Africa

Arab troops in North Africa also found further expansion very slow going. The core of Byzantine Africa, and subsequently of Arab Ifriqiya, consisted

MAP 4.3 Western Mediterranean.

Of the provinces of Zeugitana or Africa Proconsularis (modern northern Tunisia), Byzacena (southern Tunisia), and Numidia (eastern Algeria). To the west was Mauretania (western Algeria and northern Morocco), dominated by the towering Atlas mountain range. The Vandals had captured this region in the 430s and it remained in their hands for a century before being retaken by the Byzantines in the 530s. The Vandals had ruled with a light hand and had kept mostly to the fertile agricultural areas near to the coast, and so the residents of the interior—in the mountains and deserts—had begun to establish their own polities, which often exhibited an interesting blend of Byzantine and Moorish features. For example, an inscription of 508 from Altava, in modern western Algeria, commemorates the construction of a fort on behalf of a certain Masuna, “king of the peoples of the Moors and the Romans.” From about the same time, but farther to the east, in the Aures Mountains of modern eastern Algeria, we have the inscription of Masties, “chief and emperor” (dux et imp[e]r[atorJ), who “never broke faith with the Romans or with the Moors.”15 Moreover, many of these leaders and their subjects were Christian, as is shown by the numerous Christian tombstones of the fifth to seventh century that are found scattered about these regions. Having retaken the area, the Byzantines naturally wished to reassert their authority, but the locals had got used to running their own affairs. When the new governor of Tripolitania refused to listen to the complaints of some Moorish leaders about pillaging by Byzantine troops and had one of their leaders killed for grabbing his sleeve, a full-scale revolt ensued. It took the Byzantines four years to quash this uprising (544—48), but this was no grand triumph; resentment simmered on and Byzantine rule was thereafter largely confined to the coastal plains, and the Moorish polities mostly retained their autonomy.

It was therefore principally with Moorish peoples, or Berbers as they called them, that the Arabs had to contend once they had deposed Gregory, the Byzantine governor of Africa, in 647. After this there would seem to have been no real threat from Byzantine troops, which perhaps explains why the Arabs left the western portion of North Africa alone for a long time. The next reference in a Christian source to raiding there is not until 670, when an army of Arabs invaded the region, “led away about 80,000 captives and returned to their country.” The same notice is found in Muslim sources, where it is specified that it was led by Mu'awiya ibn Hudayj, a general of the powerful south Arabian tribe of Kinda, and was targeted against Jalulah, ancient Cululis, in modern Tunisia. We know from a ten-line poetic inscription in Latin that a lot of restoration work, including the erection of ramparts, was carried out here around the year 540. On the lintel of one of the new city gates, accompanied by lavish ornamentation, was inscribed a poem that recorded how, “by the hand of Justinian,” the “terror of the Moors” had been replaced by sound administration, the rule of law, and the protection of strong walls. It is likely that Jalulah still accommodated Byzantine troops in the seventh century and so was an obvious target for an Arab attack. Mu'awiya brought catapults to weaken the sturdy fortifications, and once they were breached he entered the city, quickly overwhelmed the fighters within, and left again with a number of captives.

At about this time the settlement of Qayrawan was founded, in inner Byzacena, about 100 miles south of Tunis (Figure 4.3). The usual date given in Muslim sources for this event is 670, which is the same year as the establishment of a permanent garrison at Merv, and so we should perhaps view these acts as a policy decision of the caliph Mu'awiya himself. As in the case of Merv, such a move was a big step forward in entrenching and stabilizing Arab rule. With a forward base in Africa, the Arabs could keep troops and supplies there and use it as a launching pad for further conquests without having to return to Alexandria, some 1,200 miles to the east as the crow flies. Mostly likely Mu'awiya ibn Hudayj was responsible for initiating its construction after his

FIGURE 4.3 Mosque of Qayrawan (Kairouan) in Tunisia, founded ca. 670 and expanded in the ninth century. Photo by anonymous German Orientalist from ca. 1900.

Siege of Jalulah, which lies twenty miles northwest of Qayrawan. However, other candidates have been proposed. One early source states explicitly that Abu al-Muhajir, a freedman who had risen through the ranks of the administration in Egypt, was “the first to reside in Africa,” whereas everyone before him just led raiding expeditions and then returned to Egypt. Other sources favor his rival, 'Uqba ibn Nafi', who bore Abu al-Muhajir a grudge for replacing him as the governor of Africa. As a junior contemporary of the prophet Muhammad as well as the nephew of the conqueror of Egypt, 'Amr ibn al-'As, 'Uqba tends to come off better. He is portrayed as a larger-than-life, swashbuckling character, and subsequently gained a cult following as the man who almost single-handedly conquered most of modern Algeria and Morocco in the name of Islam (there is still a shrine dedicated to him in central Algeria). “I have sold my soul to God Almighty,” he said as he set off westward at break-neck speed, defeating army after army, finally reaching the Atlantic Ocean where he railed against the enforced curtailment of his onslaught, bearing witness to God that if he could find a way to cross the sea and continue his conquests he would surely do so.