By 615, the Persians had driven the Romans out of northern Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine. Determined to eradicate Roman rule in Asia, Khosrow turned his sights on Egypt, the Eastern Roman Empire's granary.

The Sasanian conquest of Egypt took place between 618 and 621 CE, when the Sasanian Persian army defeated the Byzantine forces in Egypt and occupied the province. The fall of Alexandria, the capital of Roman Egypt, marked the first and most important stage in the Sasanian campaign to conquer this rich province, which eventually fell completely under Persian rule within a couple of years.