Muslim conquest of the Maghreb

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Muslim conquest of the Maghreb
Part of the Arab Conquests and the Arab–Byzantine wars
Roman Theatre at Leptis Magna
Date 647–709 AD Location Maghreb, North Africa Result Rashidun and Umayyad victory Territorial changes Maghreb brought under Umayyad rule
Belligerents
Rashidun Caliphate Umayyad Caliphate	confederations[1] Kingdom of Ouarsenis Kingdom of Hodna Various other Berber tribes and statelets
Commanders and leaders
Abdallah ibn Sa'd Zubayr ibn al-Awwam Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr Uqba ibn Nafi † Abu al-Muhajir Dinar † Musa ibn Nusayr Hassan ibn al-Nu'man Tariq ibn Ziyad Zuhayr ibn Qays †	Dihya † Kusaila † John the Patrician

The Muslim conquest of the Maghreb (

.

By 642 AD, under Caliph

.

In 644 at Medina, Umar was succeeded by Uthman, during whose twelve-year rule Armenia, Cyprus, and all of modern-day Iran, would be added to the expanding Rashidun Caliphate. With Afghanistan and North Africa being targets of major invasions and Muslim sea raids ranging from Rhodes to the southern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, the Byzantine navy was defeated in the eastern Mediterranean.

Sources for the history of the invasion

The earliest Arab accounts are those of

Beginning in the 12th century, scholars at

. It differs from the earlier version not only in greater detail but also in giving conflicting accounts of events. This, however, is the best-known version and is the one given below.

There is ongoing controversy regarding the relative merits of the two versions. For more information, refer to the works cited below by Brunschvig, Yves Modéran, and Benabbès (all supporters of the earlier version) and Siraj (supports the later version).

First invasion

It is recorded by Ibn Abd al-Hakam that during the siege of Tripoli by Amr ibn al-As, seven of his soldiers from the clan of Madhlij, sub branch of Kinana, unintentionally found a section on the western side of Tripoli beach that was not walled during their hunting routine.^[3] These seven soldiers managed to infiltrate the city through this way without being detected by the city guards, and then managed to incite riots within the city while shouting Takbir (God is the greatest), causing the confused Byzantine garrison soldiers to think the Muslim forces were already inside in the city and to flee towards their ship leaving Tripoli, thus, allowing Amr to subdue the city easily.^[3]

Later, the Muslim forces besieged Barqa (

The next invasion of the

, secured the Arab withdrawal in exchange for tribute. The campaign lasted fifteen months and Abdallah's force returned to Muslim territories in 648.

All further Muslim conquests were soon interrupted, however, when Egyptian dissidents murdered Caliph Uthman after holding him under house arrest in 656. He was replaced by

]

Second invasion

Great Mosque of Kairouan (also known as the Mosque of Uqba)—the oldest and most important mosque in North Africa,^[7]—in Kairouan, Tunisia

, 670 AD.

The years 665 to 689 saw a new Arab invasion of North Africa.

It began, according to Will Durant, to protect Egypt "from flank attack by Byzantine Cyrene". So "an army of more than 40,000 Muslims advanced through the desert to Barca, took it, and marched to the neighborhood of Carthage", defeating a defending Byzantine army of 20,000 in the process.

Next came a force of 10,000 Muslims led by the Arab general Uqba ibn Nafi and enlarged by thousands of others. Departing from Damascus, the army marched into Africa and took the vanguard. In 670, the city of Kairouan (roughly 150 kilometers [80 mi] south of modern Tunis) was established^{[citation needed]} as a refuge and base for further operations. This would become the capital of the Islamic province of Ifriqiya (the Arabic pronunciation of Africa), which would be today's western Libya, Tunisia, and eastern Algeria.

After this, as

.

But here he was stopped and partially repulsed. Luis Garcia de Valdeavellano writes:

In their invasions against the Byzantines and the Berbers, the Arab chieftains had greatly extended their African dominions, and as early as the year 682 Uqba had reached the shores of the Atlantic, but he was unable to occupy Tangier, for he was forced to turn back toward the Atlas Mountains by a man who became known to history and legend as

Count Julian.^[8]

Moreover, as Gibbon writes, Uqba, "this Mahometan Alexander, who sighed for new worlds, was unable to preserve his recent conquests. By the universal rebellion against muslim occupation of the Greeks and Africans he was recalled from the shores of the Atlantic." On his return, a Berber-Byzantine coalition under the berber king of Altava known as Kusaila ambushed and crushed his forces near Biskra, killing Uqba and wiping out his troops.

Then, adds Gibbon, "The third general or governor of Africa, Zuhayr, avenged and encountered the fate of his predecessor in the Battle of Mamma. He vanquished the native population in many battles but he was overthrown by a powerful army, which Constantinople had sent to the relief and liberation of Carthage."

Meanwhile, a new civil war among rivals for the monarchy raged in Arabia and Syria. It resulted in a series of four caliphs between the death of

(Abdalmalek) in 685; strife ended only in 692 with the death of the rebel leader.

