Muslim Expansion And Byzantine Collapse In North Africa

This book investigates the failure of the Byzantine Empire to develop successful resistance to the Muslim conquest of North Africa.

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.

This volume proposes a new approach to the Arab conquests and the spread of Islam in North Africa. In recent years, those studying the Islamic world have shown that the coming of Islam was not marked by devastation or decline, but rather by considerable cultural and economic continuity. In North Africa, with continuity came significant change. Corisande Fenwick argues that the establishment of Muslim rule also coincided with a phase of intense urbanization, the appearance of new architectural forms (mosques, housing, hammams), the spread of Muslim social and cultural practices, the introduction of new crops and manufacturing techniques and the establishment of new trading links with sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and the Middle East. This concise and accessible book offers the first assessment of the archaeology of early Islamic North Africa (7th–9th centuries), drawing on a wide range of new evidence from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. It lays out current debates about its interpretation and suggests new ways of thinking about this crucial period in world history. Essential reading for those interested in understanding the impact of the Arab conquests and the spread of Islam on daily life, it will also challenge students of archaeology and history to think in new ways about North Africa, the earliest Islamic empires and states and the transition from the Roman to the medieval Mediterranean.

Essays in North Africa under Byzantium and Early Islam include the legacy of Vandal rule in Africa, art and architectural history, archaeology, economics, theology, Berbers, and the Islamic conquest. They examine the ways in which the imperial legacy was re-interpreted, re-imagined, and put to new uses in Byzantine and early Islamic Africa.

In Where Three Worlds Met, Sarah Davis-Secord investigates Sicily's place within the religious, diplomatic, military, commercial, and intellectual networks of the Mediterranean by tracing the patterns of travel, trade, and communication among Christians (Latin and Greek), Muslims, and Jews. By looking at the island across this long expanse of time and during the periods of transition from one dominant culture to another, Davis-Secord uncovers the patterns that defined and redefined the broader Muslim-Christian encounter in the Middle Ages.

Explore a one-of-a-kind and authoritative resource on Ancient North Africa A Companion to North Africa in Antiquity, edited by a recognized leader in the field, is the first reference work of its kind in English. It provides a comprehensive introduction to all aspects of North Africa's rich history from the Protohistoric period through Late Antiquity (1000 BCE to the 800 CE). Comprised of twenty-four thematic and topical essays by established and emerging scholars covering the area between ancient Tripolitania and the Atlantic Ocean, including the Sahara, the volume introduces readers to Ancient North Africa's environment, peoples, institutions, literature, art, economy and more, taking into account the significant body of new research and fieldwork that has been produced over the last fifty years. A Companion to North Africa in Antiquity is an essential resource for anyone interested in this important region of the Ancient World.

In around 550 CE, a Latin poet in North Africa chose to celebrate the forgotten wars of a Byzantine general against the region's Berber peoples. This book explores the epic that he wrote and a neglected political, social and religious world on the southern fringes of the dying Roman Empire.