The Muslim Conquest and Settlement of North Africa and Spain

Abdulwahid Dhanun Taha

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781138689633
• eBook ISBN: 9781000639360
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

In the seventh and eighth centuries, the Muslim Arabs conquered large areas of North Africa and then, with the help of their former adversaries in North Africa, the Berbers, gained a decisive victory over the Visigoths in Spain. This book, first published in 1989 and based on Arabic and other sources, describes the process of conquest and settlement, first depicting the lack of unity in North Africa and the corruption and insolvency in Spain that made the advance possible. It provides an invaluable classification of the Arab and Berber settlers in Spain by tribal origin, area of settlement and time of entry. The book emphasises throughout the importance of the economic and administrative relationship between North Africa and Spain. It charts the growing resentment of the early settlers in Spain with the restrictions on their autonomy imposed by the Governor-General of North Africa and the caliphate. It describes the rising tensions between old and new settlers and between the different tribal groups, finally leading to the Berber revolt and Abdulrahman's consolidation of power towards the end of the Umayyad caliphate.

1
The Political Geography of North Africa and Spain

NORTH AFRICA

The term ‘North Africa’ is a general one, and it will first be necessary to define the precise geographical area included in this study. It is equivalent to the term ‘al-Maghrib’ which is used by Arab historians and geographers to describe the entire area extending from the western boundaries of Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean.¹ In this study ‘North Africa’ will be used to indicate the territory nowadays divided into Libya, Tūnisia, Algeria and Morocco. Arab chroniclers also used the term ‘Ifrīqiya’, which was sometimes confused with the whole of the ‘Maghrib’,² but later on it became clear that ‘Ifrīqiya’ meant approximately the area now covered by Tūnisia and eastern Algeria.³

The political geography of North Africa at the time of the Arab conquest is a rather difficult subject to approach because we are dealing with a huge area and people of diverse origins. North Africa had been invaded several times during its long history. Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, and Byzantines in turn tried to control as much territory as they could of this enormous area, but they never succeeded in occupying more than the coastal towns and only a few strongholds in the interior. Here the Phoenicians and the Romans succeeded to some extent in integrating with the Berbers around them. The rest of the country, however, especially the hinterland, remained in Berber hands.⁴

When the Byzantine Emperor Justinian (527–65 AD) decided to conquer North Africa in the year 533 AD, he was acting to restore the unity of the Roman Empire,⁵ but his army failed to occupy all of the Roman provinces; the territory occupied by the Byzantines was much smaller. Mauritania Tingitania was reduced to Septem, Ceuta, Sabta, Caesariana had lost its western parts and Tripolitania its northern region: only Numidia, Proconsular Africa, and Byzacenia remained as they had been previously.⁶ The Byzantines could not penetrate at all into the interior of Tingitania. Even Ceuta was isolated from the mainland and could only communicate with the eastern parts of North Africa by sea. In Tripolitania, Byzantine control was limited to the strategic highway linking Qābis with Cyrenaica,⁷ the eastern parts of Libya.

The Byzantines divided North Africa into seven provinces, which have been identified as follows:⁸

(1) Proconsular Africa:	nowadays northern Tūnisia.
(2) Byzacenia:	the interior of southern Tūnisia.
(3) Numidia:	roughly western Tūnisia and eastern Algeria.
(4) Mauritania Prima:	(Sitifian and Caesariana), western Bajāya to Mulwiyya valley.
(5) Mauritania Secunda:	Septem and the Byzantine possessions in Spain and the Balearic Isles.
(6) Tripolitania:	western Barqa to Qābis.
(7) Sardinia:	which also included Corsica.

Each province was governed by a Consul or Praeses (Paraesides), and the whole prefecture including Corsica and Sardinia was to be governed by a praetorian Prefect, who exercised all civil authority and was responsible for finance and the administration of justice.⁹ Later, during Maurice’s reign (582–602 AD), however, the civil and military governor was given the rank of Exarch, which was superior to that of Prefect because he was the personal representative of the Emperor. The position of Prefect was maintained in North Africa, but its holder was an administrative officer receiving his orders from the Exarch.

The Commander-in-Chief of the army, the magister militum, was in theory independent of the Prefect, but when external attacks were expected, the powers of Prefect and Commander-in-Chief were exercised by one person.¹⁰ The country was divided into four military districts:

(1) Tripolitania:	its capital was Leptis, Labda.
(2) Byzacenia:	its capital was Capsa, Qafsa and Thevest, Tabsa.