Third invasion

This development brought about a return of domestic order that allowed the caliph to resume the Islamic conquest of North Africa. It began with the renewed invasion of Ifriqiya. Gibbon writes:

the standard was delivered to Hassan governor of Egypt, and the revenue of that kingdom, with an army of forty thousand men, was consecrated to the important service. In the vicissitudes of war, the interior provinces had been alternately won and lost by the Saracens. But the seacoast still remained in the hands of the Greeks; the predecessors of Hassan had respected the name and fortifications of Carthage; and the number of its defenders was recruited by the fugitives of Cabes and Tripoli. The arms of Hassan were bolder and more fortunate: he reduced and pillaged the metropolis of Africa; and the mention of scaling-ladders may justify the suspicion, that he anticipated, by a sudden assault, the more tedious operations of a regular siege.

Having lost Carthage to the Muslims in 695,

from Hispania. This forced the invading Arab army to run back to Kairouan. Then, writes Gibbon, “the Christians landed; the citizens hailed the ensign of the cross, and the winter was idly wasted in the dream of victory or deliverance.”

In 698, the Arabs conquered Carthage under Hassan ibn al-Nu'man and completed the conquest of the eastern Barbary coast. Anticipating attempts at Byzantine reconquest however, they decided to destroy it. The walls were torn down, the agricultural land ravaged, the aqueducts and harbors made unusable. They established their base instead at Tunis which was heavily expanded, though Kairouan remained the governor's capital until late-9th century.^[10]

This was immediately followed by a Berber rebellion against the new Arab overlords and a decisive victory at the Battle of Meskiana. Gibbon writes:

Under the standard of their queen Kahina, the independent tribes acquired some degree of union and discipline; and as the Moors respected in their females the character of a prophetess, they attacked the invaders with an enthusiasm similar to their own. The veteran bands of Hassan were inadequate to the defence of Africa: the conquests of an age were lost in a single day; and the Arabian chief, overwhelmed by the torrent, retired to the confines of Egypt.

In 703, five years passed before Hassan received fresh troops from the caliph. Meanwhile, the people of North Africa's cities chafed under the Berber reign. Thus Hassan was welcomed upon his return, and managed to kill Kahina at the Battle of Tabarka. Gibbon writes that “the friends of civil society conspired against the savages of the land; and the royal prophetess was slain in the first battle.”

The successful general

Musa also had to deal with the

in 700.

Aftermath

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By 709, all of North Africa was under the control of the Arab caliphate.

.

As Gibbon puts it, Musa received an unexpected message from Julian, "who offered his place, his person, and his sword" to the Muslim leader in exchange for help in the civil war. Though Julian's "estates were ample, his followers bold and numerous", he "had little to hope and much to fear from the new reign." And he was too feeble to challenge Roderic directly. So he sought Musa's aid. For Musa, Julian, "by his Andalusian and Mauritanian commands,

The destruction of the Exarchate of Africa marked a permanent end to the Byzantine Empire's influence in the region.

It is visible from archaeological evidence, that the town of Carthage continued to be occupied.

Indigenous resistance

Although the area was under control of the caliphate, there were still some sections of the population that would resist the spread of Islam. The Berber people were thought of as inferior and made to convert to Islam and join the Arab army, receiving less pay than an Arab would have.^[21] This led to much dissatisfaction and ultimately the death of Maghreb Arab governor, Yazid ibn Abi Muslim at the hands of one of his bodyguards after ordering them to tattoo his name on their arms to signal his ownership.^[22]

In 740, a

One of the unifying forces of these rebellions were the teachings of Arab

Consequences

Effects on the power structure in the Mediterranean region

The loss of Africa was a severe blow to the Byzantine Empire. In 698, after Egypt, the second large granary and a significant source of taxes went here[27] was lost, which in retrospect did not detract from the empire's ability to survive, but significantly impaired the decades-long defensive struggles against the caliphate. Financially, the lost tax revenue for Eastern Rome/Byzantium could not be compensated for a long time.

The fall of Carthage brought Tiberios the imperial throne, for his officers, afraid of being held responsible for the defeat, elevated him to the position of anti-emperor and overthrew Leontios, who had his nose cut off. Another effect was that there were no longer any major Latin or Romance-speaking provinces in the Byzantine Empire and Greek finally prevailed.

With the conquest of Carthage, the Arabs laid the basis for domination of the western Mediterranean, since they could now use the African ports there as a springboard for operations against the Balearic Islands, Sardinia and Sicily. They also prepared for the

13 years later by eliminating the flank threat. The capture of Septem, in turn, removed the last immediate obstacle.

