants belonged to Judham. Ibn Hawqal mentions two principal mosques and the town's wealth of fruit. King Baldwin I died at al-'Arish in 1118. Yaqut says it had a great market and many inns, and that merchants kept agents there. Napoleon occupied it in 1799, and in 1800 a treaty concluded in the town forced the French to evacuate Egypt. ²