left after the massacre. "Severus b. al-Moqaffa...also reported that in Alexandria every man between the ages of eighteen and fifty years had been brutally massacred (Evetts, 1904, p. 485, line 10; p. 486 line 3)." So from among the captive women, it seems that al-Muqawqis took two Coptic sisters and sent them to Muhammad as gifts, realizing that the Byzantines were gaining ground and would soon re-take Alexandria. One possible reason that the Sasanian governor was kind towards Muhammad is that it is alleged that Christian Arabs assisted in Persian victory over the Byzantine Empire, and al-Muqawqis simply wanted to reward Muhammad whom he saw as one of the Arab kings. "According to a Nestorian Syriac chronicle attributed to Elias, bishop of Merv (?), Alexandria was taken by treachery. The traitor was a Christian Arab who came from the Sassanian-controlled northeastern coast of Arabia." Film and television depictions Al-Muqawqis was portrayed by Salah Zulfikar in Muhammad, Messenger of Allah to the World, TV series aired on Egyptian TV in 1993. References 7th-century Islam Muslim conquest of Egypt 7th-century Egyptian people Egyptian people of Greek descent