Islamization and partial Arabization of the Maghreb

On the territory of the Exarchate of Carthage, after the conquest, a rather gradual but ultimately complete Arabization of the Latin and Punic speaking population began. Contrary to widespread opinion, the Latin language did not disappear promptly or completely from the Maghreb, which can be read both from Latin grave inscriptions dating back to the eleventh century and from the numerous and conspicuous Latin foreign words in today's Berber languages on site.^[28] But the special features of the dialects of Maghrebi Arabic that developed after the conquest were also shaped primarily in the lexis of Latin. The same applies to Christianity in the Maghreb, which did not end with the Arab conquest, but is also documented afterwards by sporadic sources.^[29]

In what is now Tunisia, for example, Muslims were probably in the majority towards the end of the ninth century. The decline of Christian institutions only accelerated towards the end of the eleventh century; individual communities survived until the 14th century, after which trace of them was lost.

of the entire population brought about the separation of the Mediterranean region into northern and southern halves, which continues to this day.

The full Islamization of the Maghreb along with the full Arabization of the non-Berber population may have been favored by the following factors:

• the still
  Neo-Punic and thus also Semitic mother tongue of parts of the population,^[32]
• possibly remaining Donatist ideas in Christian communities, whose martyristic and theocratic demands as well as rejection of Greco-Roman civilization were fulfilled by Islam,[33]
• possibly remaining Arian ideas in Christian communities, whose anti-Trinitarian demands were fulfilled by Islam
• the fragmentation of the Church in Africa, which was also partly visible to the outside world^[34]
• Promotion of Arabization and Islamization given the exposed location of the Maghreb during the Spanish Reconquista and the conquests of the Norman ruler Roger II.

Christianity after the conquest

Archaeological and scholarly research has shown that Christianity existed after the Muslim conquests. The Catholic church gradually declined along with local Latin dialect.^[35][36] According to a view, Christianity in North Africa effectively continued a century after the Muslim conquest but that neither the Church nor the ruling Byzantine veneer were able to resist the propagation of Islam, particularly since they were at odds with each other, and that without any particular persecution on the part of the Muslim rulers, who treated the Christians leniently because they were "People of the Book". Had the first Muslim conquerors persecuted the North African Christians rather than tolerating them, Christianity may well have continued to flourish.^[37]

Many causes have been seen as leading to the decline of Christianity in Maghreb. One of them is the constant wars and conquests as well as persecutions. In addition, many Christians also migrated to Europe. The Church at that time lacked the backbone of a

Local Catholicism came under pressure when the Muslim fundamentalist regimes of the

Another group of Christians who came to North Africa after being deported from Islamic Spain were called the

Another phase of Christianity in Africa began with the arrival of the Portuguese in the 15th century.[44] After the end of Reconquista, the Christian Portuguese and Spanish captured many ports in North Africa.^[45]

In June 1225, Honorius III issued the bull

The bishopric of Marrakesh continued to exist until the late 16th century and was borne by the suffragans of Seville. Juan de Prado had attempted to re-establish the mission but was killed in 1631. Franciscan monasteries continued to exist in the city until the 18th century.^[49]

See also

• Arab conquest of Egypt
• Arab-Berber
• Arabized Berber
• Arab–Byzantine wars
• Barbary Coast
• Berber Jews
• Berber Revolt
• Berbers and Islam
• History of Algeria
• History of Islam in southern Italy
• History of Tunisia
• Algerianism, Berberism
• Moors
• Rougga Treasure

References

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4. ^ ^{a b c d} الشاعر (2020). "البهنسا .. مدينة الشهداء وبقيع مصر" [Bahnasa .. the city of martyrs and Baqi’ of Egypt] (website news) (in Arabic). صحيفة الساعة 25 (25 O'Clock news). صحيفة الساعة 25 (25 O'Clock news). Retrieved 28 January 2022. عبد اللطيف عبد الرحمن, ‎أبي عبد الله محمد بن عمر/الواقدي · 2005; فتوح الشام
5. ^ Haykal 1944, chpt. 24
6. ^ Rodd, Francis. "Kahena, Queen of the Berbers: "A Sketch of the Arab Invasion of Ifriqiya in the First Century of the Hijra" Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, Vol. 3, No. 4, (1925), 731-2
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Bibliography

• Haykal, Muhammad Husayn
  (1944). Al Farooq, Umar.
• Robert Brunschvig, "Ibn Abd al-Hakam et la conquète de l'Afrique du Nord par les arabes", Al-Andalus, 40 (1975), pp. 129–179
• A. Benabbès: "Les premiers raids arabes en Numidie Byzantine: questions toponymiques." In Identités et Cultures dans l'Algérie Antique, University of Rouen, 2005 (
  ISBN 2-87775-391-3
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• Will Durant, The History of Civilization: Part IV—The Age of Faith. 1950. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 51.
• Charles Scott Kimball, A History of Europe. 2001. And A History of Africa. 2004. Published online at The Xenophile Historian, general world history pages.
• ISBN 2-87775-391-3
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• Ahmed Siraj: L'Image de la Tingitane. L'historiographie arabe medievale et l'Antiquite nord-africaine. École Française de Rome, 1995.
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• James Trager, editor, The People's Chronology. 1979. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
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• Luis Garcia de Valdeavellano, Historia de España. 1968. Madrid: Alianza. Quotes as translated from the Spanish by Helen R. Lane in Count Julian by
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External links

• A Taste of Maghribi History