apart from personal favors to the christians in his circle, abd al-aziz pursued a restrictive policy towards egypt's indigenous christian population. in 693/94, on one of his visits to alexandria, he arrested the christian leaders of the city and dispersed them across the country's villages and rural districts. he then obliged each district to pay taxes according to the yield of its fields and gardens. abd al-aziz had his son al-asbagh take a census of all the monks of the province, imposed on each of them a poll tax—from which they had previously been exempted—of one gold dinar, and forbade the recruitment of new monks. he also closely monitored the elections of the coptic patriarchs and obliged the patriarchs to take their seat in hulwan. the public display of christian symbols was banned, and a christian source reports that abd al-aziz had all the crosses in egypt destroyed.