Note 360 — Chapter XXIII · FAMINE AND PLAGUE. A.H. XVIII. A.D. 639.

We are told that Amru, to meet the famine, established a shipping service between Egypt and the ports of the Hejâz, that the trade in grain thus begun was permanently established, and that prices were thereafter little higher at Medîna than in Egypt. But Egypt was not conquered till two years later; and in the hostile state of the border preceding the conquest, it is impossible that a peaceful trade in corn could have sprung up. We must therefore conclude that tradition here anticipates that which occurred shortly after, when Omar reopened the communication from the Nile to Lake Timsa and Suez, and Egypt found a rich customer in the markets of Medîna and the Hejâz.