(3) Numidia:	its capital was Cirta, Constantina, Qasantīna.
(4) Mauritanias:^11	their capital was Caesarea, Shirshāl.

An officer called dux (duke) was at the head of each district. Another officer was in charge of Septem: he was of an inferior rank under the command of the Duke of Mauritanias. The functions of the duke were principally the defence of the Limes (the Roman lines of fortifications), and the control of the Berber tribes.¹² As for the frontier defences, the Byzantines revived the Limes established during the Roman period, rebuilt fortifications which the Vandals had destroyed, and constructed new ones. Nevertheless, it is hard to believe that these fortifications were strong enough to withstand any external attack, as they were built or reconstructed in a hurry. Julien is therefore correct when he describes these fortifications as a Roman power in a state of decline.¹³ In order to protect the Limes, especially when their power was established in North Africa, the Byzantines revived the practice of relying on the provincial peasant soldiers, the Limitanei.

According to the authorities, we can identify three races of people in North Africa at the time of the Arab conquest: Byzantines, al-Rūm; Africans, al-Afāriqa, or al-Afāriq (singular: Afrīqī); and the Berbers. The term Afāriqa was used by the Arab writers to indicate certain groups of the population which were not Berbers. Sometimes they used another expression: ‘Ajam Ifrīqiya or al-Afāriqa al-a’ājim,¹⁴ which means the non-Arab Africans. Gautier, suggests that they were the survivors of the ancient Carthaginian people,¹⁵ but we find that the Arab historians consider some of this group to have Byzantine origins.¹⁶ It is therefore difficult to ignore the possibility that the Afāriqa were a complex group of Christian people who had survived the Phoenician, Vandal, Roman and Byzantine periods; or even that some were Greeks, because Ibn ‘Idhārī mentions that a son of al-Kāhina was Greek yunāni.¹⁷

These people settled principally in the towns on the coast, especially in the province of Proconsular Africa where Qābis was known, even after the conquest, as a city of the Africans, madinat al-Afāriqa al-a’ājim.¹⁸ However, as they are found everywhere in the coastland, there are also indications in the sources that some of them may have settled in Numidia, and even in places in the interior near the region of Fās.¹⁹

The major source of income for the settlers along the coastland of the province of Proconsular Africa was the trade in olive oil.²⁰ It is interesting to note that trade in general had been flourishing for a long time before the Arab conquest of North Africa. It was not only a vital part of the African contribution to the whole of Mediterranean commerce, but also involved the Berbers of the interior who controlled the Saharan trade routes.

The Arab chronicles put forward many explanations concerning the derivation of the Berbers’ name and their origins. They usually consider them as people who had migrated from Palestine or Yaman, and say that they had (Kan’ānīte) or (Ḥimyarīte) origins.²¹ Although Ibn Ḥazm rejected these theories, he himself failed to present a reasonable alternative explanation.²² The name ‘Berber’ is derived from the Latin barbari, a term equivalent to the English ‘barbarian’, which the Romans used to call people who spoke neither Latin nor Greek.²³ Yet in spite of this, their precise origin is still unknown to us: all that can be said for certain is that the Berbers had been established in northern Africa for a very long time before the Arab conquest.²⁴

The social organisation of the Berbers was tribal from the earliest times of their history. The Arab historians give two classifications of their tribes: the Butr and the Barānis. Each of these groups was divided into numerous tribes, but we can distinguish some large and powerful tribes at the time of the Arab conquest, such as the Butr tribes of Luwāta, Nafūsa, Nafzāwa, Mighrāwa, Zanāta, Mitghara, Maghila, Miknāsa,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. The Political Geography of North Africa and Spain
• 2. The Conquest and the Establishment of Arab Rule in North Africa
• 3. The Muslim Conquest of Spain
• 4. Early Muslim Settlement in Spain: The Arab Tribes in Al-Andalus
• 5. Early Muslim Settlement in Spain: The Berber tribes in Al-Andalus
• 6. The Governors’ Period and the Internal Tensions in Spain (I)
• 7. The Governors’ Period and the Internal Tensions in Spain (II)
• 8. The Entry of ‘Abdulraḥmān I and the Establishment of the Umayyad Emirate in Spain
• Bibliography
• Index