Now it is not a little curious that almost at the same time that a nomad
Arab race conquered Lower Egypt and settled in it as rulers (just as
'Amr and the followers of Islam did over two thousand years later),
another Arab race may have imposed its rule upon Babylonia. Yet this
may have been the case; for the First Dynasty of Babylon, to which the
famous Hammurabi belonged, was very probably of Arab origin, to judge by
the forms of some of the royal names. It is by no means impossible that
there was some connection between these two conquests, and that both
Babylonia and Egypt fell, in the period before the year 2000 B.C. before
some great migratory movement from Arabia, which overran Babylonia,
Palestine, and even the Egyptian Delta.
In this manner Egypt and Babylonia may have been brought together
in common subjection to the Arab. We do not know whether any regular
communication between Egypt, under Semitic rule, and Babylonia was now
established; but we do know that during the Hyksos period there were
considerable relations between Egypt and over-sea Crete, and relations
with Mesopotamia may possibly have been established. At any rate, when
the war of liberation, which was directed by the princes of Thebes, was
finally brought to a successful conclusion and the Arabs were expelled,
we find the Egyptians a much changed nation.
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