After conquering Syria and Palestine, the Arabo-Muslims, led by general 'Amr b. al-'Āṣ, subjugated Egypt in three years (late 639-642), making it a province of the caliphate for good. Despite unquestionable continuities, which papyrologists have been happy to identify and perhaps exaggerate, unlike Arabists, what strikes us above all are certain ruptures and evolutions, which would prove irreversible - even if this impression must be qualified somewhat by our poor knowledge of the immediately preceding period.
Egypt first underwent a reorganization of its administration and territory, of which the pagarchy became the only subdivision with the disappearance of the eparchies (or provinces) in the first half of the seventh century. Taxation was radically overhauled with the introduction, alongside the land tax(dêmosia gês, ar. ğizyat al-arḍ), of the capitation tax(andrismos or diagraphon, ar. ğizyat al-ra'as) and the occupant maintenance tax(dapanê, ar. nuzūl), which were designated by Greek words taken in a new sense. The new institutions put in place by the conquerors greatly renewed the language of Greek documents. The form of the documents themselves also changed: new documentary genres appeared or were canonized with an original diplomatic style (safe-conducts or sigillia; tax payment orders or entagia). The layout of documents and their handwriting also underwent profound changes: the use of a script that prefigured the lower case of medieval manuscripts became widespread, while a system of graphic opposition developed, typical of Arabic documents, between the slanted cursive used for parts containing continuous text, and the lower case used for accounting parts. The face of documentation was also modified: administrative documents invaded at the expense of private documents, just as administrative archives multiplied at the expense of family archives, which were much more numerous before the arrival of the Arabs. Unlike the Persians, the Arabs sought to innovate. This soon became apparent in the field of linguistic cohabitation.
