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Ifriqiya, also known as al-Maghrib al-Adna, was a medieval historical region comprising today's Tunisia and eastern Algeria, and Tripolitania. It included all of what had previously been the Byzantine province of Africa Proconsularis and extended beyond it, but did not include the Mauretanias.
The Banu Hilal was a confederation of Arabian tribes from the Hejaz and Najd regions of the Arabian Peninsula that emigrated to North Africa in the 11th century. Masters of the vast plateaux of the Najd, they enjoyed a somewhat infamous reputation, possibly owing to their relatively late conversion to Islam and accounts of their campaigns in the borderlands between Iraq and Syria. When the Fatimid Caliphate became the rulers of Egypt and the founders of Cairo in 969, they hastened to confine the unruly Bedouin in the south before sending them to Central North Africa and then to Morocco.
The Zenata are a group of Amazigh (Berber) tribes, historically one of the largest Berber confederations along with the Sanhaja and Masmuda. Their lifestyle was either nomadic or semi-nomadic.
Al-Kahina, also known as Dihya, was a Berber queen of the Aurès and a religious and military leader who led indigenous resistance to the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, the region then known as Numidia notably defeating the Umayyad forces in the Battle of Meskiana after which she became the uncontested ruler of the whole Maghreb, before being decisively defeated at the Battle of Tabarka. She was born in the early 7th century AD and died around the end of the 7th century in modern-day Algeria.
The Miknasa was a Zenata Berber tribe of the Maghreb.
ʿUqba ibn Nāfiʿ ibn ʿAbd al-Qays al-Fihrī al-Qurashī, also simply known as Uqba ibn Nafi, was an Arab general serving the Rashidun Caliphate since the reign of Umar and later the Umayyad Caliphate during the reigns of Muawiyah I and Yazid I, leading the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, including present-day Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. He is credited to establishing Umayyad rule in North Africa. Uqba was the nephew of Amr ibn al-As. He is often surnamed al-Fihri in reference to the Banu Fihr, a clan connected to the Quraysh. His descendants would be known as the ʿUqbids or Fihrids.
The Muslim conquest of the Maghreb was a series of three invasions by which the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates took control of lands formerly comprising the Exarchate of Africa. It commenced in 647 and concluded in 709, when the Byzantine Empire lost its last remaining strongholds to Caliph Al Walid Ibn Abdul Malik. The North African campaigns were part of the century of rapid Muslim conquests which followed the death of Muhammad in 632.
The Battle of Carthage was fought in 698 A.D. between a Byzantine expeditionary force and the armies of the Umayyad Caliphate. The battle was a lynchpin of the ongoing Muslim conquest of the Maghreb and put remaining Byzantine resistance to rest.
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Hassan ibn al-Nu'man al-Ghassani was an Arab general of the Umayyad Caliphate who led the final Muslim conquest of Ifriqiya, firmly establishing Islamic rule in the region. Appointed by Caliph Abd al-Malik, Hassan launched a series of campaigns during the closing years of the 7th century, during which he defeated the Byzantines and the Berbers led by al-Kahina. The Byzantine capital of Carthage was destroyed in 698 and the nearby city of Tunis was founded in the following year. In Kairouan, Hassan set up a Muslim administration for the province to collect taxes from its Christian inhabitants and pay the troops. He enrolled thousands of Berbers into the army, which proved critical to later Muslim military successes in the Maghreb and the Iberian Peninsula. He was ultimately ousted from his post by the governor of Egypt, Abd al-Aziz ibn Marwan, due to a power struggle for influence over Ifriqiya.
The Banu Ifran or Ifranids, were a Zenata Berber tribe prominent in the history of pre-Islamic and early Islamic North Africa. In the 8th century, they established a kingdom in the central Maghreb, with Tlemcen as its capital.
The History of early Islamic Tunisia opens with the arrival of the Arabs who brought their language and the religion of Islam, and its calendar. The Arab conquest followed strategy designed by the Umayyad Caliphate regarding its long-term conflict with the Byzantine Empire. The native Berbers eventually converted to Islam. They might have seen some similarities between themselves and the Arabs, in similar cognate culture, such as familiarity with a pastoral way of life. The first local Islamic ruling house, the Aghlabids, consisted primarily of rule by leading members of this Arab tribe. Fundamental elements of Islamic civilization were established. Although accepting Islam, many Berbers nonetheless resisted rule by the Arabs, establishing the Rustamid kingdom following the Kharijite revolt. Next in Ifriqiya (Tunisia) arose the Shia Fatimids, inspired by a few immigrants from the east yet consisting for the most part of Ifriqiya Berbers. The Fatimids later expanded their rule east, through conquest by Berber armies of Egypt, and established their caliphate there which came to include Syria and the Hejaz.
The Kingdom of Altava was an independent Christian Berber kingdom centered on the city of Altava in present-day northern Algeria. The Kingdom of Altava was a successor state of the previous Mauro-Roman Kingdom which had controlled much of the ancient Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis. During the reign of Kusaila, it extended from Volubilis in the west to the Aurès and later Kairaouan and the interior of Ifriqiya in the east. This Kingdom collapsed following Eastern Roman military campaigns to decrease its influence and power after Garmul invaded the Exarchate of Africa.
The Mauro-Roman Kingdom was an independent Christian Berber kingdom centred in the capital city of Altava which controlled much of the ancient Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis. The kingdom was first formed in the fifth century as Roman control over the province weakened and Imperial resources had to be concentrated elsewhere, notably in defending the Italian Peninsula itself from invading Germanic tribes.
The Kingdom of the Aurès was an independent Christian Berber kingdom primarily located in the Aurès Mountains of present-day north-eastern Algeria. Established in the 480s by King Masties following a series of Berber revolts against the Vandalic Kingdom, which had conquered the Roman province of Africa in 435 AD, Aurès would last as an independent realm until the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in 703 AD when its last monarch, Queen Dihya, was slain in battle.
The Battle of Meskiana occurred in North Africa in 698 between the Umayyad forces of Hassan ibn al-Nu'man and Queen Dihya.
Umayyad rule in North Africa or Umayyad Ifriqiya was a province of the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) during the historical period in which it ruled the Maghreb region of North Africa, from its conquest of the Maghreb starting in 661 to the Kharijite Berber Revolt ending in 743, which led to the end of its rule in the western and central Maghreb. Following this period, the Umayyads retained their rule over Ifriqiya while the rest of the Maghreb fell to successive Islamic dynasties of Arab, Berber and Persian descent.
References
- ↑ Philippe Sénac; Patrice Cressier (2012). Armand Colin (ed.). Histoire du Maghreb médiéval: VIIe-XIe siècle (in French). p. 111.
- ↑ Nicolle, David (2012-06-20). The Great Islamic Conquests AD 632–750. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84603-890-7.
- 1 2 3 4 Houtsma, M. Th (1993). E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-09790-2.
- 1 2 Modéran, Y. (2005-08-01). "Kahena. (Al-Kâhina)". Encyclopédie berbère (in French) (27): 4102–4111. doi: 10.4000/encyclopedieberbere.1306 . ISSN 1015-7344.