The Muslim Conquest Of Egypt And North Africa

The earliest surviving account of the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt and the west, The History of the Conquest of Egypt, North Africa, and Spain, also known as the Futuh Misr, was originally divided into seven books. A comprehensive history, including the characteristics and background of Egypt, the Muslim conquest of the country, and its rebuilding under new leaders, the author used numerous sources and oral accounts to compile the history. The work is presented in its original Arabic, in traditional right-to-left format. Also included is the original 1922 introduction from Charles C. Torrey, American historian and Semitic expert from Yale University. IBN 'ABD AL-HAKAM was born in 187 A.H. and died in A.D. 871 (year 257). One of the first historians to construct a Mohammedan history from the unreliable oral and written sources common in his era, Al-Hakam was from a reputable and well-respected family, renowned in the many branches of Hadith (narrations concerning the prophet Mohammed) and Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). This made Al-Hakam one of the most qualified individuals to compile and record the Muslim tradition in Egypt in his day.

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

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.

In just over a hundred years--from the death of Muhammad in 632 to the beginning of the Abbasid Caliphate in 750--the followers of the Prophet swept across the whole of the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain. Their armies threatened states as far afield as the Franks in Western Europe and the Tang Empire in China. The conquered territory was larger than the Roman Empire at its greatest expansion, and it was claimed for the Arabs in roughly half the time. How this collection of Arabian tribes was able to engulf so many empires, states, and armies in such a short period of time is a question that has perplexed historians for centuries. Most recent popular accounts have been based almost solely on the early Muslim sources, which were composed centuries later for the purpose of demonstrating that God had chosen the Arabs as his vehicle for spreading Islam throughout the world. In this ground-breaking new history, distinguished Middle East expert Robert G. Hoyland assimilates not only the rich biographical and geographical information of the early Muslim sources but also the many non-Arabic sources, contemporaneous or near-contemporaneous with the conquests. The story of the conquests traditionally begins with the revelation of Islam to Muhammad. In God's Path, however, begins with a broad picture of the Late Antique world prior to the Prophet's arrival, a world dominated by the two superpowers of Byzantium and Sasanian Persia, "the two eyes of the world." In between these empires, in western (Saudi) Arabia, emerged a distinct Arab identity, which helped weld its members into a formidable fighting force. The Arabs are the principal actors in this drama yet, as Hoyland shows, the peoples along the edges of Byzantium and Persia--the Khazars, Bulgars, Avars, and Turks--also played important roles in the remaking of the old world order. The new faith propagated by Muhammad and his successors made it possible for many of the conquered peoples to join the Arabs in creating the first Islamic Empire. Well-paced and accessible, In God's Path presents a pioneering new narrative of one the great transformational periods in all of history.