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Abu Salih: The Churches and Monasteries of Egypt and Some Neighboring Countries (1200) an Egyptian of Armenian descent
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Taken from the translation by Evetts, Alfred Joshua Butler
The Nile;
The learned are all agreed that there is not in the world a river of greater length than the Nile. For its course through the land of the Muslims amounts to more than a month�s journey; and its course through Nubia to two months journey; and for a journey of four months it flows through uninhabited deserts, until the source is reached in the mountains of the Moon, south of the equator.
Mahomet also said emphatically : God is among the protected people, the people of the desert, the blacks, the men with curly hair. They are related (to the Arabs) and akin to them, in distinction from all the other protected peoples.