Talk:Al-Muqawqis

Name "the Caucasian"
It is says at the beginning that his name means "the caucasian". That's not true. "The caucasian" would be "القوقازي" which is completely different. I am unable to verify the sources and it doesn't seem clear which source says that it means "the caucasian". 102.41.144.190 (talk) 17:44, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Ogress citations do not match the content contributed
I evaluated the sources referenced in the section relating to the conquest of Alexandria as this seemed very interesting. The paragraph I refer to starts with: "When the general of the Arab conquest of Egypt...November 641 before dying in 642."

What I found was that most of the content here is pure conjecture and does not exist at all in the cited source.

Here is the verbatim text cited for this content:

''CYRUS (d. 642 AD). Byzantine official. Bishop of Phasis in the Caucasus until 631, when he was named by Emperor Heraclius as prefect of Egypt and patriarch of Alexandria in opposition to the Coptic Church and its patriarch, Benjamin. He was entrusted with putting an end to dissension by enforcing orthodoxy in Egypt, and he attempted to carry out this policy with ruthless persecution of the Copts, though he was unsuccessful. Cyrus faced the Arabic invasion in 641 and was forced to agree by a treaty on 8 November 641 to surrender Alexandria and Egypt to the invaders and withdraw imperial forces the following year. He died in Alexandria on 21 March 642 before the end of Byzantine rule in the city. See also ATHANASIUS; BYZANTINE PERIOD; CYRIL; DIOSCORUS; THEOPHILUS.''

It is mentioned by Ogress that "Cyrus...was entrusted with the conduct of the war.". We can clearly see the source actually mentions he was entrusted with: "putting an end to dissension by enforcing orthodoxy in Egypt, and he attempted to carry out this policy with ruthless persecution of the Copts".

The line around Heraclius being angered has absolutely no basis I could find in the source either. These all seem to be extrapolations without factual basis.

Additionally the source is "Historical Dictionary of Ancient Egypt" and the specific citation is just a definition for Cyrus. This seems to be a very weak source, and the source itself is a book on Ancient Egypt.

The section for "Opposition to identification with Cyrus of Alexandria" as well seems to be entirely filled with similar issues. The source https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/egypt-iv does not mention any of this extrapolation added here about the Arab Conquest. In fact the source does not have a single mention of anything related whatsoever to this.

This section even existing does not seem to have a basis. When it is mentioned that "The widely held view of identifying al-Muqawqis with Cyrus has been challenged by some as being based on untenable assumptions"; who has challenged this exactly? Is this a personal opinion? The source does not mention anything about this.

I will be removing the offending content. Please respond back here if you would like to discuss further. Hman101 (talk) 08:49, 11 April 2024 (UTC)