Bakt

The bakt or baqt was a treaty between the Christian state of Makuria and the Muslim rulers of Egypt. Lasting almost seven hundred years it is by some measures the longest lasting treaty in history. The name comes either from the Egyptian's term for barter or the Greco-Roman term for pact.

In 651, soon after the Muslim invasion of Egypt, Abdallah ibn Abi Sarh led an army south against the Christian kingdoms of Nubia. He failed to take the heavily fortified Makurian capital of Old Dongola, and was forced to negotiate with the Makurian King Qalidurat. The result of these negotiations was the bakt. It stipulated that:

• the Arabs would not attack Nubia
• the citizens of the two nations would be allowed to freely trade and travel between the two states and would be guaranteed safe passage while in the other nation
• immigration to and settlement in the other nation's lands was forbidden
• fugitives were to be extradited as were escaped slaves
• the Nubians were responsible for maintaining a mosque for Muslim visitors and residents
• the Egyptians had no obligation to protect the Nubians from attacks by third parties
• 360 slaves per year were to be sent to Egypt. These slaves had to be of the highest quality with no old ones or children, they were to be a mix of male and female. (In some reports and extra forty were due which were distributed among notables in Egypt)

Some contemporary sources states that Egypt was supposed to send goods such as wheat, wine, and linen south, but there is little other evidence for this.

This treaty was unprecedented in the history of the Arab conquests, being more similar to the arrangements the Byzantine Empire sometimes made with its neighbours. It is also unmatched in that is largely blocked the spread of Islam and the Arabs for half a millenium. The baqt caused some controversy among Islamic theologians. There was controversy over whether it violated the duty to expand the borders of Islam.

The bakt was not always without controversy and conflicts between the neighbours were not unheard of. In the 830s Egypt plunged into civil war and King Zacharias of Makuria halted payment of the bakt. When Ibrahim gained firm control of Egypt he demanded resumption of the bakt, and payment of arrears. Unable or unwilling to pay this large sum Zacharias sent his son and heir Georgios on a long journey to Baghdad in 835 to negotiate directly with the Caliph. This expedition was a great success and the arrears were cancelled and the bakt was altered so that it only had to be paid every three years.

The closest relations were during the Fatimid period in Egypt. The Shi'ite Fatimids had few allies in the Arab world and Nubia was an important ally. The slaves sent from Nubia made up the backbone of the Fatimid army. Relations were worse under the Ayyubids and very poor under the Mamelukes, with full scale war eventually breaking out. The bakt collapsed in the fourteenth century along with Makuria itself.